AoT Leiden: Astronomical Instruments From Huygens To Today
The next Astronomy on Tap Leiden will take place on Monday 31 July at Grand Café de Burcht (Burgsteeg 14, 2312 JS Leiden) at 20:00 CEST.
Join the event for a night of astronomy with two fantastic talks from Alex Pietrow and Bernhard Brandl, who will tell us about the advancement of astronomical instruments from the time of Huygens to state-of-the-art modern telescopes today. As always, there will be fun games where you could win cool science prizes.
Alex Pietrow: "Through Huygens' Eyes; A Visionary's Vision Impaired"
Christiaan Huygens was a brilliant polymath, arguably overshadowing the likes of Einstein in the volume and impact of his discoveries. From hyper accurate clocks, to the predecessor of the projector, you could fill a bookshelf with his biographies. Despite that it is still possible to find out new things about Huygens and his work. In this talk, Alex will show you Huygens' revolutionary, yet mysteriously underperforming telescopes, and explain how he estimated Huygens' eyeglass prescription 328 years after his death.
Bernhard Brandl: “The best and biggest telescopes are only as good as the 'eyes' behind them!”
A key component of observational astronomy are the instruments behind the telescope which record the information that the Universe provides. As modern telescopes have grown in size, so have these instruments, with sizes of several meters and tons in weight. In this talk, Bernhard will explain why and show some recent state-of-the-art instruments.