Astronomy on Tap Santa Cruz

Astronomy on Tap Santa Cruz features accessible, engaging, *free* science presentations on topics ranging from planets to black holes to galaxies to the beginning of the Universe, from astronomers at UC Santa Cruz and beyond. Despite the pandemic, we're hosting AoT virtually at the link below - we encourage you to grab a drink of your choice and join us! This week we'll have UCSC's Connie Rockosi and Emily Martin.

https://youtu.be/WBjGVM4Dt9w

Go Big or Go Small: Making New Gadgets For Astronomy

Behind every telescope is an instrument that collects the light from space and helps turn that light into science! Building astronomical instruments requires innovation, creativity, and a lot of duct tape. UCSC's Connie Rockosi and Emily Martin will talk about the nuts and bolts of how astronomical instruments get built. They'll discuss a new telescope for Lick Observatory that will “shrink” the planets in our solar system to look like planets around other stars, show new detector technologies, and more!