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Happening
at the Crossroads
August 18,
2008
by Coggin
Heeringa
Crossroads
at Big Creek will focus on "seeing the light" this week with two
enlightening lectures. On Thursday, August 21 at 7:00 PM, Dr.
David Andersen from the NRC Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics will
present the illustrated lecture "Adaptive Optics in Astronomy."
On Friday, August 22 at 7:00 writers Ken and Barb Wardius present a
lecture/book signing on "Wisconsin Lighthouses."
These two
programs have several things in common. In both presentations,
the images will be absolutely stunning. But the relationship does not
end there. Lighthouses and telescopes depend on lenses.
The
light from a lighthouse was visible over long distances because the
beam was condensed by a Fresnel lens, an optical instrument invented by
the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel. A Fresnel lens could bend
and magnify light rays by focusing them.
Telescopes also use
lenses to focus light, but even so, celestial images are often
distorted by turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. Adaptive optics use
innovative wave front sensors and computers to focus the light.
In
the Thursday presentation, Dr, Andersen will discuss--in lay person's
terms--his work as a researcher in Canada and at various observatories
throughout the world as he projects his amazing images of space. This
program is free and open to the public.0
Ken and Barb
Wardius, authors of Wisconsin Lighthouses A Photographic and Historical
Guide” will present a slide /lecture that highlights many of Wisconsin
’s historical beacons. Their program features many
historical images in a combination of lecture, story telling and
music. The presentation covers 1/3 of the lights in the
state, including Cana Island Lighthouse, Wisconsin Point Light, Sand
Island Light, Rockwell Lighthouse, Rawley Point, Wind Point and many
more. A suggested donation of $5.00/per will be used for land
debt reduction at Crossroads.
This
week, we bid farewell to our Summer Intern Amberle Eversen. Families
are encouraged to join her in her last interpretive program of the
season on Tuesday at 10:00.This time of year, a bug scavenger hunt is
almost certain to be successful.
Crossroads
at Big Creek is located at the intersection of Highway 42/57 and
Michigan in Sturgeon Bay. The trails are free and during summer, all
are open people and their keen-nosed pets (if the pets are on leash and
under control.) The Wisconsin Wildlife Exhibit in the Collins Learning
Center is open to the public 1:00-3:00 daily during the summer.
Many of
the Past News articles may be retrieved from this directory,
indexed and named in the following manner: 080101-news.htm
where
the first two numbers are the year, the second two the month and the
last two the date.
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