NACAA XXV Programme

The programme for NACAA XXV was an exciting mix of amateur and professional speakers from around Australia. The 2012 convention is presented here in summary; please follow the hyperlinks for detailed information regarding each session.

	Friday 6th April		Saturday 7th April		Sunday 8th April		Monday 9th April
Time	T1	T2	T1	T2	T1	T2	T1	T2
9:00	Registration Opens		Convention Opening and Opening Address by: Professor Michael Drinkwater and Dr Tamara Davis ‘A Nobel Cause’		Spectrography and Variable Star Research	Fire in the Sky Total Eclipse 2012	Eclipse Imaging Workshop	Sixth Trans-Tasman Symposium on Occultations
10:30			Morning Tea		Morning Tea		Morning Tea
11:00	Astronomy 101 (Free Event)	Second Variable Star South Colloquium	Double stars	General Astronomy	Perdrix Address by Martin George: ‘The Life of Grote Reber’ followed by the NACAA AGM		Eclipse Imaging Workshop	Sixth Trans-Tasman Symposium on Occultations
12:30		Lunch	Lunch		Lunch			Lunch
13:30	Astronomy 101 (Free Event)	Second Variable Star South Colloquium	Pro-Am Collaboration	Transit of Venus 2012 Lovejoy by Lovejoy	Occultations and Astro Science	General Astronomy		Sixth Trans-Tasman Symposium on Occultations
15:00		Afternoon Tea	Afternoon Tea		Afternoon Tea		Convention Closes
15:30-17:00	Live from GEMINI North, Hawaii	Second Variable Star South Colloquium	Variable Stars	Supernova Discovery with the BOSS Team and Dr Tamara Davis	Occultations	Brisbane Planetarium Special Presentation
E v e n i n g	Welcome Function 6pm til 8pm		Convention Dinner 7pm til 10pm Guest Speaker: Vince Ford from Mount Stromlo ’40 Years Behind the Telescope, how a starry-eyed school kid turned into a “real” astronomer’ Presentation of the Berenice and Arthur Page Medal		Convention BBQ 6pm til 9pm Presentation of the Astral Award for Best Speaker

 

Sat 11:00-12:30 Room: T2

11:00 Alison Beck: NASA – A Retrospective
11:30 Jonathan Bradshaw: For a full nights sleep
12:00 Ian Sullivan: Viewing Venus Transits Since 1639

Sat 13:30-15:00 Room: T1

13:30 Donna Burton: Astronomers without Borders
14:15 Dr Thomas Richards: Variable Stars South

Sat 15:30-17:00 Room: T1

15:30 David Parkinson: Exploring the Big Bang with the Cosmic Microwave Background
16:00 Roy Axelsen: A Method for Differential CCD or DSLR Photometry Requiring No Determination of Air Mass or Extinction Coefficients
16:30 David Morriarty: TW Crucis — Piquing my Interest as a Beginner in CCD Photometry

Sun 09:00-10:30 Room: T1

09:00 Keith Forbes: The Age of Amateur Spectography
09:30 Julian West: Near Infrared Phase Lag of Mira Variable, R Carinae (Spectographic component)
10:00 Tony Dutton: Near Infrared Phase Lag of Mira Variable, R Carinae (Photometric component)

This lecture series will be followed by a round table of spectrographs during morning tea.

Sun 13:30-15:00 Room: T1

13:30 Brian Loader: Measuring Double Stars during Lunar Occultation
14:00 Steve Kerr: Meteor observing using Metrec
14:30 Hristo Pavlov: Astrometry of Fast Moving Objects Using Tangra

Sun 13:30-15:00 Room: T2

13:30 Tony Surma-Hawes: The Queensland Astronomical Education Conference (QAEC)
14:00 David Moriarty: Could There be Life Elsewhere in the Solar System or Galaxy?
14:30 Rob Black: NQ Astronomy’s JAG Programme