Welcome to the Astronomical Society of South Australia

This session continues the discussion of Stellar Evolution with a complete overview of the lives of stars of various masses from birth within gaseous nebulae to their ultimate demise as a white dwarf or supernova explosion.

This presentation will look at several well known galaxies and faint planetary nebula halos. It will provide information about discovery, brightness and demonstrations of how much integration is needed to show faint halos and very distant galaxies. You will be able to see how persistence can be rewarding to your imaging pursuits. This will include how amateurs can contribute to discovery by imaging these faint objects.

This is not a talk about aliens (the clue is in the title!). Rather, it is a talk about strange astronomical observations that some people suggested might be 'aliens' but in fact are most likely to be unusual – but entirely natural – physical phenomena. This talk also tries to explain why 'aliens' is almost never the right explanation for weird and wonderful phenomena, but why it is nevertheless still very interesting to search for extraterrestrial life.