As the sun dipped behind the Chase Hall weather vanes Monday night, the young and the young-at-heart gathered outside Carnegie Science Hall for the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Astronomy Extravaganza.

Bright-eyed schoolchildren peered through telescopes towards the stars and listened to students in Assistant Professor of Physics Aleks Diamond-Stanick’s introductory astronomy course teach and demonstrate the wonders of the cosmos.

Clifford Odle, 8, of Lewiston, points to the title on a "Life Cycle of a Star" poster board, while Eliza Dunham '20, of New Haven, Conn., explains what a supernova is.

Maeve O'Brien '21 of Essex, Conn., explains the life cycle of a star.

Silhouetted in the Ladd Planetarium in Carnegie Science Hall, Aidan Temperino '21 of Plymouth, N.H., and Maggie Phelan '20 of Lewiston, Maine, talk about how the night sky changes with the seasons.

Eliza Dunham '20, of New Haven, Conn., demonstrates what a Type 2 supernova is by popping a balloon filled with glitter.

Yihao Yang '20 of Houston, center, along with Maya Burgos '19 of Lynn, Mass., right, and Viridiana Chavez '20 of Chicago, right, demonstrate the difference between a constellation and an asterism by using toothpicks and gummy bears to build their own constellations.

As part of the event, hosted in collaboration with the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, Jamie Fagan ’20 of Wilton, Conn., and Daniel Murphy ’18 of Lexington, Mass., demonstrated air pressure and Newton’s laws using a stomp rocket.

“We spend a lot of time learning for ourselves, but now it’s time for us to give back the knowledge we’ve learned, and we’re really happy and excited to do that,� Fagan said.

“There’s nothing more exciting than rocket launches for little kids, so just being able to just spread that excitement to them has been super awesome, we’ve loved it,� added Murphy.

Maeve O’Brien ‘21 of Essex, Conn., along with group partners Eliza Dunham ‘20, of New Haven, Conn., and Jill Futter ‘21 of Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., demonstrated different types of supernovas by popping balloons.

One balloon contained a ping pong ball — representing a Type 1 supernova, which results in a small white dwarf star. “Nothing really exciting,” Futter said.

But the other balloon contained glitter, which burst out with the force of the pop. “When a Type 2 explodes, it’s very bright and kind of sparkly, which is a lot cooler, in my opinion,” Futter said.

“I hope kids leave here with a little bit more knowledge about astronomy, and also that they gain an interest in science,â€� O’Brien said. “I think astronomy is a different subject than what kids learn in school, and events like this can really spark an interest in a different field.”

Geographer David López-Carr ’93 and astronomer Alicia Soderberg ’00 were among 35 top young U.S. scientists selected to the Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium.

Gearing up for the inaugural edition of a joint U.S.-Israeli scientific symposium, the National Academy of Sciences scoured the land for 35 of the best and brightest young minds.

In the end, not one ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ graduate made the cut — not one, that is, but two alumni: astronomer Alicia Soderberg ’00 and geographer David López-Carr ’93.

Soderberg, López-Carr and their fellow U.S. researchers joined 40 Israeli counterparts in June at the Israeli-American Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium held in Irvine, Calif.

The joint symposium was the latest edition of the long-running Frontiers of Science series, which got its start in 1989 as a way for select and promising young scientists “to see what exciting developments are going on in fields far from their own� and to give them networking opportunities with other researchers, says NAS program director Edward Patte.

Not only does the Kavli Frontiers of Science program invite only A-list young researchers who’ve already received prestigious fellowships, awards and other honors, it is also a predictor of later success. Of the approximately 4,500 researchers who have been named Kavli Fellows over the years, 136 have subsequently been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and 10 have received the Nobel Prize.

“An indicator of the effective mentorship and training they received at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.â€�

“The Kavli Frontiers of Science program is highly selective, so we are proud to see two of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ talented alumni scientists receiving invitations,â€� said Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. “Alicia Soderberg’s and David López-Carr’s recognition by the National Academy of Sciences and the Kavli Foundation is also an indicator of the effective mentorship and training they received at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.â€�

Soderberg earned her ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ degree magna cum laude in physics and mathematics, writing her honors thesis in physics on “Efficiency Calculations for the Rate of Supernovae at High Redshift.â€�

While at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, and with support from Professor of Physics Eric Wollman, she received funding from the National Science Foundation to join research teams at observatories in Hawaii, Arizona and Puerto Rico and to study at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Now a recognized expert on the phenomenon of supernovae, Soderberg is back at Harvard as an associate professor of astronomy.

