Past Events from 2020

For photos of all past events, see our Flickr Page. For lecture recordings, see our YouTube Page.

To learn more about each event this year (including abstracts, titles, etc.), click on the event links below.

Monday, January 20, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap @ Der Wolfskopf
MC: Calen Henderson
Speakers (2): Kaew Tinyanont, Tiffany Kataria, Sean Carey
Volunteer (2+): Cameron Hummels, Andreas Faisst
Attendees: 150
Spitzer farewell event went well. Despite only announcing this a week ago, we still had a good turnout.
About 25% new people. Merchandise went well too, with about $100 in donations.

Wednesday, January 22, 5:30-7:00PM

Stargazing at Jefferson Elementary w/Campfire & S'mores
Organizer: Cameron Hummels
Volunteers: Patrick Shopbell, Chris Burns
Attendees: 120
We were invited to bring telescopes and help the elementary students get a look at the sky. We brought three telescopes and three operators.
It was pretty early in the evening, so initially the only thing visible was Venus, but after about 30 minutes, we were able to point at several other
objects: Pleaides, Orion Nebula, Double Cluster, and even Andromeda Galaxy. We handed out NASA stickers and invited families to join us at
our other outreach events. All in all, a pretty fun event!

Friday, January 31, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Galaxies are Cosmic Magnets
Lecturer: Gina Panopoulou
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Reinier Janssen, Mia de los Reyes, Kaew Tinyanont
Telescope Captain: Michael Zhang
Telescope Volunteers (4): Yuguang Chen, Kathryn Plant
Attendees: 150
A solid start to the season. We were only able to advertise this about a week out from the event,
but despite that we had a pretty good turnout. Good weather made for decent observations of
M42, M45, and the Moon. Some great questions, particularly from the youth in the audience.

Monday, February 10, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap @ Der Wolfskopf
MC: Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Rachel Theios & Men-Andrin Meier
Volunteer (2+): Lee Rosenthal, Ryan Rubenzahl
Attendees: 150
Good event with an enthusiastic audience.

Friday, February 14, 7-9PM

Film and Stargazing - Pale Blue Dot: Perspectives on our Planet
Lecture Captain: Gina Panopoulou, Kathryn Plant
Lecture Volunteers (3): Jackie Dowling, Newton Nguyen, Phil Jahelka, Shreyas Vissapragada
Telescope Captain: Cameron Hummels
Telescope Volunteers (4): Rachel Theios, Yashvi Sharma, Max Goldberg
Attendees: 120
Different dynamic but good turnout and a lot of interest in this topic.

Friday, February 21 - Sunday February 23

Death Valley Dark Sky Festival
(Operating telescopes Friday and Saturday late nights in Death Valley with opportunity for short presentations)
Organizer: Cameron Hummels
Volunteers:
Attendees: 200
Our first effort to work with the National Parks in one of their events.
I reached out to them about a month in advance (when I learned of this event), and offered our services.
They were largely already booked up with speakers and such, but they said we could contribute by operating
telescopes during their star party. As the date approached, the weather was forecast to be cloudy and even
raining, so there were a lot of cancellations by other amateur groups operating telescopes.
DVNP reached out and requested that we still show up to help with things despite the clouds, so I headed up there.
In the end, the weather was cloudy and drizzly Saturday night, but there were still a few hundred people who showed
up to the star party. So we (the rangers and me) took turns giving short informal talks about astronomy and space
and answering questions of the public. Also I made contacts with rangers from Sequoia and DV for helping at
future dark sky efforts. A fun experience!

Thursday, February 27, 7-9PM

National Geographic COSMOS Screening and Stargazing
(New COSMOS episodes screened for ~60 min, then Q&A Panel and Stargazing for ~60 min)
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Jason Wang, Arpita Roy, Ilaria Caiazzo
Telescope Captain: Ryan Rubenzahl
Telescope Volunteers (4): Paolo Madonia, Zhihui Li, Michael Zhang
Attendees: 100
Decent turnout for a cloudy Thursday night. We were only able to advertise this <1 week prior
because of constraints on the NatGeo end, so I count this as a success. The show was pretty
good, and then the panel Q&A was solid. We were joined by Andre Bormanus, one of the producers
of the program, and he was able to join our Q&A session. Weather was too cloudy for any real
observing unfortunately. Probably won't work with NatGeo again because they had way way way
too many hoops to jump through for such a simple event. Just not worth it.

