- This event has passed.
SAAO Cape Town Open Night
July 13 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
The SAAO Open Nights in Cape Town take place on the second and fourth Saturday of every month at 20:00.
All Open Nights will start with a presentation on topics of astronomy or physics. Then, visitors will be given an introduction to the historic McClean telescope, the observatory museum, and the library. If the weather is clear, there will be a chance for stargazing using telescopes set up for the night.
Tickets are published on our website on the 30th of each month.
Please email enquiries@saao.ac.za if you have any queries regarding bookings and tours for Cape Town Open Nights.
Speaker: Christian Hettlage
Christian Hettlage is a software engineer at the SAAO, developing tools for the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). He came to Cape Town in 2006 after completing his Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Göttingen, Germany.
Title: Measuring the Universe
Abstract:
Starting with a librarian measuring the size of the Earth and a philosopher trying to gauge the distance to Moon and Sun, the talk follows the story how, over more than 2000 years, astronomers managed to climb the cosmic distance ladder rung by rung. It illustrates how astronomers organised the first international science campaign for getting a precise distance to the Sun, how an astronomer who worked in Cape Town for the first time could conclude how far away another star is, and why we know that there are galaxies beyond our Milky Way. This leads to modern cosmology with its stunning insight that the Universe might be infinite.