NRF|SAAO Cape Town Open Night
October 24 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Each evening begins with an engaging presentation on astronomy or a related field of science, followed by a guided tour of the Observatory’s rich history—including our library, museum, and the historic 120-year-old McClean Telescope.
Weather permitting, guests will have the opportunity to enjoy stargazing through the Observatory’s outreach telescopes.
-
- Gates open at 7:30 PM.
- Free entry for children aged 6 and under.
Please email cptbookings@saao.ac.za or call +27 21 447 0025 if you have any queries regarding bookings.
Speaker: Kathryn Rosie
Bio:
Kathryn Rosie is a Mechanical Engineer in the Instrumentation Division at the South African Astronomical Observatory. She received her MSc Eng at UCT in 2011, with a focus on materials and how they break. She worked at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation as a structural analyst before astronomy beckoned. In 2015, she joined the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) as a project engineer and structural analyst, and in 2019 expanded to optical astronomy at SAAO, where she is responsible for instrument design and providing technical support to maintenance and operations. She has very little idea of what astronomers actually do, but thinks their toys are really cool.
Abstract:
A nuts-and-bolts engineering tour through what it takes to turn starlight into images and data. What does a telescope actually do? What’s the difference between the ones with lenses and the ones with mirrors, and how are small telescopes related to giants such as SALT? We’ll follow light’s journey from the sky, through a telescope and its instruments, to the detector that turns the light into something astronomers can use.