López-Carr earned highest honors in Spanish for his thesis “Una Traducción de Peatón de Quito: Dejando ‘Huellas’ en Inglés� (A Translation of Peatón de Quito: Leaving ‘Footprints’ in English).

He also completed a minor in geology, crediting Professor of Spanish Francisca Lopez and Professor of Geology Michael Retelle for inspiring him to “investigate phenomena at the intersection of the physical and social sciences.”

He graduated magna cum laude, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and is now a professor of geography at the University of California–Santa Barbara, where he directs the Latin American and Iberian studies program.

López-Carr also directs UCSB’s Human-Environment Dynamics Lab, contributing to the understanding of the myriads links among population growth, rural development, forest resource use and conservation. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 scholarly publications and an equal number of conference papers. He is involved with ongoing research projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Recently, he was named co–principal investigator for a million-dollar NASA-funded project involving UCSB, San Diego State University, George Washington University and the University of Ghana.

The multidisciplinary project will try to uncover what is driving rapid land change and urban transition in Ghana. López-Carr will contribute research analyses of population and health surveys, connecting that information to what is shown by “multi-temporal,� or time-lapse, satellite images of changes in land use in Ghana.

His own prodigious scholarly output notwithstanding, López-Carr praises his colleague Soderberg as a “true supernova among our scholarly ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumni.â€�

Indeed, it’s been a good year for Soderberg and her studies of supernovae, the incredibly bright and energetic explosions of stars.

Seen here is an artist’s conception of an unusual kind of supernova that Soderberg has explored. Known as an engine-driven supernova, it emits low-energy radio waves rather than high-energy gamma rays. Illustration by Bill Saxton.

Soderberg, whose own tally of scholarly publications is also more than 100, recently received the 2013 Young Scientist Medal and Prize from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics for her pioneering discoveries of new aspects of stellar explosions.

In 2012, Soderberg was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, an award given to early-career scientists and scholars “whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars.�

In the July issue of Astronomer Magazine, she is profiled among several “Rising Stars� in the field. Being at the fore of supernovae research, she told the magazine, means being prepared.

That’s how, in 2008, she became the first astronomer to see a star in the act of exploding.

Though the publication Nature called it “luck� (she was looking at the remnants of another nearby supernova at the time), Soderberg says that “luck favors the prepared.�

In the case of the 2008 explosion, she and her team were doing work to confirm a long-held theory that the stellar explosion marking the birth of a supernova includes a burst of cosmic X-rays. So as Soderberg was scanning the heavens on Jan. 9, 2008, and noticed a sudden X-ray burst, she knew right away what she was seeing.

The Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia are co-sponsored by the Oxnard, Calif.–based Kavli Foundation. The most recent joint program with Israel is the latest in a set of bilateral symposia that have connected young U.S. scientists with counterparts in China, England, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, and Japan for the purpose of strengthening scientific and technological collaborations.

A close-up view of the International Space Station take from the space shuttle Discovery in March 2011. Photograph courtesy of NASA.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art, which has devoted much of 2012 to a major exhibition revealing the artistic potential of celestial photography, will give Lewiston and Auburn seventh-graders the opportunity to talk with astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

On a date yet to be determined in the coming weeks, the museum has arranged for students at Lewiston and Auburn middle schools to participate in “Amateur Radio on the International Space Station” (ARISS), a cooperative venture among NASA and other international space agencies that coordinates scheduled radio contacts between astronauts aboard the ISS and schools.

The 10-minute live forum will bounce between LMS and AMS students and astronauts orbiting 250 miles above Earth, and will occur in association with the museum’s exhibition, Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography. Details about the timing of the radio contact will be announced.

For more information regarding the scheduled ARISS radio contact with the ISS, visit ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.edu/museum or contact Anthony Shostak at 207-786-8302 or ashostak@bates.edu.

“We’re thrilled to be working with the schools, the American Radio Relay League and NASA on this,” says Shostak, the museum’s curator of education and organizer of Starstruck.

