With every coming year comes the Royal
Astronomical Societies National Astronomy Meeting, where astronomy and
astrophysics groups from every UK University are welcomed to present their work
across all fields of astronomy. This year the annual yell of astronomers
assemble called us to St Andrew’s, where we were greeted with beautiful
sunshine and the guarantee that it was like that all the time, and with the
exception of Tuesday it was.
NAM 2013 brought together over 600
astronomers to nearly 40 parallel sessions over the first five days of July.
With additional specialized lunches and social events including Scottish whisky
tasting and a traditional ceilidh at the Old Course Hotel. There was also some time to have a look around the cathedral, castle, and even having a go on 'The Himalayas' putting green.
The Himalayas putting green - if the aim is to get the highest score I definitely won. |
To cater for all fields of astronomy
covered across the UK the sessions are run in parallel, with up to 8 running at
the same time. Your choice then is, what session to go to. There will normally
be at least 3-4 sessions covering a specific field of astronomy, with other
having perhaps more tenuous links to your field of study. But when your line of
study is not specifically catered for there is always something new and
exciting you can learn.
The shear variety of research covered by
conferences like NAM give new researchers a great opportunity to present their
work without as much pressure as you might get at a more specialized
conference. This relaxed atmosphere also welcomes public astronomers to
specialized outreach sessions allowing them to share their hard work and
innovative ideas about getting the word out that astronomy is awesome.
So with the Exoplanet sessions confined to
the last two days of the week to accommodate those in Europe at another meeting
I had three days to scoot around the other sessions and see what I could learn.
During the week I the took the opportunity
to sit in on some sessions where my friends were presenting their work, from
galactic population studies with GalaxyZoo, computer simulations of forming
stars in large molecular clouds, to a detailed look at events on our own sun. That
doesn’t even cover the array of topics covered by friends and colleagues during
the four exoplanet sessions held across Thursday and Friday.
The view across St Andrew's from the top of the tower at the Cathedral |
The one thing that sticks out in my mind
still, due to the punchline it presents was, “The sun is round,” or rather that
stars sometimes are not. Due to the spin rate of some stars and the fluid
nature of the plasma stars can be flattened out like the bulge of a spinning
top with the radius at the equator nearly 50% larger than that toward the
poles. So if you want a flat Earth we would have to rotate over 800 times
faster about our axis, reducing our day down to 1.8 minutes, not very likely we
would survive that one.
I also took the Tuesday to sit in on the
public outreach sessions where armature astronomers and professionals join
together with one goal, introducing astronomy to a wider public audience. There
was also a brilliant presentation by two young students from The Langton Star
Center in Kent who will no doubt one day be presenting their research at NAM in
the future. http://www.thelangtonstarcentre.org/
Here is a list of some public outreach
events and opportunities across the UK:
Royal Astronomical Society - http://www.ras.org.uk/component/content/?start=5
The Jodcast a podcast from students and
staff at Jodrell bank observatory - http://www.jodcast.net/
Bradfordbury observatory - http://bayfordbury.herts.ac.uk/

Ogden Trust: making physics matter - http://www.ogdentrust.com/
Faulkes Telescope Project - http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/
HM Nautical Almanca Office - http://astro.ukho.gov.uk/nao/online/
NAM 2014 is going to be held at Portsmouth so
I might see you there.
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