The Chicago Astronomical Society
Meeting Friday, May 5, 2017 at the Adler Planetarium.

7:00 pm
CAS members Claire & Bob Gadbois gave a brief review of this year's
NCRAL 2017 convention near Lanesboro, MN.

Keynote speaker Michael Zevin gave a fascinating update on the rapidly evolving research
with gravitational waves and the latest on the LIGO projects.
Mike Zevin is a PhD Candidate in physics and astronomy at Northwestern University. He is part of the
LIGO Scientific Collaboration and works with Dr. Vicky Kalogera in many areas of gravitational wave
astrophysics. Primarily, his work involves using this new cosmic messenger to further probe binary
stellar evolution and to better understand the environments in which compact binary mergers occur.
He also worked to develop a new gravitational-wave citizen science project called Gravity Spy,
in which human volunteers and sophisticated machine-learning algorithms work together to better
characterize troublesome noise that afflicts the LIGO detectors, in the process making LIGO more
sensitive to the gravitational-wave universe. 

9:00 pm
Following  telescope observing in front of the Adler Planetarium, a small group
went to Connie's Pizza for discussion and food.