Brighton Astro: The European Southern Observatory – at the cutting edge of astronomy

The European Southern Observatory — ESO — was established in 1962 to provide astronomers in Europe with access to the southern skies by operating an observatory in Chile. Its five founding Member States have now grown to sixteen, including the UK. Since its inception ESO has been at the forefront of technological and engineering development and it now operates a suite of telescopes on three sites. In this Peter will describe ESO, its history and some of the cutting-edge instruments it now operates, and highlight just a few of the remarkable discoveries made with those facilities.

Peter Grimley is an editorial consultant working with ESO, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory and the International Astronomical Union. He has a BSc in Physics with Astrophysics from Leicester University and a PhD in astronomy from University College Cardiff. Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) and manages a programme of talks for the Friends of the RAS (ras.ac.uk/friends).

If you sign up via meetup but can no longer attend, please update your status to say that you are no longer attending so that someone on the waiting list gets a place.

Please only come along if you’ve signed up, as we’re limited on space so won’t be able to fit anyone else in.

Wagner Hall is on on Regency Road, Brighton.
Attendance is free, but we would be grateful if those of you who are able to could donate a few pounds to help cover the cost of hiring this event space. We will have a card reader and a money box you can drop your donations in on the night. We also have a bank account you can donate to electronically.

Please note that the venue has a bar.