9 September 2010

Speaker: Wystan Benbow (CfA)

Title:Very High Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy: Whipple, VERITAS and Beyond

Abstract:The first Very High Energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma-ray observatory, SAO's 10-m telescope at the F.L. Whipple Observatory, began operating in 1968. Despite many valiant efforts, it took until 1989 for the first VHE gamma-ray source to be discovered, and it wasn't until the past decade that the field of VHE gamma-ray astronomy truly matured into an astronomical discipline. The VHE gamma-ray source catalog now exceeds 100 objects, belonging to almost a dozen classifications, and spatially-resolved images are now commonplace. Highlights from the world's most-sensitive VHE gamma-ray observatory, VERITAS, will be presented. In addition, plans for the next-generation VHE gamma-ray observatory (CTA), included in the Astro-2010 decadal survey's Large-scale Ground-based Program, will be discussed.

Video of the Presentation (Talks can be viewed with RealPlayer. Free download is available from www.real.com )