Friday, February 28, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - De los Atomos a los Agujeros Negros
(Need people comfortable speaking spanish as lecture volunteers, spanish not required for telescope volunteers)
Lecturer: Javier García
Lecture Captain: Lluis Mas Ribas
Lecture Volunteers (3): Sergio Fajardo-Acosta, Solange Ramirez
Telescope Captain: Alessandro Schillaci
Telescope Volunteers (4): Cameron Hummels, Viraj Karambelkar, Niyati Desai, Gina Panopoulou
Attendees: 100
A success for a new type of event like this. Announcement, lecture, and Q&A panel was entirely in spanish.
Some spanish and some english on the field for the telescopes. Enthusiastic audience with good questions
and lots of kids present. Would like to do these events more frequently, but hard to find the spanish-speaking
scientists and volunteers in our community, but I definitely think it is worthwhile at reaching a different audience.

Monday, March 9, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap @ Der Wolfskopf
MC: Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Ilaria Caiazzo & Donal O'Sullivan
Volunteer (2+): Amruta Jaodand, Shreyas Vissapragada
Attendees: 150
A hectic start due to volunteers being late, and some recent losses of employees at the bar, but we got it started OK about 15 minutes late.
Excellent talks by our speakers and a really engaged audience. I had initially considered calling this event off due to concerns about
COVID and Caltech shutting down similar public events, but I decided to not cancel it last minute. Still had a huge turnout though.
Six-way tie for first-place in quiz. I used digits of pi to break tie, but not a great option because everyone inevitably got it wrong.

PANDEMIC BEGINS, EVENTS MOVE ONLINE

Saturday, March 14, 10AM-3PM

Explore Caltech Science Fair (formerly Science for March)
(Solar telescope, solar marshmellow demo, build a comet demos)
Organizer: Cameron Hummels
Volunteers: (3): Jason Wang
Attendees: CANCELLED DUE TO COVID19

Friday, March 20, 8-10PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Real Images of Exoplanets (None of that Artist Conception Stuff) -- Live Stream Only
Lecturer: Jason Wang
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Jessie Christiansen, Paolo Madonia, Ilaria Caiazzo, Mia de los Reyes
Attendees: 120
This was our first live-stream event, and I think it went pretty well. We were able to set up zoom
and broadcast the meeting to Youtube Live. Based on this event, we now have Zoom to YouTube Live Instructions.
There were a few hiccups throughout, like Jason's connection going down a couple of times mid-lecture, but we got through it OK.
Lots of positive feedback from the audience and some great questions. We will do this again soon.

Thursday, April 9, 12-7PM

Astronomy on Tap 7th Orbitversary -- Live Stream Only
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Kishalay De, Anna Ho, Michael Zhang, Nicole Wallack
Attendees: 80
This event was a major 7h event spanning three continents. Caltech Astro helped organize the whole
thing, and specifically the final 2 hours of the event. Some technical challenges but we pulled it off OK.

Friday, April 10, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - The Circumgalactic Medium: The Gas Around Galaxies -- Live Stream Only
Lecturer: Yuguang Chen
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Kishalay De, Anna Ho, Michael Zhang, Nicole Wallack
Attendees: 80
Slightly fewer hiccups during our second live-streamed lecture. Showed a bit of Stellarium while
waiting for people to arrive. Had a gold Q&A panel afterwards.

Monday, April 20, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap @ Der Wolfskopf -- Online
MC: Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Jessica Spake & Matt Orr
Attendees: 100
Great online event, when we finally got the logistics of virtually hosting an event worked out.
Good turnout and lots of interaction with our audience. The pub trivia went very well too!

Friday, May 8, 8-10PM

Lecture and Stargazing - The Loneliest Galaxies in the Universe -- Virtual
Lecturer: Mia de los Reyes
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Dillon Dong, Nitika Yadlapalli, Max Goldberg, Shreyas Vissapragada
Attendees: 120
Event went well and we had a lot of interesting questions from our online audience showing that they were engaged throughout it.

