Last Friday, about 70 people attended a lecture by Dr. Rene Ong from UCLA about viewing the universe in gamma rays. Dr. Ong talked about the unique issues with observing the most highly energetic photons and also gave the audience a virtual tour of VERITAS, an array of four telescopes in Arizona that monitor the night skies for the Cherenkov radiation that emanates when extremely energetic photons collide with the atmosphere. A number of astronomical objects have already been detected by VERITAS and other telescopes around the world that are similar in design to it. These observations have complemented observations made by other gamma-ray observatories including a space-based gamma ray observatory that was launched two years ago: the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope. These observations are probing some of the most energetic environments of the universe and are giving us information about what the conditions are like in environments where there are extreme physical conditions including neutron stars, black holes, active galaxies and quasars, and microquasars.
After the lecture, the skies were unfortunately too cloudy to allow for observing, but a small tour did happen for those who wanted to see the facilities at least. Additionally, Columbia University graduate student, Duane Lee, gave a slideshow presentation featuring the images from Astronomy Picture of the Day. This website updates daily with a new image of astronomical import with an explanation written by a professional astronomer. Many astronomy enthusiasts mark the page as their homepage to give them a taste of astronomy every day when they log-on to their computers.
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