The massive photometric survey known as the MACHO Project was launched to establish the fraction the Milky Way's mass which might be present in the form of compact, dense objects which emit little or no light - so-called "MACHO's". Microlensing – the (unresolved) apparent amplification of the light received from a background star due to the presence of a moving compact mass near to the line of sight - was established as a useful tool for locating compact dark objects by both the MACHO Project and its competitors. In this talk, I will review the rich harvest of both dark matter results and variable star findings, which have been extracted from this full-time photometric survey. I am currently involved in an equally ambitious undertaking officially labeled as the "Next Generation Microlensing Survey" - but known to most as the SuperMACHO Project - which has been allocated five years of survey time at the 4m Blanco telescope of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. I will describe the prospects and progress of this undertaking after four seasons of observations.
Tuesday, February 8th
Seminar is to be held at 4:00 PM in the conference room
on the second floor of Dearborn Observatory
Refreshments will be served at 3:30
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