Cosmic Vision: Attentive Eyes - Katherine Blundell

00:00 // Introduction 04:00 // Of Perhaps a Couple of Hours 09:52 // Mars and to Study It as It Rotates and as It Moves 14:00 // We Want to Use Averted Vision 17:12 // To Practice Using Your Averted Vision 20:57 // How Could This Famous Star in Orion 25:03 // Which Minimizing Light Pollution Is Important 31:23 // Why Do I Draw Attention 36:27 // That Member of the Public About Scintillation 40:13 // What Are the Analogies 44:04 // Night Sky with Our Eyes 47:23 // Great Conjunction, Visible 51:16 // Imagine That the Star That's Delineated by Those Two 59:20 // How Are Machines Able to Take Pictures on Mars While Well-trained eyes can be remarkably useful for capturing light curves of evolving objects in the cosmos, even contributing to modern research programmes. This lecture will consider how stargazing with imperfect, non-linear human eyes can accomplish such a feat, and the important contributions that this makes to elucidating the phenomena of nova detonations in our galaxy. This lecture was recorded by Katherine Blundell on 28 October 2020. Professor of Astronomy (2019 - 2023) Katherine was appointed Gresham Professor of Astronomy in 2019. She is a Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University and a Research Fellow at St John's College. Before this she was one of the Royal Society's University Research Fellows, a Research Fellow of the 1851 Royal Commission, and a Junior Research Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford. Her research interests include the evolution of active galaxies and their life cycles, the accretion of material near black holes and the launch and propagation of relativistic jets (jets of plasma emitted by some black holes). In her research she uses electromagnetic imaging and spectroscopy, as well as computational techniques. She is also a renowned science communicator and set up a worldwide network of five schools-based Global Jet Watch observatories, which collect data on evolving black hole systems and nova explosions in our Galaxy, helping to inspire the next generation of scientists in South Africa, Chile, Australia and India. Her awards include a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Astrophysics, the Royal Society's Rosalind Franklin Medal in 2010, the Institute of Physics Bragg Medal in 2012, the Royal Astronomical Society's Darwin Lectureship in 2015 and an OBE for services to astronomy and the education of young people in 2017. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://gres.hm/attentive-eyes Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Website: https://gresham.ac.uk Twitter: Twitter: greshamcollege Facebook: Facebook: greshamcollege Instagram: Instagram: greshamcollege