Past Events from 2022

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.

Friday, January 14, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - How to Rip Apart a Star
Lecturer: Samantha Wu
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (2): Nitika Yadlapalli, Ryan Rubenzahl
Attendees: 70
Solid presentation on some complicated topics. Good discussion in Q&A.
Streamed to YouTube, Facebook, and now Twitter. It's hard to track the twitter viewership,
but I still think it's worth doing.

Monday, January 24, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap Online
MC: Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Amy Mainzer, Dmitry Duev
Attendees: 100
Great presentations and lively interaction throughout.
Changed up the format based on speaker feedback, and added comments/questions throughout
the presentations from the host and other speaker to make it more conversational.
This seemed to work pretty well, more analogous to a podcast interview but with slides.
We may include this format again in the future.

Friday, February 4, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Mapping the Universe with Atoms and Molecules that Shine
Lecturer: Guochao (Jason) Sun
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (2): Sarah Blunt, Gina Panopoulou
Attendees: 60
We tried a new way of handling audience questions, by using mentimeter to have the audience
submit questions. This also allows them to upvote the ones they think are the most interesting.
There seemed to be pretty positive feedback on this method, particularly during the Q&A, but
there was some concern that during the lecture it was too much switching between pages.

Friday, February 18, 7:30-9:30PM

Astronomy on Tap Online, Mandarin
MC: Yuguang Chen, Xinnan Du
Speakers (2): Miao Li, Linhao Ma
Attendees: 7000
We switched to doing this event on Friday night (Saturday morning in China), and it seemed to get
the same number of attendees as past events. It sounded like the event went better than any
of the previous Mandarin AoTs, so I think the format is getting smoother.

Friday+Saturday+Sunday, February 25-27, 2022

Death Valley Dark Sky Festival
Organizer: Cameron Hummels
Volunteers: Dillon Dong, Kathryn Plant, Nitika Yadlapalli, Emily Silich, Dee Dunne, Tina Seager, Ryan Rubenzahl, Mia de los Reyes, Janosz Dewberry, Sofia Gallego
Attendees: 3400
A lot of planning went into this, but it was overall a success. Our contribution was organizing and staffing
a 3-hour star party on Saturday night (with 6 telescopes) alongside a few DVNP rangers and scopes.
We also did science demos from 10AM-4PM on Saturday and Sunday including "Build a Comet" using
dry ice and other ingredients, "Marshmallow Ignition" using a concave parabolic mirror, and solar observing
with an H-alpha narrowband telescope. In addition, Cameron gave two talks on galaxy evolution in the
auditorium. Positive feedback overall on all fronts.

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

Astronomy on Tap Online
MC: Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Ron Tso, Ylva Götberg
Attendees: 60
Some good presentations and discussion during the trivia!

Friday, March 4, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Massive Binary Stars in Technicolor
Lecturer: Margaret Lazzarini
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (2): Kyle Kremer, Ilaria Caiazzo
Attendees: 60
Solid presentation and one of the best Q&A panels we've had thus far.
Really lively and well-balanced discussion amongst the four of us. Fun!
Only 60 live viewers but 700 views in two days.

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

Stargazing for State Street and Caltech @ The Langham
Organizer: Cameron Hummels
Volunteers: Stephanie Deppe, Nik Prusinski, Jason Wang, Michael Zhang
Attendees: 50
Moderate cloudy conditions throughout the session meant that we had to be
choosy about our targets. We had two eVscopes (Cameron and Jason) and
one 10" Dob. The Dob primarily looked at the Moon and the two eVscopes
cycles between visible objects including Bode's Galaxy and Candy Wrapper Nebula.
The garden terrace in the back of The Langham has a pretty good view of the sky
but portions of the Northern Horizon were blocked. It was sort of a pain getting
to the back patio, but we ended up using the entrance via the security gate
whose code is #20. The attendees were all finance people visiting for some
Caltech event. Definitely different from our normal crowds.

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

Stargazing for State Street and Caltech @ The Langham
Organizer: Cameron Hummels
Volunteers: Stephanie Deppe, Nik Prusinski, Dee Dunne
Attendees: 40
Event started out very cloudy, but things partially cleared after 15 minutes.
We had pretty good views for about an hour and then it got socked in again.
Despite the clouds, we were able to discuss how telescopes work, how stars
age and die, and aspects of our individual research projects (galaxy evolution,
astrophysical transients, etc.) with the attendees. Went pretty well overall.

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

Astronomy on Tap Online
MC: Cameron Hummels
Speakers (2): Amy Hoffman, Max Goldberg
Attendees: 60
Great presentations and conversational responses during the pub trivia.
Thanks, team!

Friday, April 8, 7-9PM

Lecture and Stargazing - Black Holes and Gravitational Waves: Was Einstein Right?
Lecturer: Saul Teukolsky
Lecture Captain: Cameron Hummels
Lecture Volunteers (2):
Attendees: 150
One of the best talks we have had. Great talk by Saul and good Q&A afterwards.
Really high viewership on this one. Lots of interest in GR, GWs, and Einstein.