September 12-14, 2025

Event Type: Special Event
Sequoia Dark Sky Festival
Organizer: Delina Levine
Volunteers: Delina Levine, Sam Rose, Harshda Saxena, Facundo Perez Paolino, Advait Mehla, Hanna Adamski, Hazel Yun
Drivers: Delina Levine, Hanna Adamski, Hazel Yun?
Photos:

We will be assisting with the Sequoia National Park Dark Sky Festival to take place Friday-Sunday September 12-14.

Friday, September 12 - Drive to Lodgepole Campground (~5 hours) in morning
- Specific Campsite Directions
- Set up camp
- Free time to hike around and explore

Saturday, September 13

- All the talks
- Q&A panel
- Keynote
- Star Party
- Hiking

Sunday, Setpember 14

Drive back home (~5 hours) in afternoon/evening

Speaker: Delina Levine
Title: Listening for Deep-Space Explosions on the Radio
Abstract: Can you hear deep-space explosions on your radio? For decades, astronomers have used powerful radio telescopes to look at the radio sky - a patchwork of stars, galaxies, and bright flashes from objects like pulsars, active galactic nuclei, and deep-space explosions. These explosions are energetic, short-lived events which can tell us about the lives and deaths of the stars they come from and the galaxies in which they live. Using radio to look at these objects gives astronomers an advantage - we can gain information about these events that we can't learn from other telescopes, using some of the same technology as your cell phone, GPS, bluetooth headphones, or car radio. In this talk, we'll discuss how astronomers use radio to study different types of deep-space explosions, and how learning about these events can tell us more about the life and evolution of our universe.

Speaker: Sam Rose
Title: Cosmic Fireworks: How Astronomers Explore the Changing Sky
Abstract: The Universe evolves over the course of billions of years—a timescale almost incomprehensible to humans. But there are some things in the night sky that change much faster. Spectacular explosions of massive stars dying, pulsing stars, and comets and asteroids drifting through our Solar System are all examples of changes in the sky that happen over the course of weeks, months, or years. These events which cause new sources of light to appear and disappear in the sky are called “astronomical transients.” In this talk, we will explore the history of astronomical transients: including observations of an exploding star by Chinese astronomers in 1054 CE, the search for comets over the centuries, and the first large-scale surveys of the sky using the Mt. Wilson and Palomar observatories. We will also cover the next-generation efforts to detect these events using Caltech's very own Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and the brand new Vera Rubin Observatory, which will reveal millions of new asteroids and supernovae across the sky in the coming years.

Speaker: Harshda Saxena
Title: Unveiling the Secrets of our Universe through its First Light
Abstract: Our universe began in the most massive explosion ever, called the Big Bang. 300,000 years after this explosion, light was able to escape this hot soup of matter and formed the first snapshot of our universe. 13.8 billion years later, monkeys on a tiny rock called the Earth can use modern telescopes to study the amount and distribution of matter and energy in the universe, massive clusters of galaxies, the state of the universe in its first few seconds, and everything in between, simply by studying this first light.

Speaker: Facundo Perez Paolino
Title: The Making of a Star and Her Entourage
Abstract: From swirling clouds of gas and dust, stars are born in spectacular fashion. In this talk, we will journey through the life of a newborn star, from its turbulent beginnings to the formation of the planets, asteroids, and comets that make up its entourage. Along the way, we’ll explore how astronomers use telescopes to uncover the hidden processes shaping these young worlds, and what they can teach us about the history of our own Sun and solar system.