“The three-way partnership between amateur radio operators, local educators and the museum is a great example of how groups working together can accomplish their goals in spectacular ways. And it also demonstrates how the arts can be a dynamic force in teaching science, technology, engineering and math — the STEM subjects that are so much in the news.”

Teachers in the middle schools will use NASA’s Teaching From Space resources and the Starstruck exhibition in a variety of ways across subjects.

The ARISS radio contact is one in a series with educational activities in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in STEM subjects. It is an integral component of Teaching From Space, a NASA education program. Teaching From Space promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique circumstances of human spaceflight.

A key community partner in the project is the Maine chapter of the American Radio Relay League, whose equipment and expertise are essential to making the contact with the ISS. “In an age of cellphones and the Internet, the wonder of radio is easy to overlook,” says Bill Woodhead of Auburn, Maine’s ARRL section leader.

“But you can’t just call an astronaut on the space station. You need radio. It is a powerful tool, and I hope that this program will excite young people to get involved in amateur radio and to learn more about how radio is used in vital communications and research.”

Babak Tafreshi, an Iranian-born artist and science journalist, leads an astrophotography workshop in the Maine wilderness and gives a talk related to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ exhibition “Starstruck” during October.

Science journalist Babak Tafreshi leads a wilderness photography workshop and offers a lecture related to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art exhibition Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography during October.

Tafreshi leads the workshop in Maine’s Moosehead Lake Region Oct. 17-20 and offers an Oct. 22 lecture at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

He is the founder of , promoting world peace and environmental stewardship through an exhibition of photographs of the night sky over prominent earthbound landmarks.

Learn more about the astrophotography workshop.

The workshop takes place at West Branch Pond Camps, Maine’s oldest continuously operating sporting camp, located near the town of Kokadjo. Participants must provide their own transportation, but carpooling is encouraged and the museum will coordinate it.

Cost of the workshop is $500, including a nonrefundable reservation fee of $300. There is space for up to 15 participants. The trip takes place regardless of weather, offering artists the opportunity to photograph Maine’s wilderness, or just a chance to relax.

To register, please contact Anne Odom at aodom@bates.edu or 207-786-8212.

Titled The World at Night and exploring the importance of the night sky, Tafreshi’s lecture takes place two days after the workshop at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 22, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. A reception in the art museum, also in the arts center, follows.

Weather permitting, a star-viewing party guided by local amateur astronomy clubs will follow the reception, offering visitors a firsthand look at celestial wonders. The public is welcome to all three of the evening’s events free of charge.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art is open free to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and Wednesday evenings September through May until 9. For directions and more information about events, please visit the art museum website.

“The eternally peaceful night sky looks the same above symbols of all nations and regions, attesting to the truly unified nature of Earth as a planet rather than an amalgam of human-designated territories,” remarks Tafreshi. He is one of 37 artists from around the world featured in “Starstruck,” one of the first exhibitions to treat astrophotography as an art form.

As a science journalist, Tafreshi has contributed to many television and radio programs on astronomy and has interviewed renowned astronomers and space scientists. He was editor of Iran’s astronomy magazine and is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope Magazine.

Tafreshi’s global contribution to night sky photography garnered him science’s most prestigious imaging honor, the Lennart Nilsson Award, in 2009. That same year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Astronomical Union designated TWAN as a Special Project of the International Year of Astronomy.

“Babak is an ideal person to draw together the threads of all the disciplines across the liberal arts,” says Anthony Shostak, the museum’s curator of education and the organizer of Starstruck.

“His long experience with journalism and his passion for photography make him a powerful communicator. And his photographs in Starstruck are among the most popular with visitors, perhaps because they ground the beauty of the stars with a human environment.”

Starstruck is perfectly suited for teachers in all levels of education to engage with art related to a variety of subjects including astronomy and physical science, history, geography, literature, religion and math. Group tours are welcome by appointment: please contact 207-786-8302.

Jacqueline Woods, “Black Sun No. 30,” 2012.

Up next in a series of talks connected with the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art exhibition Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography are presentations by a professor of astronomy from Yale and by an artist showing work in the show.

At 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, astronomy professor Jeffrey Kenney gives the talk Imaging the Universe, addressing how we interpret beautiful images of astronomical objects and how such images are taken.

