On May 15 2017, 38 members of the Victoria Region Men’s & Newcomers Club were treated to a tour at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria. The tour consisted of a presentation by our two grad student guides, Steve Mairs and Logan Francis, along with a hands-on viewing of UVic’s larger telescope (there are actually two on campus!).

Here are just a few of the tidbits we gleaned:

• Victoria is an astronomy hot bed. The telescope we saw is Canada’s 5th largest (UVic’s other is the 8th largest). The telescope at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Saanich is Canada’s largest working telescope.
• Stars are formed by swirling dust and gasses that clump together by gravity, getting hotter and hotter, heating up in the centre.
• A disk of swirling material often forms around a star when it is born, eventually forming planets.
• Hydrogen and helium are the source elements for star formation. Interestingly, astronomers call anything that is not hydrogen or helium, “metal”.
• The study of the formation of stars is relatively new, having started 70-80 years ago
• Larger stars burn hotter and die out sooner than smaller stars. Our own sun is of the smaller variety and is one of the older stars in the universe. Don’t worry, our sun still has about 5 billion years to go.
• When astronomers say something will happen “soon”, they are often talking about millions of years.
• Astronomers measure distance in space in parsecs (1 parsec = 3.26 light years)

For those who missed out or want to see more, you can take advantage of UVic’s weekly Astronomy Open House.

Click here for more information.

Thanks again to Glenn Soares for continuing to deliver with such excellent outings.

Submitted by Barry Gros.