Long night of Astronomy 2023

I represented the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam (AIP) at a science outreach event organised at the Tempelhofer Feld, Berlin. I was accompanied by Dr. Andreas Kelz, group head of Multi-Object spectroscopy at the AIP.

The event was open to the public and was a chance to meet and talk to amateur astronomers, astrophotographers and astrophysicists about the field. Our stand had a model of an e-Rosita telescope lens. This brought a lot of people to our stand because many were curious about the shiny round tube. Since I use X-rays to study the evolutionary scatter of magnetic activity and e-Rosita is a German X-ray telescope, I got a chance to share the importance of X-ray telescopes and its contribution to the understanding of high energy phenomenon in the universe.

e-Rosita lens demonstration
Demonstrating the workings of an X-ray telescope lens and comparing it to the lens in my spectacles. Image credits: AIP

Dr. Kelz on the other hand shared about the importance of spectroscopy and also had a spectroscope as a hands-on demo.

Overall our stand was a huge success as people stood by to listen to us even in stormy weather.