California artist Jacqueline Woods discusses her work in an talk titled Discovering the Black Sun at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11.

Both events take place in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. A reception in the museum, also located in the arts center, follows each presentation. The events are free and the public is welcome.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art is open free to the public Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesday evenings through May until 9 p.m. For directions and more information, please visit bates.edu/museum/ or call 207-786-6158.

Yale astronomer Jeffrey Kenney ’80.

A member of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ class of 1980, Kenney will offer a lavishly illustrated presentation that will also explore what different colors in astral imaging mean to scientists and what images teach us about the nature of things in the universe. He’ll present remarkable images of evolved and exploding stars, star-forming nebulae, and interacting galaxies and clusters.

“B±ð³¦²¹³Ü²õ±ðÌýStarstruck showcases images taken at the confluence of art and science, each image has something to teach us about our universe,” says exhibition organizer Anthony Shostak, the museum’s curator of education.

“Whether it’s judging the age of a star based on its color or discerning the elements in a colorful image of a nebula, Jeff is an ideal person to give us some insight into some of what the art has to offer.â€�

Woods is one of nine artists invited to participate in Starstruck whose work forms a core around which the juried portion of the exhibition was built. Her cameraless photographs in the show were inspired by celestial phenomena such as eclipses, and are a response to historic photographs by Ansel Adams and Minor White.

Teachers in all levels of education find Starstruck is a perfect vehicle to explore a variety of subjects outside the classroom, including astronomy and physical science, history, geography, literature, religion, and math. Group tours are welcome by appointment: 207-786-8302.

“IC 5067” by Ken Crawford. Archival inkjet print.

The Museum of Art presents lectures, star-viewing parties and other public programs throughout the autumn in conjunction with the remarkable exhibition Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography.

These events open with a lecture about light pollution of the night sky by a senior contributing editor for Sky & Telescope magazine at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. A reception in the museum and a star-viewing party (weather permitting) follow. The museum is located in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Media notes: .”

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“M42, The Great Nebula in Orion” (2005), by Robert Gendler. Inkjet print.

The public is welcome to the exhibition and related events free of charge. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and until 7 p.m. Wednesday evenings.

For more information or to order the Starstruck catalog, please call 207-786-6158 or visit the museum website.

Showing at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ through Dec. 15, Starstruck is among the first major exhibitions to treat astrophotography as an art genre. The exhibition, organized by museum Curator of Education Anthony Shostak, features 106 images by 38 artists from around the world. Together with its attendant catalog, Starstruck presents new scholarship in this rapidly evolving field.

Presenting the Sept. 7 lecture is J. Kelly Beatty, an award-winning writer who specializes in planetary science and space exploration for Sky & Telescope and is on the faculty at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Mass. Beatty chairs the New England Light Pollution Advisory Group and is on the board of directors for the International Dark-Sky Association.

More about Starstruck.

“For decades we’ve allowed the sprawl of civilization to steal ever more stars from our nighttime skies,” he says. “But this loss doesn’t have to be permanent. Light pollution can be reversed easily by common-sense approaches that not only restore the night sky’s beauty but also provide safe, energy-smart lighting solutions.”

A star viewing party. Photograph by Dennis di Cicco.

Following Beatty’s talk and the museum reception, the Central Maine Astronomical Society, Southern Maine Astronomers and the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Astronomy Club will hold a star party. Here visitors can experience firsthand views of deep-sky objects, planets, double stars and other wonders of the night sky, guided by amateur astronomers with years of experience and detailed knowledge of the sky.

Here’s a schedule of remaining museum events around Starstruck at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ this fall:

• Wednesday events: Solar telescopic viewings at noon and gallery talks at 12:30 p.m., led by museum of art education staff and interns, begin Sept. 12.
• Oct. 6: Parents & Family Weekend lecture, reception and star party. Jeffrey Kenney ’80, a professor of astronomy at Yale University, offers a Cosmic Questions lecture on how to capture and interpret beautiful images of astronomical objects, and what they teach us. Lecture at 2:30 p.m. (Olin 104) and reception (museum) at 3:30 with a star-viewing party following (weather permitting).

“Bristlecone Pine and Milky Way, White Mountains, California” (2008), by Tony Rowell.
Lightjet print on Fuji Crystal Archive Gloss paper.

