BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ZContent.net//ZapCalLib 1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Atlantic/Canary:20231107T123000
DTEND;TZID=Atlantic/Canary:20231107T133000
UID:iactalks-1721
X-WR-CALNAME: IAC Talks: Open Astronomy Seminars
X-ORIGINAL-URL: /iactalks/Talks/view/1721
CREATED:2023-11-07T12:30:00+00:00
X-WR-CALDESC: IAC Talks upcomming talks
SUMMARY:Airborne Astronomy: Chasing the trail of John Beckman
DESCRIPTION:Airborne Astronomy: Chasing the trail of John Beckman\nDr. Alex
  S. Borlaff\n\nAt the beginning of the XX century, pilots and scientists r
 ealized that  the detection of certain cosmic events like eclipses were be
 tter  obtained by installing observatories on top of aircraft. This story 
  starts with a 30-year old John Beckman, now professor at the IAC  an
 d  then airborne astronomer pioneer, chasing the Sun over west africa on  
 the wings of a French supersonic airplane. Controlling a Michelson  interf
 erometer with one hand and filling with liquid helium at 17.000 m  from th
 e ground while flying at 2000 km/h, John broke both the barried  of sound 
 and the Guiness record of the longest eclipse ever observed.  The legacy o
 f that one in a lifetime mission made ESA and NASA start the  astronaut se
 lection program for the Space Shuttle and set the bases of  the SOFIA airb
 orne observatory, a mission that made our team able to  detect the shape o
 f the magnetic fields in external galaxies. 
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR