Qld Astrofest 2018 is over for another year!

Astrofest 2018 marked 25 years at Lions Camp Duckadang near Linville, between Friday, 3rd August and Sunday, 12th August 2018. 

The event is now over and the Qld Astrofest Committee are having a well deserved rest!!  Photos and other information will be online as soon as they get to the webmaster.

Speakers

First weekend: Jonti Horner of USQ.  Jonti first became interested in astronomy at the age of five, after seeing the BBC TV programme 'The Sky at Night', and soon became an enthusiastic amateur astronomer. He joined his local astronomical society in the UK, WYAS (the West Yorkshire Astronomical Society) at the age of eight, and is currently honoured to serve as the society's honorary president. To pursue his dream of turning his hobby into a career, Jonti studied a Masters' degree in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Durham, before moving to the University of Oxford to undertake his doctoral studies. Once his PhD was complete, Jonti worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bern and the UK's Open University before moving to Australia in 2010 to work at UNSW. In 2014, he moved to Toowoomba, to join the University of Southern Queensland, where he is now Professor of Astrophysics. His research ranges from the study of our own Solar system to the search for planets orbiting other stars, as well as trying to understand the different factors that could come together to make one planet more or less suitable as a target in the search for life beyond Earth.

Second weekend: Serge Antonov of Astro Devices.  Serge has had a passion for astronomy ever since he was in high school, but it wasn’t until later in life that he got the time to focus more on it.It was in 2006 when Serge was trying to find a DSC for his scope that he realised there was nothing on the market that suited his needs, and this led to him deciding to create a device that had all the features he wanted. Using his thirty years of experience as an engineer, Serge launched the world’s first Bluetooth DSC – the BETI. The success of BETI has afforded Serge the opportunity to create the Nexus DSC, the world’s most advanced DSC.Serge and Astro Devices now travel all over the world to shows and star parties to showcase the Nexus DSC and introduce astronomy to new audiences around the globe.