Seeing the Stars from Australia, Montecito

This month’s public viewing with Westmont’s Keck Telescope will include a free lecture by a world-renowned astronomer from Australia. Martin George, curator at the Launceston Planetarium of the Queen Victoria Museum, will speak on “Astronomy Down Under: Studying the Sky from Australia,” Friday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m. in the Carroll Observatory lecture hall.

Weather permitting, the lecture will precede the public viewing event, held every third Friday of the month in conjunction with the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit.

George is past president of the International Planetarium Society (IPS) and chair of the IPS’s International Relations Committee. During his time as president in 2005-2006, he worked with planetariums in China and Brazil to strengthen international ties among the planetarium community. This year he has worked closely with planetariums in Russia.

George contributes to numerous magazines, newspapers, television and radio shows and is administrator of the Grote Reber Medal for Radio Astronomy, the world’s most prestigious award for radio astronomy.

Traveling to more than 50 countries, George has visited observatories and planetariums and has run several astronomy-based tours, including three to total solar eclipses.