Planetary Society Weekly Hangout: the Giant ALMA Observatory, and Asteroid Tracking

Posted by Bruce Betts

2013/03/20 01:31 CDT

Topics: events and announcements, podcasts and videos, Planetary Society, Planetary Radio, Planetary Society Video, Planetary Society Projects, Shoemaker NEO Grants, asteroids, comets, Earth impact hazard, radio telescopes, astronomy, planetary astronomy

Mat Kaplan and I, along with guest Robert Holmes had a Google Hangout on March 21, 2013, and the video is below. Mat discussed his trip to the giant ALMA observatory and we were joined by asteroid tracker extraordinaire, Robert Holmes.

Mat gave a trip report and showed images from his recent trip to Chile to the dedication of the world's largest ground based observatory: Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array. Bruce and Mat chatted with near Earth asteroid tracker Robert Holmes who runs the Astronomical Research Institute in Illinois, USA. Bob, technically an amateur astronomer, makes more asteroid observations than any other observatory on Earth. He is a 3 time winner of Planetary Shoemaker NEO Grants and will soon start using yet another telescope, a 50 inch.