Last Friday night marked the beginning of the second annual 2012 New England Fall Astronomy Festival (NEFAF). The festival was held at the UNH Observatory and ran from Friday to Saturday. Events opened up with a talk on dark energy and the acceleration of the universe by the festivals keynote speaker, Alex Filippenko. Filippenko is an astronomer who worked on the two teams that discovered the universe was expanding in 1998.

Why are all these other galaxies moving away from us? Is it because theyre lactose intolerant? Get it? Milky Way, Filippenko joked.

Nearly 300 hundred high-school students, parents, UNH students and professors, amateur astronomers, children and one golden retriever filled the lecture tent for his two-hour talk and Q&A session.

John Gianforte, who said he has been an astronomer since he was seven, teaches astronomy courses at both Granite State College and UNH, and is the head of the organizing committee for NEFAF. Gianforte also helps train the new students working at the UNH Observatory, though he says it is important to remember that the observatory is student-run.

I did the same thing last year and it was pretty successful, except for the rain. They asked me to do it again and I said yes, Gianforte said.

Gianforte is the man who booked Filippenko for his talk Friday evening. After spending a week with him in Hawaii observing the transit of Venus, he contacted Filippenko in the summer to see if he would be free for the event.

Gianforte said he was extremely happy with the turnout and the level of audience participation during the talk. The Q&A session lasted for nearly an hour, with questions ranging from the possible existence of other universes to the science around the Big Crunch theory, which refers to the collapse of the universe.

Im thrilled. Excited. I couldnt sleep last night, it went so well, Gianforte said.

The festival picked up again on Saturday morning, with astronomy-themed carnival games and booths for children while the adults listened to speakers talk about exo-solar planets and the Mars rover.

Ian Cohen, the manager of the UNH Observatory, and a graduate student working on his Ph.D. in physics worked at the festival last year, and said it was very successful.

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The New England Fall Astronomy Festival draws crowds