This is fun… An entirely steam powered machine shop that is fully operational, from the boiler to a full set of machine tools. The shop is intended to show a shop as it would have looked in the 1920’s. It would be fun to use this shop to make something, but I will use an electrically powered lathe this evening.
The Keck Observatory Archive
The data produced by the W. M. Keck Observatory is available for anyone to view. This may come as a surprise to some who assume that astronomers hoard their precious data and jealously deny any access. I have also seen claims by anti-TMT activists who claim that telescope data is secret and access is restricted to some authorized group. It is a common theme I have seen repeated quite a few times during the Astronomy on Mauna Kea debate.
“There is an appointment signup of experts of bureaucrat choosing and the findings disappear amongst the grant supported or institutions we have no knowledge about” – Claire Templeton in a Facebook comment 16Aug2015
The idea is at least understandable. Much of modern astronomy is fairly arcane to the layman, not easily understood and seemingly mysterious. It does not have to be that way, the images and data are fully public. A small community, including astronomers and amateur astronomers, has learned to use the data to do science, or to simply peruse for their own edification. All it takes is an evening of educating yourself and you have access to a huge array of data.
The astronomers do guard their data and deny others access, but they are only allowed to do this for a limited period of time. This gives the astronomer exclusive use of their data long enough to complete the research and publish the paper. The amount of time they have exclusive use varies by telescope and institution, but it is usually a year or two. For the W. M Keck Observatory the data is usually embargoed for 18 months. Once the exclusive period expires the data is available to anyone and is posted in the online public archive.
Keck’s archive is known as KOA, or Keck Online Archive. Also a nice reference to the beautiful Koa forests that are common on the windward slopes of Mauna Kea. Here you can search and peruse twenty years of Keck data.
Postcard from the Summit – Morning Clouds
I have said this before… After eight years of driving up and down Mauna Kea I have yet to get tired of the view. It is always different.
The Hive
Building a New Telescope
No, I am not talking about TMT. I have something a bit smaller in process. For the first time in many years I am building a telescope. Just a little one.
It has been a while, my cred as an ATM is in jeopardy of being revoked.
When I say a little one I am being serious, a 6″ f/5 is the design specification. This is the same optical specification as Primero, my first telescope. The difference here is in building a travel telescope, something that will fit in carry-on baggage with room for clothing.
I am modelling the telescope off a small telescope built by Brett Schaerer he named WikiKea, a telescope I had a chance to examine at Oregon Star Party a couple years ago. He incorporated a clever focus mechanism into that ‘scope that got my attention.
Brett built his telescope for a trip to Hawaiʻi, thus the Hawaiian influence in the name. I will follow suit and have decided that I am building Makaʻiki, which translates as little eye.
I have generated a full set of plans based on a couple photographs of the original telescope. That exercise itself was fun, I love designing things like this. When these plans are complete, a few details are to be settled during building, I will publish them here on DV.
I have manufactured many of the mechanical parts over the last week. A couple more days will be required to make the remainder. I have sourced many of the materials from my stash in the garage, including the plywood, scraps left over from building other telescopes including Deep Violet. I have found that the selection of stainless steel hardware at the Waimea ACE truly sucks, they are out of stock on everything.
Other parts are coming in from eBay merchants, like knobs and HDPE tape. The optics will likewise be from the eBay, most likely GSO. Later today there will be a stop at Home Depot, I am out of wood glue, the last bit thrown out as it had hardened in the bottle. And unlike the local ACE, their hardware selection is pretty good.
Update! The new ‘scope is complete, you can read more about it here.
Open to the Light
The dome is rarely open in the daytime. Only under certain conditions and for specific reasons do we open the dome in the daytime. When it is the light streams in, providing a far different quality of light in the dome…
Venus at Inferior Conjunction
Today Venus is at inferior conjunction, passing between the Earth and Sun. It will reappear in the dawn sky near the end of the month to become the morning star for the remainder of 2015 and well into 2016. The planet will reach maximum elongation on October 26th at 46° from the Sun.
New Moon
Hot Jupiter-esque Discovery Hints at Planet Formation
W. M. Keck Observatory press release…
A team of astronomers discovered a Jupiter-like planet within a young system that could serve as a decoder ring for understanding how planets formed around our sun. The W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii confirmed the discovery. The findings were headed by Bruce Macintosh, a professor of physics at Stanford University, and show the new planet, 51 Eridani b, is one million times fainter than its parent star and shows the strongest methane signature ever detected on an alien planet, which should yield additional clues as to how the planet formed. The results are published in the current issue of Science.
While NASA’s Kepler space observatory has discovered thousands of planets, it does so indirectly by detecting a loss of starlight as a planet passes in front of its star, the Gemini Planet Imager was designed specifically for discovering and analyzing faint, young planets orbiting bright stars.
“To detect planets, Kepler sees their shadow,” said Macintosh, who is also a member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. “The Gemini Planet Imager instead sees their glow, which we refer to as direct imaging.”
Akin to trying to detect a firefly in front of a lighthouse, the team analyzed the light from the star, then blocked it out. The remaining incoming light was analyzed, with the brightest spots indicating a possible planet.
Continue reading “Hot Jupiter-esque Discovery Hints at Planet Formation”
Oregon in 1986
Another pick from the slides I am busily digitizing. After basic training and tech school with the USAF and before deployment to England, I took a month’s leave. Much of this was spent visiting favorite places around Portland in the late fall of 1986…
