Posted on: Tuesday, April 9, 2002

Visiting astronomers to give free lectures

By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Staff Writer

WAIMEA, Hawai'i — Two visiting astronomers will appear at free lectures this week as a part of the W.M. Keck Observatory's 10th anniversary celebration.

Richard Ellis, director of the Palomar Observatory in California and a professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, will speak Thursday on "Gravitational Lensing: Nature's Giant Telescopes." Friday evening, Joseph Miller of the Lick Observatory in California will discuss "The Intimate Relationship between Galaxies and Quasars, the Monsters that Live at Their Centers." Both events are open to the public and begin at 7 p.m. at the Gates Performing Arts Center on the upper campus of Hawai'i Preparatory Academy.

On Sunday, the observatory headquarters in South Kohala will conduct a free open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Completed in 1992, the Keck I telescope is the world's most powerful tool for exploring the universe. The Keck II telescope opened in 1997. Both $70 million projects were financed by grants from the Los-Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation.

The observatory is operated by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a partnership between the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and NASA. For more information on anniversary events, call Laura Kraft at (808) 881-3827.