Slacker Astronomy » Audio Podcasts

Podcast: Light Pollution

michael — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:26:36 +0000

Special Correspondent Julie Wilbert brings us a podcast report on light pollution with members of the Minnesota Astronomical Society.

Light Pollution (MP3, 17.2MB, 18:40)

Subscribe!

Whatever the hell is Slacker Astronomy?

michael — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:53:45 +0000

I posted this to the feed a while ago. It’s a short-ish podcast which discusses the history of Slacker Astronomy with Aaron Price, the founder of Slacker Astronomy, and includes random musings by yours truly about the future of the podcast/blog. I marked this explicit in iTunes because I use the f-word once.

Whatever the hell is Slacker Astronomy (MP3, 17MB, 18:30)

As always, we welcome your feedback so email us if anything comes to mind.

Podcast interview with Brant Robertson

michael — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:00:37 +0000

We have a new show! Doug and I had a great chat with Brant Robertson, who is a Spitzer Fellow doing research at The Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. Brant is a theoretical astrophysicist involved with computer simulations of the evolution of galaxies.

Check this sh!t out:

Credit: Brant Robertson, Spitzer Fellow, KICP/UChicago

This interview is quite long so we’ve uploaded low and high rez versions. The low rez version is the one in the RSS feeds.

If you subscribe to the feed, the audio is probably already on your box. Or you can check out the show notes or download the MP3 file directly:

Slacker Astronomy podcast interview with Brant Robertson (low rez) (MP3, 24.7MB, 1:11:20)

Slacker Astronomy podcast interview with Brant Robertson (high rez) (MP3, 65.6MB, 1:11:20)

New Podcast: Slackerpedia Galactica 8.0

michael — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:10:01 +0000

We just posted a new podcast to the feed: Slackerpedia Galactica 8.0: A Brief History of the Universe. So if you subscribe to the feed, the audio is probably already on your box. Or you can check out the show notes or download the MP3 file directly:

Slackerpedia Galactica 8.0: A Brief History of the Universe (MP3, 17.2MB, 36:12)

In this show Doug and I discuss the the cosmological timeline as I wrote about in a previous post. We also talk a little about asteroid 2007 WD5 and its possible upcoming impact with Mars.

First Principles 4.0 - Inside Stars

michael — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:53:50 +0000

Well, we pulled our heads out of our slacker haze and managed to post a new podcast on the feed! It’s a First Principles® episode about stars.

First Principles 4.0 - Inside Stars (MP3 file, 26.7MB, 28:24)

SG 7.0: Interview with Timothy Ferris

michael — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:23:56 +0000

Finally, another exciting podcast installment from the slackers! This episode features chit-chat with Travis, Doug and Michael and an interview with Timothy Ferris.

Listen now (MP3, 48:06, 33.2 MB)

The show notes are on the Slackerpedia Galactica.

Slackerpedia Galactica v6.0

michael — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:37:28 +0000

It’s been on the feed and now it’s on the tubes: check out Slackerpedia Galactica 6.0.

Astronomy, without the boring stuff.

SG 5.0

Aaron — Mon, 07 May 2007 14:08:32 +0000

It’s online. Show notes here

First Principles 2: Mass & Stuff

Aaron — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:28:37 +0000

We have a new first principles and two new skits about McNaughty and Titan.

Show Notes are here.

Discuss in the forums here.

First Principles 1.0: Astronomers

michael — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 05:31:36 +0000

Here is a Slackerpedia Galactica special episode in which we introduce a new little segment dealie called First Principles. It will be a semi-regular segment in the podcasts and we will discuss the basics of topics from stars to statistics and cosmology to F=ma.

In this segment we discuss astronomers: who are they, what do they do and how do they do it.

The show is on the feed so subscribe if you haven’t already. You can also download the audio file directly (MP3 audio file, 7.3MB, 15:34) and there are some show notes available. Tell us what you think in the forums!

Ribert & Roberts Wonderland

Aaron — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 03:23:26 +0000

One more week until AAS and lots of new shows. Until then, you can watch Ribert and Robert's Wonderland episode about Space via this link to Google Video.

SG 4.0: Fairy Tales of Predictions

Aaron — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:01:06 +0000

In this show we cover stories of astronomical predictions: the good, bad and why it’s easier to be the former than the latter. We also have an interview with Ryan Wyatt, a science visualizer at the American Museum of Natural History who talks about what goes on behind the scenes to turn those faint fuzzies into pretty pictures and gives us a report from a recent astro-visualization conference.

