Lecturing on the Far side of the World
Last month I had a wonderful experience. I was the 2013 Beatrice Hill Tinsley Lecturer . This award involved me stopping off in New Zealand following a planned trip to the Southern Hemisphere (for a conference on science results from Galaxy Zoo held in Sydney, Australia and to visit collaborators in Perth, Australia) to give a series of lectures across the country. My itinerary in September and October around the Southern hemisphere The Beatrice Hill Tinsley Lecture series was started in 2012 by the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. The idea of the series was to enable RASNZ to invite an international researcher in astronomy/astrophysics to New Zealand to give a series of pubic talks hosted by regional astronomy groups. New Zealand has a population of 4.4 million (half that of London) and despite having only a handful of professional astronomers this includes a very active community of amateur astronomers. My trip started in New Plymouth, where the local astronomy s...