[AstroNet] What's up at the Observatory

[Thembela Mantungwa]

South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town will have a free public lecture on Saturday, November 12 at 20h00. Dr. Kurt van der Heyden will talk about "Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies" After the talk, there will be stargazing if the weather is good, tours of the library, and the McClean telescope will be working then. 

Abstract: 
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars, star remnants, gas, dust and an important, but poorly understood, component dubbed dark matter. Galaxies can occur in a range of sizes and shapes, and can contain between tens of million to trillions of stars. Galaxies themselves prefer to reside in large bound systems known as "Galaxy Clusters". Clusters are the largest known systems in the Universe. This talk will give a brief introduction to these systems and also provide a visual tour of the various types of galaxies and clusters. 

Bio: 

Kurt van der Heyden was born and raised in Kimberley, where he completed his high school education. He obtained a BSc. degree in physics from UNISA in 1996. He then went to UCT, where he completed his B.Sc honours year in 1997, and he specialised in nuclear physics. He later switched to astronomy and took up an M.Sc position at SAAO under the guidance of Dr. D. Buckley and promotorship of Prof. B. Warner (UCT). He began his PhD studies at the SRON National Institute for Space Research (Netherlands), where he worked with Prof. Dr. Ir. J.A.M. Bleeker and Dr. J.S. Kaastra on X-ray studies of Supernova Remnants. Upon his return to South Africa, he took a postdoctoral position at SAAO and later joined UCT Astronomy department as an SKA funded postdoctoral fellow. Currently, he is a senior lecturer at UCT. Kurt’s research interests lie in the question of Dark Energy, particularly in (observational) techniques to constrain the equation of state (w). He is an external participant in the Sloan Supernova Survey (SDSS-SN). He is also involved in the SA SKA/ MeerKAT project. 


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Regards 

Thembela Mantungwa 
S.A. Astronomical Observatory 
Tel: 021 460 9319 
Fax: 086 612 7502 
Mob: 071 105 0109 
Email: tm at saao.ac.za 
Website: www.saao.ac.za / www.salt.ac.za 


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