Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC)

organised by

Dr. Khalid Al-Subai (Qatar Foundation)
Dr. Martin Dominik (University of St Andrews)

info@astrodoha2013.org


Including a public session on Sunday morning (10 Feb)
with a lecture “Planets, Life and the Cosmos” delivered by Prof. Lord Martin Rees
(mandatory registration has closed; further seats have become available, information for those waitlisted to follow shortly)

You are cordially invited to see our Astrophotography Exhibition
and engage with our astronomy hands-on activities
(no registration required; just come along)

Conference scientific rationale

2013 marks the 101st anniversary of Einstein's notebook entry in which he first discussed the transient brightening of an observed distant star caused by the bending of light due to the gravitational field of an intervening foreground star - a phenomenon now commonly known as 'gravitational microlensing'. Still in 1936, Einstein concluded that there is 'no great chance' for observing it, and it was not before 1993 that the first detection of a microlensing event was reported. Since then, microlensing observations have evolved into a powerful astrophysical tool for studying various different objects that are inaccesible by other means. Applications prominently include the observational study of stellar atmospheres, baryonic dark matter, the structure and kinematics of the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies, the low-mass end of the stellar mass function and the substellar mass function, the frequency of stellar binaries, compact objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes), and finally extra-solar planets.

Scientific programme/SOC

List of international participants

Information/Accommodation

Abstract submission and registration have closed

Invited Speakers

Gaspar Bakos (Princeton University, USA)

Chris L. Fryer (LANL, USA)

Andrew Gould (Ohio State University, USA)

Peter Hauschildt (Hamburg, Germany)

Zeljko Ivezic (University of Washington, USA)

Habib Khosroshahi (Iranian National Observatory)

J. Davy Kirkpatrick (Caltech, USA)

Pavel Kroupa (Bonn, Germany)

Andy Lawrence (Edinburgh, UK)

Craig MacKay (Cambridge, UK)

Christoph Mordasini (MPA Heidelberg, Germany)

Timo Prusti (ESA)

Andrzej Udalski (Warsaw University, Poland)

Joachim Wambsganss (University of Heidelberg, Germany)