Monday, May 18, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap @ Der Wolfskopf -- Virtual
MC: Cameron Hummels & Calen Henderson
Speakers (2): Virginie Faramaz & Reinier Janssen
Attendees: 140
Consistently above 100 viewers throughout the entire event. Lots of interaction using the pollev.com website for pub trivia.
Started the event slightly early, ensuring we didn't lose people who connected at the start time and got bored and left.

Friday, June 12, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Measuring the Speed of Stars More Precisely Than Your Car’s Speedometer -- Virtual
Lecturer: Ryan Rubenzahl
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Amruta Jaodand, Samantha Wu, Agnès Ferté, Kaew Tinyanont
Attendees: 100
Good turnout despite postponing for a week due to the BLM protests. Great talk and panel!

Monday, June 15, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap @ Der Wolfskopf -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Arya Udry & Paz Beniamini
Attendees: 80
Great talks and lots of interest in these topics.

Friday, July 10, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - You'll Know It When You See It: Defining, Describing, and Detecting Life in the Universe -- Virtual
Lecturer: Cecilia Sanders
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Dillon Dong, Nicole Wallack, Andreas Faisst
Attendees: 60
Wonderful illustrations and presentation, although it went almost an hour.
Good discussions afterwards. More panel discussion as opposed to just Q&A.

Monday, July 20, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Alistair Hayden & Nina Lanza
Attendees: 80

Friday, August 7, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - The Explosive Origin of the Elements -- Virtual
Lecturer: Andrew Emerick
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3):
Attendees: 100
We dropped the number of panelists to 4 in total and I think it was much more conversational
and approachable for the audience. I also linked individual questions and their timestamps in the description,
which I think is helpful for people searching for individual questions.

Monday, August 17, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Alex Ji & Brittany Kamai
Attendees: 100
Great event with excellent talks by both speakers and lots of interesting questions from the audience.

Friday, September 4, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - The Exceptional Astronomical Discoveries of the Ancient Greeks​ -- Virtual
Lecturer: Michael Zhang
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (2): Amruta Jaodand, Nikita Kamraj
Attendees: 230
Biggest turnout yet for one of our virtual events. We peaked at 232 concurrent viewers,
we consistently had over 200 during Michael's talk and then more than 185 for the rest
of the period. I'm not sure why the huge increase, but maybe people just really like history
or maybe we turned a corner on advertising? We'll see if our next events are also as popular.
Michael and our panelists all did a great job and were very enthusiastic. A big success.
Suggestions were made to potentially do a Reddit AMA, or offer an honorarium to speakers.

Monday, September 28, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Konstantin Batygin & Jackie Faherty
Attendees: 290
Again, biggest turnout yet for one of our live-stream events with over 2000 views in the
first 24h. I guess we've passed some threshold where people are noticing our events.
Great evening with two good talks and very charismatic personable speakers: Konstantin
and Jackie. Our trivia software, pollev.com, has now reached a cap of 40 responses, so
we may have to pay for it, which is quite expensive ($500/year!). Not sure how to proceed,
but a good problem to have.

Friday, October 9, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Trying to Prove Einstein Wrong -- Virtual
Lecturer: Agnès Ferté
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (2): Mia de los Reyes, Leo Stein
Attendees: 100
Good presentation but not a huge turnout after the last month. I guess audience
participation is very stochastic. Lots of talk about the black hole Nobel prize awarded
last week.

Monday, October 19, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Briley Lewis & Chris Bochenek
Attendees: 100
Good presentations.

Friday, November 6, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - The First Portrait of a Black Hole and Beyond -- Virtual
Lecturer: Katie Bouman
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Jordan Moxon, Nitika Yadlapalli
Attendees: 150
Lots of interest in black holes!

Monday, November 16, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Kishalay De, Casey Honniball
Attendees: 100
Used mentimeter for the first time, which seemed to work really well.

Friday, December 4, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Big Questions, Small Telescopes, & Fast Astronomy -- Virtual
Lecturer: Vikram Ravi
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (3): Michael Zhang, Evan Nunez
Attendees: 70
Great presentation and Q&A went well.

Monday, December 14, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap -- Virtual
MC: Calen Henderson & Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Auriane Egal, Andrew Youdin
Attendees: 60
Great topical event on the Geminids meteor shower while it peaks today!
Improved the use of mentimeter for quiz. Good tool.

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