[AANC Contacts] AANC Board Meeting Feb 8th and "First 2 Billion Years" Lecture March 4th at Foothill

[Kenneth Frank]

Just a reminder, the AANC will have a Board Meeting Sunday, February 8th, 10 am at Chabot 
Space and Science Center in the Dellums Room.
Directions to Chabot: www.chabotspace.org/visit/directions.asp

It's not to soon to start planning for the upcoming Conference September 12 concurrent 
with the ASP:
http://www.astrosociety.org/events.html

If you want to participate or have input, please email Alan Gould <adgould at comcast.net> 
so he can post it on the Issues page:
http://aanc-astronomy.org/minutes/Issues.html

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On Wednesday, March 4, at 7 pm, astronomer Steven Beckwith, the former Director of the 
Space Telescope Science Institute (which runs the Hubble), will give a
non-technical, illustrated talk on:
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The Dawn of Creation: The First Two Billion Years
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as part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures in the Smithwick Theater, Foothill 
College, El Monte Road and Freeway 280, in Los Altos Hills, California.

Free and open to the public. Parking  $2. Call the series hot-line at 650-949-7888 for 
more information and driving directions.

All the great islands of stars got their start in the first billion years after the 
beginning of time, the Big Bang.
Every deep picture of the sky reveals thousands of these galaxies, each made up of 
billions of stars like the Sun.
The intricate structures of the Milky Way and other galaxies took shape slowly, building 
up from many pieces in the debris of the initial explosion.
This process was governed by the mysterious dark matter that we can sense but still not see.
Modern instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope have made it possible to look back to a 
time when the universe looked very different that it does today.
Dr. Beckwith will show some of the deepest images of the universe ever taken and share 
recent discoveries about the early days of the cosmos.

Steven Beckwith is currently the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies for the 
University of California's ten campuses.
His 30-year research career spans many areas of astronomy, including the formation and 
early evolution of planets around other stars and the birth of galaxies in the early 
universe. In 2004, he led the team that created the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, 
resulting in the discovery of the most distant galaxies ever seen.

The lecture is co-sponsored by:
* NASA Ames Research Center
* The Foothill College Astronomy Program
* The SETI Institute
* The Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

This talk is part of the local events celebrating the International Year of Astronomy in 2009.

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Past Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are now available in MP3 format at:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/podcast/index.html