HamSCIence Talk, This Week, Mark Your Calendars, for One of HamSCI's Own
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Gary Mikitin, AF8A
May 5, 2026, 5:25:39 PM (2 days ago) May 5
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Hello HamSCI - This week, we are fortunate to have one of HamSCI's own, Dr. Mary Lou West, presenting on "Cosmic Rays and the Heliosphere":
The driving force behind the University’s popular Public Telescope Nights, where anyone interested in looking at the night sky through a telescope is welcome, West is a familiar figure at both the University and in the surrounding communities. She is active in the New Jersey branch of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society and in the local astronomy club, the North Jersey Astronomical Group, which helps support the Public Telescope Nights.
To her former students, however, West is better known as an inspirational teacher and guide who involved them in her research and helped them with their own.
Dr. West will recount the discovery of these invisible tiny particles from beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and the experiments her students did with scintillator paddle sensors borrowed from Fermi Lab in Chicago. The low energy protons have an interesting relationship to the eleven-year solar cycle, revealing the extent of the Sun’s influence in space. Beyond our heliosphere lies the interstellar medium, where other stars rule, and where the cosmic rays come from.
In case you haven't gotten to know her through HamSCI: For more than 40 years until her retirement in 2012, Professor Emerita Mary Lou West inspired and mentored students in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and shared her passion for scientific education, and especially for physics and astronomy.
The driving force behind the University’s popular Public Telescope Nights, where anyone interested in looking at the night sky through a telescope is welcome, West is a familiar figure at both the University and in the surrounding communities. She is active in the New Jersey branch of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society and in the local astronomy club, the North Jersey Astronomical Group, which helps support the Public Telescope Nights.
To her former students, however, West is better known as an inspirational teacher and guide who involved them in her research and helped them with their own.
Thursday, 4PM Eastern, 2000UTC, on the usual HamSCI Zoom 'channel':
https://scranton.zoom.us/j/286316405?pwd=QWdwMlFPbDlYeXg5ZDg1dmYzeFdCUT09
Meeting ID: 286 316 405, Passcode: hamsciThis will be the last HamSCIence Zoom session of the 2025-2026 academic year, and it will be recorded, eventually appearing on HamSCI's YouTube Channel.
73 de Gary, AF8A
Gary Mikitin, AF8A
May 7, 2026, 7:23:56 AM (21 hours ago) May 7
to HamSCI
Here's a quick reminder about today's (Thursday, May 7th, 2026, 2000UTC) HamSCIence Telecon: "Cosmic Rays and the Heliosphere" presented by Dr. Mary Lou West. Details below.
Also, we should be up to date with the YouTube recordings of past presentations such as those listed below. Visit youtube.com/@hamsci/videos
- Jonathan Rizzo, KC3EEY on the VLF Whistler Catcher
- Tom Crowley, KT4XN, on a muon detector built for STEM learning
- MF Observations During an Earthquake, by Nick Hall Patch, VE7DXR and and Satoshi Miyauchi JP1SCQ
- Dr. Terry Griffin, of Kansas State University, speaking on space weather and heliophysics, their impact on GNSS systems and daily life, through an economist's lens.
73 de Gary, AF8A
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