MORAY WINTER FESTIVAL

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Moray Winter Festival Science Programme

Elgin Town Hall
Saturday 24 November 10am – 4pm
Sunday 25 November 1pm – 4pm

MINI SCIENCE LECTURES

In association with Moray’s Astronomy Club, SIGMA and St Andrew’s University.

Saturday, 24 November 2007

10:30 – 11:00 FACE OF THE FUTURE
A team from St Andrews University will be showing how computers can be used to recognise faces, and show how they developed software that is able to combine two faces into a new one.

11:30 – 12:00 THE STUFF THAT COMETS ARE MADE OF
Bill Leslie and his team from SIGMA will be telling us a bit about comets and showing, by actually making one, what they are made of.

12:30 – 13:00 IMAGES OF THE NIGHT SKY
A selection of images of objects in the night sky and their explanation, by local amateur astro-photographer Alan Tough from Moray’s Astronomy Club, SIGMA.

13:30 – 14:00 THE STARS, THE CHURCH AND THE LONELY QUEST
Isaac Newton was born prematurely on Christmas Day 1642, but lived a long life and brilliantly and radically changed the way we see the world. And, as Howie Firth explains, his insights sometimes came from surprising fields of study.

14:30 – 15:00 THE STUFF THAT COMETS ARE MADE OF
For those that didn’t get a chance to see it earlier, Bill and his colleagues will have another attempt at making a comet.

15:30 – 16:00 THE SUN AND THE MOON
The two brightest objects in the sky, but what do we know about them? Bill Leslie from SIGMA will be showing us some interesting facts about the Sun and the Moon.

Sunday, 25 November 2007

13:30 – 14:00 FROM ELECTRONS TO VOLCANOES
Millimetre waves are a fairly unknown part of the spectrum between infrared light and microwaves, but they have properties which make them useful in a wide variety of applications. Dr. Paul Cruickshank from St Andrews University will show how they help with mapping the shapes of volcanoes to model growth to examining electrons in molecules to work out their structure.

14:30 – 15:00 THE STUFF THAT COMETS ARE MADE OF
A last chance to see Bill Leslie and his team from SIGMA creating a comet while explaining about their origins.

15:30 – 16:00 THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM
What was the Star of Bethlehem? Could it have been a comet or even a supernova? Maarten de Vries speculates about the origins of the Star and explains how some stars come to a spectacular end.

DEMONSTRATIONS AND HANDS ON

Saturday, 24 November from 10am – 4pm
Sunday, 25 November from 1pm – 4pm

Spaceflight Simulator
Take the controls of a realistic virtual spacecraft and launch it into orbit. If you are very brave, you could try and take it back down again!

Mars Lander
Are you a space explorer? Show us your skills in landing a space probe on the surface of Mars and have a chance of winning a rocket launcher (age restrictions apply). Courtesy Going Nova.

Vision for the Future
A team from St Andrews University will show some practical applications of millimetre waves.

Face of the Future
Ever wondered what you would like if you were a chimp, or a famous film star? The team from St Andrews University shows some of the things you can do with face recognition technology.

The Science of Miniaturisation
Have a go at the controls of one of the world’s smallest remote controlled helicopters.

Please note that programme may change without prior notice.