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A beautiful, sunny, late fall day greeted visitors to Western’s Fall Preview Day, and specifically the Science departmental displays which were arrayed throughout the atrium of the Physics and Astronomy building.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy was well represented by staff, students, and faculty.
Volunteers from the Physics and Astronomy Department were Abedin Abedin, Peter Frank, Kanthi Kaluarachchi, Dilini Subasinghe, Shayamila Gammage, Shailesh Nene, Bob Sica, Rob Cockcroft, Sarah Gallagher, Eugene Wong, Jeff Hutter, Alex Buchel, Patrick Hatch, Dylan Del Papa, Danielle McFadden, Colin Metrow, Mauli Bhatt, Sarah Scott, Sean Huggins, Sachi Elkerston, Will Hyland, Keegan Marr, Edith Yeung, John de Bruyn, Pauline Barmby, and Henry Leparskas.
The Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration commenced a 3-week long “analogue mission” called CanMars on Monday October 31, simulating a future Mars Sample Return mission. This is carried out in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency, and features a rover and field team down in Utah and a mission control team here at Western in the Physics and Astronomy Building.
An open house was held for the public on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016.
The setting was the Physics and Astronomy building atrium, under a beautiful clear sky and waxing gibbous moon. Very appropriate indeed.
A few hundred space lovers attended the open house.
A room dedicated to the building and operation of Lego Mars Rovers was a highlight for those young at heart. Others relaxed at the reception which was held in the atrium.
At 7pm a wonderful panel discussion was led by members of the local CPSX mission team, as well as members of NASA, MDA, and The Canadian Space Agency. Londoners could hear first hand from the people who are building and flying the actual science missions to the red planet. The audience was extremely attentive throughout.
The event was a wonderful success.
We warmly welcome new technical staff member Abedin Abedin, who took up his position as ‘Demonstration Coordinator‘ on November 7, 2016.
Abedin recently completed his PhD in Physics under co-supervisors Prof. Peter Brown and Prof. Paul Wiegert. His thesis title was “Formation and Past Evolution of the Meteoroid Complex of Comet 96P/Machholz”.
On Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, Isabelle Cyr successfully defended her PhD thesis.
Prior to the formal examination, Isabelle gave a public talk titled, “The geometry and density of B-emission star disks from statistical analysis and numerical simulations“.
Isabelle’s supervisor was Dr. Carol Jones.
On Friday, October 31, 2016, a reception was held for our Physics and Astronomy graduating students prior to the afternoon convocation ceremonies.
The following is a list of our fall graduates.
Mark Baker – MSc Physics – Project title “Gauge Invariant Lagrangian Formulation” Sup: Shantanu Basu
Sivayini Kandeepan – MSc Physics – Thesis “OMCVD Gold Nanoparticles Covalently Attached to Polystyrene for Biosensing Applications” Sup: Silvia Mittler
Collin Knight – MSc Astronomy – Project title “Spatial Properties of the Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Population in the Reflection Nebula NGC 2023” Sup: Els Peeters
Tianho Ouyang – MSc Physics – Thesis “Self-assembled copper nanoparticle superlattices on graphene thin films” Sup: Giovanni Fanchini
Demetrius Ribiero du Paula – MSc Physics – Project Title “A Method for Independent Component Graph Analysis of Resting-State fMRI” Sup: Andrea Soddu
Sahar Rahmani – PhD Astronomy – Thesis “What governs star formation in galaxies? A modern statistical approach” Sup: Pauline Barmby
Matthew Shannon – PhD Astronomy – Thesis “The spectral variability of astronomical PAHs” Sup: Els Peeters
Neven Vulic – PhD Astronomy – Thesis “X-ray Populations in The Local Group: Insights with Hubble & Chandra” Sup: Pauline Barmby & Sarah Gallagher
Quanzhi Ye – PhD Astronomy – Thesis “Aging comets and their meteor showers” Sup: Peter Brown
Graduate students held the second annual pumpkin carving contest on Friday, Oct. 28, 2016. Winner has yet to be announced. The event was organized by the Physics and Astronomy Grad Council.
