The CARINA Star Party will be held on 24th March, 2012, at the Tracking Station in Macqueripe, Chaguaramas.  

Join CARINA in one of Trinidad's most fascinating settings and reacquaint yourself with the beauty of the Caribbean sky. Bring your family and friends and spread out picnic-style with telescope, binoculars or just a simple constellation map.

Physics Department in conjunction with CARINA (Caribbean Institute of Astronomy) presents a public lecture on “Search for DNA based life on planets around other stars” by Prof. Mauri Valtonen from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

He will describe how elementary life forms can travel from planet to planet, even between different planetary systems. A search has been made for potential sites of DNA based life, originating from the Earth, among stars. The likely targets for further study are two stars which most likely were born together with the Sun in the same star cluster about 5 billion years ago and which are still relatively close to us. The work has been carried out in collaboration with Aleksandr Myllari in Finland and his Russian colleagues.

Date: Thursday 19th January, 2012 at 5.30 pm in Lecture Room 2, Faculty of Engineering, University of the West Indies.  Further information:  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it edu

Choosing a telescope can be a daunting task for a budding amateur astronomer. There are so many designs available across such a large spectrum of cost and quality that even experienced amateur astronomers feel bewildered sometimes. This article attempts to give an overall description of the telescopes and main accessories available in the hobby today, and also some very general advice on choosing a telescope. 

Choosing Your First Telescope PDF