speakers

THERE WILL BE NO SPEAKERS AT THE NO-FRILLS FALL MDSP

(Listed below are the speakers from the 2010 Summer FULL MDSP)

If you wish to be a speaker at this years MDSP, click here

Speaker Topics and Bios
The following speakers have been confirmed for the Fall MDSP

We are still working on our lineup of Speaker for this summers MDSP. Check back later.

We are still looking for several speakers to fill in our schedule. If you wish to be a speaker at this years MDSP, click here

Dr. Martin Rice
Galileo — The Trickster
Saturday, 2:30PM
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter and his celestial use of the telescope, we’ll look at the manner in which which he championed Heliocentrism over Geocentrism … which wasn’t always that scientific, objective, or honest.

Martin Rice is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh’s Johnstown campus where he advises the student astronomy club. His primary teaching responsibilities are in Philosophy of Science, Logic, the Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophy of Religion. When not collecting telescopes, he’s championing the advantages of the typewriter over the computer.

Jan Romer
When Seeing was Believing
Saturday, 1:00PM
When Seeing was Believing: The E.L. Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings
Anybody who actually knows the name “Trouvelot” probably knows it because of that other thing. Justly so, but E. L. Trouvelot was also a talented and trained artist who had access to some of America’s finest telescopes during a very exciting time. He was an excellent observer who produced precise and detailed images of astronomical objects. In 1882, he published a series of chromolithographs illustrating some of the wonders he had observed, along with a companion Manual that explained the illustrations. But the age of visual observation had come to its end, and as the age of photography progressed, Trouvelot’s images were ignored, dismissed and even ridiculed. Eventually, they were relegated to storage and then forgotten. Now, in the new age of electronic imaging, Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings – and the Manual that accompanied them – deserve a second look.

Jan Romer has been a happy visual observer for thirty years, and enjoys making sketches at the eyepiece.