Just got back from another great monthly meeting of the TAAA (Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association).
The Astronomy Essentials portion of the meeting was presented by George Barber. His talk was "What Kind of Star" and gave some excellent information about various stellar types and the physical processes that make them different. Of course that included the OBAFGKM (Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me) stellar sequence. George is an energetic speaker and I always enjoy hearing his talks.
The main lecture was presented by Victor Krabbendam, who is a key player in the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), a huge project that will probably change astronomy in a big way. The LSST will basically image the entire sky every few nights, over and over and over again, providing the ability to explore the night sky and search for changing objects. The amount of data that this telescope will generate is simply incredible - they expect approximately 150 TeraBytes per night! Eventually it will reach into the PetaBytes range; that's a term that we certainly are not used to hearing (although at the rate technology changes it will probably be commonplace in the near future).
I've got my scope taking data right now, but it will probably only provide me with about half a gigabyte. My poor little ccd camera is probably feeling rather inadequate now!
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