Of course we have two new skits, news and more. Everyone is in tha house for this one so check it out, yo…

Details, MP3 and show notes are here.

Discuss the show in our forum here.

SG 3.0: Planet-eating light echos and unicorns?

Aaron — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 04:12:12 +0000

Things are starting to gel with the new show. Rebekah is back so we have two old-school skits on V838 Mon’s light echo and whether it was caused by a planet engulfing event. And we have another skit about a cool meteorite discovered in Kansas using a novel approach that may help look for water on Mars.

Then we roll through some news, topics posted in the forum, and some chit chat. Doug calls in from his observing run at Gemini South on the Cerro Pachon mountain in Chile.

Show notes and links are here..

Discuss the show here…

Cafe Scientifique on “Planetary Systems and Extraterrestrial Life”

dougwelch — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:27:46 +0000

This three half-hour collector’s set of MP3s allows you to vicariously live out your dream of being present at a Cafe Scientifique. Ralph Pudritz and Doug Welch of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada were the presenters. This informal, discussed-oriented event took place at the King Paisley Pub - an excellent place for astronomy outreach, in my humble opinion.

Listen to the audio by downloading parts 1, 2, and 3.

SG #2.0: Drifting in Space

Aaron — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:17:08 +0000

Without Rebekah in this show, we are adrift. But we do our best to bring you some roundtable on current astro hot (and cold) topics. Click here for show notes.

SG Interview: Doug Welch on MACHO

michael — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 15:32:17 +0000

Slackerpedia Galactica Interview: Doug Welch and the MACHO project. (MP3 audio file, 13:28, 6.2M)

MACHO, and its sequel, SuperMACHO, are projects that have directly detected dark matter. Dark matter is dark, yet we can observe it through a variety of clever techniques. One such technique involves measuring the brightness of stars and looking for the effects of gravitational microlenses — stars which get brighter for a brief time, once and only once, as the dark matter passes in front of it.

Dark matter is a funny term because it encompasses all the matter we can’t see. Dark matter is not one thing, it is all the things we can’t see but can detect due to their gravity. The dark matter detected by MACHO is likely things like planets, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs or low-mass black holes, if such things exist.

Dr. Doug Welch is one of the researchers involved with the MACHO project. In this podcast interview with Michael Koppelman, Doug talks about all things MACHO.

If you haven’t already subscribe to the podcast or just listen now.

SG #1.0

Aaron — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 03:02:02 +0000

The first episode of the new show is in the can and on the feed, with a skit involving Uranus and its transiting moons. We put show notes here and you can discuss here.

The End of A Planet & A Podcast

slackadmin — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 05:21:14 +0000

In this show we discussed our personal views about Pluto, then dropped a bomb on the audience. Slacker Astronomy, as an audio podcast, is over.

However, two new podcasts will emerge. Pamela will be co-hosting AstronomyCast with Fraser Cain of the Universe Today web site and podcast. AstronomyCast will take a fact based journey through the cosmos as explores different topics in-depth each week.

Also, Travis, Aaron, and Rebecca will be joined by two new people to create Slackerpedia Galactica, a new eclectic podcast and web site about astronomy.

We thank you all for your support over the last year and a half. It’s been a fantastic run and you’ve given us some memories that we’ll always cherish. We hope that you enjoy the new shows. Think of it this way, you now have twice the astronomy for the same price - free!:)

The first episodes of both shows are online now and appearing in the SA feed. Check your podcast client now to listen.

In the future, SG episodes will be posted to the same feed as Slacker Astronomy. So you do not need to do anything to your podcast client. However, be sure to subscribe to Pamela’s new show via this feed.

Show 1: Black Hole in the Corner Pocket

Aaron — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:44:45 +0000

The difference is black holes don’t cause male astronomers to walk into lightposts.

Episode #1
Title: “Black Hole In the Corner Pocket”
Subjects: black holes, gravitational lensing
CastDate: 050314
Written By: Aaron Price
Disembodied Voices: Travis Searle & Pamela Gay with special guest appearance by The Grinch.
Engineered: Travis Searle

Transcript
Press Release
Nature.com
Gravitational Lensing explanation by NASA’s Imagine the Universe
Einstein’s Cross via HST (image at right)