Benjamin Dean Astronomy Lectures - California Academy of Sciences

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$A small image of a galaxy distorted by gravitational lensing into a dim ring. At the top of the ring are three very bright spots with diffraction spikes coming off them, right next to each other: these are copies of a single quasar in the lensed galaxy, duplicated by the gravitational lens. In the centre of the ring, the elliptical galaxy doing the lensing appears as a small blue dot. The background is black and empty.$

The gravitational lensing of the quasar known as RX J1131-1231 is considered one of the best lensed quasars discovered to date. The foreground galaxy smears the image of the background quasar into a bright arc and creates four images of the object. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Nierenberg

Benjamin Dean Astronomy Lectures

Revealing Dark Matter with Strong Gravitational Lensing

Mon. Jun. 2nd at 7:30 pm - Planetarium

Gain new insight into the nature of dark matter.
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This wide-band mosaic image of the solar surface was taken on June 22, 2022, at the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope located on La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain. The image showcases beautiful examples of sunspot active regions and high-resolution surface granulation. Mosaic courtesy of Luc Rouppe van der Voort.

Benjamin Dean Astronomy Lectures

The Sun and the Earth: A Magnetic Connection

Mon. Jul. 14th at 7:30 pm - Planetarium

Why is the Sun’s atmosphere so hot? Learn how the magnetic field is shaped by the diffuse Solar atmosphere.
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This illustration shows a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which astronomers use to study very distant and very faint galaxies. Lensing clusters are clusters of elliptical galaxies whose gravity is so strong that they bend the light from the galaxies behind them. This produces distorted, and often multiple, images of the background galaxy. But despite this distortion, gravitational lenses allow for greatly improved observations as the gravity bends the light’s path towards Hubble, amplifying the light and making otherwise invisible objects observable. Credit: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada

Benjamin Dean Astronomy Lectures

The Most Powerful Zoom Lenses in the Universe

Mon. Aug. 11th at 7:30 pm - Planetarium

Delve into the phenomenon of gravitational lensing to study the fine structure of quasars and map dark matter.