• Oct. 17-20: Astrophotography workshop with Babak Tafreshi. Travel to Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness to image the stars from West Branch Pond Camps for four nights. For workshop details, please visit the museum website.
• Oct. 27: Homecoming Weekend lecture, reception and star party. Boston-based photographer Sharon Harper discusses her images in “Starstruck” and her forthcoming book. Lecture at 2:30 p.m. (Olin 104) and reception at 3:30 (museum) with a star-viewing party following (weather permitting).
• Nov. 3: Cosmic Questions lecture: Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the SETI Institute, explores how we might convey the aesthetics of humanity to extraterrestrials. 6 p.m. in Olin 104; refreshments in the museum follow. Co-sponsored by the departments of anthropology and rhetoric and the art museum.

Also planned, with dates to be announced, are artist talks and Cosmic Questions lectures by Jacqueline Woods, a West Coast-based Starstruck artist; Babak Tafreshi, founder of the website and a Starstruck artist; and Alicia Soderberg ’00, an assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard.

“Startrails,” a 2011 inkjet print by Yuichi Takasaka, is one of the astrophotographs on display in the Museum of Art exhibition “Starstruck” through Dec. 15.

The headlining exhibition at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art this summer, Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography is among the first major exhibitions examining astrophotography as an art genre.

Media note: Anthony Shostak, the organizer of Starstruck and the museum’s education coordinator, appears on the WCSH-TV news magazine “207” to discuss the exhibition on Friday, Aug. 31. The program starts at 7 p.m. and airs on Channel 6 — don’t miss it!

Featuring 106 images by 35 artists from 11 countries across 5 continents, the exhibition opens with a reception and the lecture Drawing with Light by Weston Naef, a juror for the exhibition, at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 9. Starstruck runs through Dec. 15.

Starstruck events continue through fall 2012. Learn more.

The public is welcome to the exhibition and related events free of charge. The museum is located in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. For more information or to order the Starstruck catalog, please visit the museum’s exhibitions page.

The museum’s curator of education, Anthony Shostak, organized the exhibition, which, with its attendant catalog, will present new scholarship in the rapidly evolving field of astrophotography. Modern photographic technologies give artists immense freedom within the confines dictated by their celestial subjects.

An image from Alfred Stieglitz’s famous “Equivalent” series. Gelatin silver print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

“Their creations,” says Shostak, “are nothing less than overwhelming, depicting humbling, glorious delights that are often invisible to both the naked eye and even the telescope, and are revealed only through photographic means.”

Nine artists are included in Starstruck by invitation to them or institutions representing them: Michael Benson, Linda Connor, Robert Gendler, Sharon Harper, David Malin, Thomas Ruff, Hans-Christian Schink, Alfred Stieglitz and Jacqueline Woods.

The remaining artists were selected through a jury process. The distinguished jurors are Naef, curator emeritus of photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum; Dennis di Cicco, pioneer of CCD astrophotography and senior editor of Sky & Telescope Magazine; and Jerry T. Bonnell, co-editor and author of NASA’s Web feature, .

A 242-page color catalog will document the exhibition, illustrate each work in it and feature essays by the jurors and Eric Wollman, professor of physics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

The sun, the changing face of the moon and stars adrift on the night sky have inspired humankind since prehistoric times, driving our understanding of the universe and igniting countless creative imaginations. For millennia, a glimpse of stars in a dark sky has provoked a sense of wonder that has inspired cultural phenomena from ancient creation myths to current cinema.

The firmament’s splendor has also captured the eye of photographers from the earliest history of their medium. Today their creations are gaining attention. “Starstruck showcases the increasingly popular genre of astronomical imaging,” says Bonnell. “The photographs represent a cosmic confluence of scientific exploration and the artistic process.”

An archival inkjet print of the emission nebula IC5067 by Ken Crawford.

“When we began organizing Starstruck,” says Shostak, “we found no evidence of large exhibitions investigating this genre in the context of an art museum. During the intervening years, a small handful of exhibitions have touched upon astrophotography, but none with the scope of our project.”

“Starstruck is the perfect exhibition for an academic museum,” says Dan Mills, director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art. “Astronomy is a widely popular endeavor, linking people with the natural world and the quest to answer life’s ‘Big Questions.’

