JDavid Levy & the Jasper Dark Sky Festival in Canadaa
As many of you know, I have been gallivanting around N.America over the las few weeks, and am presently in stunning Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.
My time here has amazingly coincided with their Dark Sky estival, which involves many activities over 3 days. They did get some great viewing on Friday night, but I was on the GreyHound bus from Vancouver, but yday was fabulous.
It involved a series of talks from well know Canadian astronomers, scientiss etc.
1) ffrst one was by Jaymie Mattthews, and what an amazing and funny presenter. A few might know of him, and his involvement in te MOST mission (Canadas camera in space), and Kepler Missions, and more
2) by Chris Beckett from the RASC, this was on .The Greatest Things to see in the Night Sky' and was wonderful, for anyone wanting to give a talk and looking for a topic - this was about AIr Glow, Belt of Venus, Sundogs, Notilucent clouds, aurora, Milky Way - I loved it.
3) David Levy!!!!! Yes, a talk around his introduction into astronomy, comets etc. A wonderful talk by a a very down to Earth man. I was lucky to get up and shake his hand afterwards, joining the queue, and a pic. I was very overwhelmed, and wanted to say more, and all I could utter was ' Hi, am Liz from Australia', and I dont think he understood my accent anyway.
other talks were also great, including a NAtive American guide to the constellations.
The bigest talk of hte day, were the theatre was packed, was by a guy called Jay Ingram, who I hadnt heard of, but am sure some of you have. He has been heavily involved in scince TTV, Discovery Channel and radio over there. His talk was about birds of the feathered variety and their inttelligence. Lots of examples, inclu their migration by day and night by the Sun and connstellations. Studies were done in Planetariums to suupport this!!
Heap more activites over the 2 days, though winding down now.
THere is a talk today by a ... night sky photographer Yuichi Takasaka, but I am off touring in a train.
It is just been made know that Chris Hatfield is opening next years event!! This is a wonderful opportunity to combine holidays and astronomy in a very dark sky site. I was very priviliged indeed!!
I used to live in Alberta and it will always be dear to me, I hope you have plenty of sky time because it is clear so much of the time, unlike BC hehe. The northern lights at that latitude can be annoying in their magnitude but amazing in itself. Enjoy.