Photos are by Viraja Khatu.
Bethany Grzenia took this great photo of a hot air balloon rising in front of our building.
On Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016, Bethany Grzenia successfully defended her astronomy PhD thesis.
Prior to the formal thesis examination, Bethany gave a public talk titled, “The circumstellar environments of B-emission stars constrained by optical interferometry”.
Bethany’s thesis supervisor was Professor Carol Jones.
Although Saturday had dawned crystal clear, there was a blustery wind, and the forecast was dicey because of the battle between the local high pressure system and the remnants of Hurricane Matthew.
This was the day the Western would celebrate its 7th annual International Observe the Moon Night (INOMN). The event is organized by The Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (CPSX), The Department of Physics and Astronomy, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, London Centre, and the Planetary Society, London Chapter.
Forging ahead, the intrepid volunteers arrived at about 3pm to set up displays and telescopes. Parshati Patel, Dilini Subasinghe, Will Hyland, and Nastaran Ghafouriansahraei prepared the lecture room and visitors information table. In the basement, Christy Caudill and Sarah Simpson prepared the impact crater demo, while Elise Harrington would be demonstrating the Sotellunium (Sun-Earth-Moon model). Jennifer Newman set up a table containing the Western meteorite collection. On the observing floor, Everett Clark, Paul Kerans, Dave Clark, Robin Arnason, and Henry Leparskas got telescopes ready, opened the dome and pointed to the moon as it came in and out of the clouds. Dave had his 20.3cm Meade scope, while Paul used his 23.5cm telescope, and lastly Peter Jedicke used the 25.4cm Dobsonian mounted Newtonian reflecting scope. He was later accompanied by Dave McCarter. The historic 25.4cm refracting scope of managed by Robin Arnason and Dilini Subasinghe.
By the 5:00pm opening time everything was in readiness, and as doors opened, a few visitors trickled in. At about the same time a dark set of ominous clouds also descended over north London and the campus.
The clouds were a bit of a disappointment to the telescope volunteers, because the first quarter moon was already well above the horizon and would have been visible otherwise. However, there was lots for visitors to do, as they were given tours of the old telescopes on the observing floor, and got to ask questions about the more modern telescopes that had been deployed on the observing deck outside. Visitors could also enjoy the demonstrations going on in the basement, and they could also get lots of cool stuff at the information table that was situated in the lecture room.
As more visitors began to arrive, at 6:00pm Prof. Catherine Neish spoke in the lecture room on ‘My Favourite Moons’, and at 6:30pm Prof. Phil Stooke spoke on the ‘The Voyages of Apollo’.
By the 7:00 draw time, the building had filled with visitors. Draw time was exciting, as one lucky winner went home with a new telescope, while two other winners received autographed books by retired astronaut Harrison Schmidt, along with other small goodies from CPSX.
As if scripted, as the draw finished visitors looked up to witness that the skies had completely cleared. There was a rush of visitors upstairs, who were greeted with great telescope views of the Moon, Mars, Saturn, and the Andromeda galaxy M31.
By this time Tricia Colvin and Mark Tovey were now also giving tours of the historic 1940 period room, and Peter Jedicke has arrived to help visitors view the sky through the 20cm Dobsonian mounted reflecting telescope.
The observatory hummed with activity for the rest of the evening, and by 10:00pm a few reluctant stragglers departed and the doors were closed.
On the observing deck an announcement was made that we would be in store for the viewing of an Iridium Flare. Sure enough, at about 20:12, visitors spotted the Iridium satellite as it travelled south over London. It brightened significantly as its solar panels sent some extra sunlight down towards London, though the flare was a bit fainter than expected.
Approximately 300 visitors attended INOMN 2016 at Western.
Lead organizer was Outreach Program Co-ordinator for CPSX, Dr. Parshati Patel.