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February Regular Meeting at SLAS
TeV Gamma-Ray Astronomy: Studying the Violent Universe
Friday, December 15, 2006 Meeting Location
McDonnell Hall, Room 162, Washington University
accessible from Forsyth Blvd. via Tolman Way
Description: Dr. Buckley will describe recent progress in the field of very high energy gamma-ray astronomy including discoveries of trillion-electron-volt gamma-rays from exploding stars, galactic black-holes and neutron stars, and relativistic jets from supermassive black holes. He will give a progress report on the recently commissioned VERITAS gamma-ray telescope array, and on ongoing multiwavelength studies combining data from gamma-ray instruments with that taken by small optical telescopes. Finally, he will discuss ways in which the amateur optical astronomy community can participate in this research, in particular, through observations at the Washington University Tyson observatory.
Biography: Professor Buckley is Professor of Physics at Washington University. His research is in the areas of gamma-ray astronomy, multiwavelength astronomy, and detector development. Prof. Buckley is a Co-PI on the VERITAS project, consisting of 4 12m diameter atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes for gamma-ray astronomy at 100 GeV energies. Prof. Buckley has also constructed a pair of robotic 0.5m optical telescopes, one located in Sonoita Arizona, and one in the Himalayas near Hanle India, forming the "Antipodal Transient Observatory".
Buckley is also constructed a small observatory at Tyson Research Center for undergraduate research, education, and community outreach.
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