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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

CASCA and other astro-nerdy stuff

Last week was CASCA, which stands for the "Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society" (I know... astronomers aren't very good with acronyms, though it actually makes sense in French, being "Congrès Annuel de la Société Canadienne d'Astronomie", so that's probably where it comes from, plus, AGMCAS sounds stupid). This year it was held at UofT. It was really interesting, with lots of great talks, lots of free food, and some great socializing.

Some of the highlights (for a full schedule, see here), for me at least, were the session on public outreach (very important, it seems), the Town Hall lunch meeting, the screening of "Hawaiian Starlight", the public lecture by Lawrence Krauss (it was his birthday, and so the entire audience sang for him), the banquet and bar-hopping afterwards, and the cosmology sessions. I also got to see my old professor from BU, Lorne Nelson. Overall, it was a great experience. It felt really good to be among a few hundred of my fellow astronomers.

In other news, another UofT Astronomy Public Tour is taking place on Thursday at 9:10 pm, though I won't be there because I'm taking a little trip down to Montreal, and then to the Townships. If you're in Toronto, you should check it out.

In other other news, I have a second paper on the arXiv! I'm third author, but considering it was work done in my undergrad, I'm not complaining.

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