Episode 13: The South African Astronomical Observatory
featuring Professor Petri Vaisanen
In our final episode for Season 1, we are joined by Professor Petri Vaisanen, Director of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO).
Petri discusses the path to his current role including his research on galaxy evolution and some of the exciting discoveries along the way.
Petri also explains his current role, his vision for astronomy in South Africa, and some of the exciting developments occurring at SAAO and around the world!
We are then joined by Allen Versfeld who runs the Urban Astronomer podcast and who does an excellent job of highlighting the astronomy in South Africa. You can find the Urban Astronomer podcast at https://www.urban-astronomer.com
This is the best I could do in capturing the whole of the foundations. Apologies, my lens is not quite wide-angle enough. But you get the idea. #ExtremelyLargeStuff #ELT #MeetESO #HdAOnTour pic.twitter.com/7LrN11Zqr2
— Markus Pössel (@mpoessel) July 4, 2019
The European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope foundations!
Featured Image: The SAAO Plateau in Sutherland, South Africa
This week’s guests:
Prof Petri Vaisanen 
Allen Versfeld @uastronomer
Episode Links:
SAAO: http://www.saao.ac.za
SALT: http://www.salt.ac.za
ESO ELT: https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/elt/
Urban Astronomer Podcast: https://www.urban-astronomer.com