“At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, we investigate precisely those kinds of questions across the disciplines. Having an art exhibition serve as the nexus of that exploration is part of what makes us a different — and exciting — kind of museum.”

Starstruck will be accompanied by a wide variety of educational programs including lectures, workshops, guided star parties, concerts, theatrical performances and films.

It will also address environmental concerns. “Even as astrophotography enters a golden age of technological development and interest,” says Babak Tafreshi, artist and founder of , “light pollution threatens to destroy humankind’s access to the starry sky.”

Acknowledging that the museum expects the exhibition to be extremely popular with a wide audience, Bonnell quips, “If you can’t find a good background for your laptop from this exhibition, you’re just not really trying.”

“Saturn,” a 2006 archival inkjet print by Damian Peach.

A NASA photograph of the 2004 transit of Venus.

Faculty in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College departments of geology and of physics and astronomy invite Lewiston-Auburn residents to view the highly anticipated transit of Venus  in an event starting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 5, on the Olin Arts Center Terrace, 75 Russell St.

The transit begins around 6 p.m. Weather permitting, the viewing will continue until the sun sets below the tree line, around 7 p.m. For more information, please call 207-786-6490.

Though it’s an exciting and rare astronomical event, the transit does pose a risk because of the hazards of viewing the sun without proper eye protection. The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ event is a safe opportunity to watch the phenomenon.

“We have two small telescopes well-suited for observing the sun,” said Nicole Hastings, assistant in instruction in physics and astronomy, “and are glad to offer the use of them and invite people to view this rare event.

“One telescope has a hydrogen alpha filter attached to it, which will allow viewers to see solar prominences, filaments and sun spots along with the transit of Venus.”

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty and staff will be on hand to operate the telescopes and discuss the event. Viewers will see a dark spot crossing the disk of the sun as the planet Venus passes directly between Earth and sun. A relatively unusual event in the solar system, the most recent previous transits of Venus occurred in 1882 and 2004, and the next will take place in 2117.

Viewers in much of the Pacific region will be able to see the entire transit, but in New England the sun will set soon after the transit begins. Depending on their view of the horizon, observers will have an hour or so to see the transit before the sun sets.

The sun should never be viewed directly, whether with an instrument or the naked eye, as serious and permanent eye damage can result. Safe viewing of the transit requires a telescope or binoculars equipped with very dense sun-viewing filters, as for viewing a solar eclipse; or an image from the eyepiece of a telescope or binoculars can be projected onto a white card serving as a small viewing screen.

A transit of Venus was first recorded in 1639, less than 30 years after the first astronomical applications of the newly invented telescope. The transits of 1761 and 1769 inspired the first global scientific research enterprise.

“It was quite remarkable,” says Gene Clough, lecturer in geology and physics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. “People sailed all around the world to observe the transit.”

It was hoped that careful observation from many locations would permit an improved determination of the size of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. “There were many difficulties and the data were harder to interpret than had been anticipated,” Clough says, “but historically it was a very important episode.”

This year’s transit comes just days before the June 9 opening of “Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography” at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art.

Astronomer Jeffrey Kenney '80 discusses galactic clusters.

Jeffrey Kenney ’80, an astronomy professor at Yale University, visits campus to discuss interactions within galactic clusters at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in Carnegie Science Hall, Room 204, 44 Campus Ave.

The talk, titled The Fate of Galaxies in Clusters, is intended for a mainstream audience and is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6490.

Clusters are the harshest environments for galaxies, and in clusters galaxies undergo many processes that change them. Some are changed by gravitational disturbances including collisions or mergers, whereas others have their star-forming gas stripped out from the stars, leaving “dead” spiral galaxies.

Focusing on disturbances in the Virgo cluster, which consists of 1,300-2,000 galaxies and is the nearest to Earth, Kenney will explain how scientists determine which processes have acted on the galaxies and how they interpret the consequences of these interactions for galactic evolution.

In his research, Kenney explores trends in cluster interactions through targeted studies of individual galaxies, using data from ground- and space-based telescopes, including the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes.

Kenney graduated from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 1980 with a degree in physics and earned his doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1987. He joined Yale’s faculty in 1991 and chaired the astronomy department from 2005 to this year.