Peter Dunckel to speak at 8 p.m. October 27

As professional astronomers employ ever-greater instruments with ever-greater costs, is there any way in which amateurs with modest equipment can contribute to the science? Yes, says Peter Dunckel, an amateur astronomer who resides in San Francisco. At his “Rattlesnake Creek Observatory”, located at his vacation home in Grass Valley, he gathers asteroid light curves with his 7- and 10-inch telescopes, and combines the results with those from other observatories.

The fruits of this amateur-professional collaboration include Peter’s first scientific paper at age 75, after a career as a marketing executive. Figure of the double Asteroid 90 Antiope from adaptive optics and lightcurve observations appeared in the April 2007 edition of Icarus, with Peter’s name among 20 authors, and his Rattlesnake Creek Observatory included with 8 other contributing institutions. Peter is pleased with the results from the combination of his observational data with those from Lick, Keck, and VLT.

Peter will present results from the Antiope mapping project at the October 27 general meeting. He will then use that as a springboard to promote the opportunities for further amateur/professional collaborations, about which he is excited.

A news release on the 90 Antiope project can be found at http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/03/29_antiope.shtml .