On the night of Aug 01/02, 2017, we welcomed a group of students from the NSF REU in Multimessenger Astrophysics. About ten students, from RIT, NTID, and other schools across the country, are spending 10 weeks on the RIT campus, working on research projects with a number of astronomers in the graduate program in Astrophysical Sciences and Technology.
Tracy Davis (SoPA) volunteered to help me host the visitors at the Observatory. Thanks, Tracy! Two interpreters from RIT's Department of Access Services came out to help as well. They did a great job, despite the challenges of communicating in sign language in the dark.
There were some clouds over much of the sky, so we concentrated on the few bright objects we could see: the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. Dale Mercado used his phone to snap a picture of the Moon through our Astroscan: his original image is on the left, and a version modified via unsharp masking on the right.
After looking at the celestial sights (and being pestered by mosquitoes), we moved into the Observatory House, where we had a nice question-and-answer session. The students asked about a wide range of topics, touching on the status of Pluto, planets circling other stars, and (of course) black holes.
Last modified 08/03/2017 by MWR.