[AstroNet] Whats up at the Observatory this Saturday

[Thembela Mantungwa]

Public lecture 

Dr Ramotholo Sefako an astronomer at SA Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) will give a free public lecture about "Nonthermal Universe - a closer look at astronomical sources of very high energies" . The talk will be at SAAO in Cape Town on Saturday, May 12 at 20h00. There will be stargazing if the weather is good. 

Summary of the talk: 
Together, we will take a closer look at what we would see if our eyes were to detect radiation in other wavelengths, like X-rays and gamma-rays, which would mostly be nonthermal sources. Optical and Infrared radiation are mostly dominated by thermal radiation such as from our Sun and many other stars we see every night. Nonthermal radiation, on the other hand, is mainly as a result of acceleration of charged particles in magnetic fields. 

Bio: 
Ramotholo Sefako obtained his PhD in astrophysics from North-West University (NWU) in Potchefstroom ten years ago. He became a Physics lecturer and a member of the Unit for Space Physics research group in 2002 at the same university. Subsequent to leaving NWU as a senior lecturer in 2004, he took up another lecturing position at University of the Free State, Qwa-Qwa campus. In 2005, he joined South African Astronomical Observatory as a post-doctoral fellow, and later a SALT astronomer. He is currently the head of Telescope Operations (TOPS) Division at SAAO. 


-- 
Regards 

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


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.saasta.ac.za/pipermail/astronet/attachments/20120508/d3f4a347/attachment.html>