(This article originally appeared in the Q1 2006 STAR newsletter.  -I)

A Visit to Tri-Star

by Phyllis Lang

On Saturday morning, March 3, Mark and I drove to Greensboro for Tri-Star, an event sponsored by Guilford Technical Community College.  We hadn’t attended this event before but the schedule of speakers looked inviting.

After the short drive to Greensboro on a beautifully sunny morning, we arrived to find vendors already setup, a few astronomy friends milling about and Elizabeth Warner just beginning her talk on the results of the Deep Impact mission to a rather full auditorium.  Elizabeth gave an update to the science gleaned from the mission - a really nice complement to the talk she gave in Raleigh several months ago.  Her animations and images of the comet and the impact were really neat.  She also mentioned that rather than being a dirty snowball (a la Fred Whipple), Tempel 1 is more of an icy dirtball.

Next, we heard Dr. Rob Knop of Vanderbilt University discuss the expanding universe.  Dr. Knop was a very animated speaker doing theoretical research on this popular topic.  His talk turned out to be a perfect preliminary for Dr. Dan Reichart’s afternoon talk about his team’s discovery of the most distant GRB discovery last September.

Finally, Dennis Hands of Cline Observatory/Natural Science Center Greensboro presented a talk about his two week stay at the Mars Desert Research Station.  He applied and was accepted for a “mission” at the station which simulates actual human visitation on Mars.  Although there were some allowances made for NOT really being on Mars, the team tried to adhere to the rules of being in simulation for the full 2 weeks.  The station is run by the Mars Society and is located in Utah.

Between talks, Mark and I enjoyed looking over the very impressive submissions to the  astrophotography competition, and wandering through the vendor tables which included NC vendors Big Bang Astronomy Shop and Seibert Optics.  There were obviously some talented astrophotographers present at the meeting.

As usual for this type of event, we enjoyed seeing friends and meeting some new ones.  Since lunch was served on site, we had a good opportunity to mingle further with everyone.  In addition to people from the western half of the state, we ran into several RAC members: Mike Etkin, Jim Pressley, Bob Wolk, Jerry Watson, and John Nigro.

It was a truly enjoyable day that included insights into some cutting edge astronomical research, exchange of ideas with fellow amateurs and the camaraderie that makes our hobby so special.