March 11, 2017

March 11, 2017

This morning we drove downtown to the annual Tucson Book Festival on the University campus.  I am dragging Aimee here because many of the laboratories have an open house during the event.  Our first stop is at the Science City tent to get tour tickets. 

After perusing the hundreds of book seller booths we head over to the Optical Science lab. The U of A is known for its Astronomy department.  An offspring of this focus (no pun intended) is world class optical science.  A major innovation has been Adaptive Optics, warpable lenses that can eliminate the atmospheric distortion of earth-based telescopes.  We listen to a short lecture on microscope advances.  All the new advances are using computing power to push the traditional limits of optics. We also saw a demo on Holography and another on Thermal Imaging with Infrared.

A couple doors away is the offices of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory that runs nearby Kitt Peak.  They turned one of the offices into a giant Camera Obscura. Also known as a pinhole camera, light bounced off the exterior scenery passes through a small hole in the side of the building and is magically projected onto a screen inside.  I remember doing something similar as a kid with a cardboard box to view a solar eclipse.

We finished with a tour of the Insect collection of the Arthropod department.  The manager showed us his archives of all the insects found in the local area. Not surprisingly with our warm weather, it is huge. As part of a community outreach project, he also identifies insects for locals who bring in specimens.