Jay Pasachoff: "Stellar Society Lecture: Transits of Venus"

Noted astronomer Jay Pasachoff gives a lecture, “Transits of Venus: Science and History.” Perhaps the rarest scheduled astronomical event comparable to human lifetimes is a transit of Venus. Not a person on Earth was alive when the previous transits occurred before the 2004-2012 pair. Pasachoff will describe the interesting history of transits, from Jeremiah Horrocks's view of the first observed one in 1639 through Captain Cook's voyage to Tahiti for the transit of 1769 and through the current efforts. With support from the National Geographic Society, he extensively observed the 2004 transit from Greece and the 2012 transit from Haleakala, Hawaii. He also used the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini Mission at Saturn to observe transits seen on other solar-system bodies. Jay Pasachoff is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. and chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Eclipses. He is the world’s most distinguished researcher of solar eclipses and has observed 58 eclipses of the sun during his career. Pasachoff has received the Education Prize of the American Astronomical Society and the Janssen Prize of the Société Astronomique de France. He’s also the author of the popular “Petersen Field Guide to the Stars and Planets.” Pasachoff’s lecture is presented by GTCC’s Student Astronomy Club, The Stellar Society, whose mission for the past decade has been to support public outreach activities at Cline Observatory.

Lai'Anna D Martin

3/28/2014 11:00:00 AM