The March 2021 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2019 – 2021 (138th) session will be held on Friday, March 19th from 19:00 to 21:00.

I am very pleased to tell you that this Friday we have speaking for us Professor Derek Ward-Thompson of the University of Central Lancashire.

This talk, which was highly requested, was originally planned for March 2020, however the pandemic derailed things.

Our guest speaker will be Professor Derek Ward-Thompson, Head of the School of Physical Sciences and Computing at the University of Central Lancashire, Director of the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute and President of the UK Society for Popular Astronomy. Professor Ward-Thompson’s lecture is entitled:

“How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole“

In April 2019 the first ever picture of the region around a black hole was published, generating world-wide interest. The technology required to produce this image was extremely challenging, to say the least.

In this talk I will endeavour to explain how this was done, the technical challenges that had to be overcome and the technological breakthroughs necessary to achieve this. I will then explain what the results mean in terms of the astrophysical implications for this black hole, which lies at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87.

I will finish by discussing how the observations might help us to understand the theory of general relativity and test the theory in the limit of ‘extreme gravity’.

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I do hope you can join me and your fellow members, but if you are unable to attend, please indicate your apologies to me by filling out this form.

With best wishes – Mark