Friday, December 14, 7pm
Space Place, 2300 S. Park St., Madison WI

MAS’s annual telescope clinic is a chance for people in the Madison area to get their questions answered about telescopes and binoculars. It may also help you with some ideas for the gift-giving season.

Do you have an old telescope that’s gathering dust because you don’t know how to use it?

Maybe it’s broken or missing a piece.

Maybe you tried it last year and just couldn’t get it to work.

Whatever the case, come on out and learn something. MAS members will be on hand to look your scope over with you, diagnose any issues, and teach you how to use it if necessary. If you’re not a scope owner yet, you may walk away with some ideas. We’ll have a few popular types of telescopes on hand to serve as models.

This is also our annual solstice party, so feel free to bring a tray of cookies or other delicious holiday snack to share. See you Friday at Space Place, 2300 S. Park St, Madison, WI.

Topic: Has science lost the public trust?

Description: Some say astronomy is a “gateway science.” With compelling images, a long and storied history, and the power to spark curiosity, astronomy has often succeeded better than other sciences at capturing public attention. With news announcements like the first detection of high-energy neutrinos at IceCube and the audible “chirp” of gravitational waves from LIGO, the scientific community celebrates the opportunity to share with others the excitement of the field. Astronomy seems to have earned the public’s trust.

But we also live in an age where people dismiss information off-hand if it doesn’t fit their world view. Some despise expertise. Hosts of people deny the human causes of climate change, attribute childhood vaccines to unrelated conditions, and believe the Earth is flat. Meanwhile, political leaders appear to ignore scientific evidence and, in some cases, actively work against it.

Has science in general lost the public trust? If so, how can we earn it back?

Kelly Tyrrell is a scientist-turned-science writer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a BS in Zoology from the University of Florida and an MS in Cellular and Molecular Biology from UW–Madison. In 2011, she was a Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), learning journalism – trial-by-fire – at the Chicago Tribune. Tyrrell has also worked as a health and science reporter for the News Journal in Wilmington, DE, and as a freelance writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2014, she joined the University Communications team at UW–Madison, where she covers research of all kinds. In 2018, she published an online storytelling project called Origins, which features a chapter on the Southern African Large Telescope. She considers it an immense privilege to have visited the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.

On Friday, April 14, 2017, 7:00 pm at UW Space Place, the MAS general meeting will feature a talk by Craig Deller on the Conservation of the Historic Dearborn Telescope.

The Dearborn Telescope has been in the collection of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum since 1930. Considered the largest in the world when it was built, the telescope has significant historical importance to both Chicago and astronomy. This presentation will examine the telescope’s history, condition examination, and original surface recovery treatment.

Craig Deller is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works and on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s “Interior Surfaces Conservation Lab…