What we really get up to at the summit

I mentioned it in my last post, but there are so many inaccuracies it's hard to know where to begin. The most fundamental one is that I know no astronomer or astrophysicist who drinks Bud Light. We are a strange community but I can tell you that most astronomers know their beer!

As for the rest of the shenanigans, I have no comment...



PS. We also know how to spell asteroid!

Super Bowl sunset

I managed to watch the first quarter of the Super Bowl before leaving for the summit and with the Colts up 10-0 thought I was going to miss a bit of a blow-out, so wasn't too concerned. By the time I was at the summit the news was the Saints had won in a very entertaining game! Oh well, we all have to make sacrifices although I did manage to see the Bud Light astronomer advert which reminded me I have to buy a white lab coat one day and wear it at the summit!

Lots of tourists also missed the Super Bowl but by choice; they were at the summit on Sunday evening watching yet another magnificent Mauna Kea sunset. The picture is a blend of two photos, one with a short exposure to catch the bright sky and a slightly longer one to capture a group of tourists below me watching the sun sink behind the clouds thousands of feet below us. (Click on the picture for a larger view).

Unfortunately we're not allowed alcohol at the summit, so no Bud Light party for us when it got dark. Oh hell, what am I saying? Bud Light? I'd rather drink urine.

A gentle evening stroll at 14,000 feet

One of my duties as an astronomer working at an observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawai`i, is to give support to visiting astronomers from around the world who use the telescope. In the last three or four years we've moved into a survey mode which has changed this role quite significantly. In the old days, astronomers would prepare their observations a few weeks before visiting, perhaps even a couple of days beforehand when they arrived on the island, and we'd help with the preparations using our knowledge and experience of the instrumentation and telescope. We'd then accompany them to the summit, help them observe for a night and then provide help and support remotely by telephone and email for the rest of the run. Often, we'd help with the data reduction after the run and sometimes even the analysis and on occasion get so involved in their project we'd end up as a co-author on the resulting publication.

These days the observations are planned and the relevant scripts are written months ahead, often automatically, by the survey team and the astronomers that come out to do the observations more often than not are there to observe something they have not prepared themselves. After the observing run, the data are reduced automatically and sent to an archive where more automation creates catalogues and reduced data.

It's a much easier job these days, I can tell you! On the other hand, I miss the old days. It was far more satisfying to work with an astronomer or a team to get everything out of the instrumentation and telescope that they needed. It was a lot more work but always pleasurable.

Then again, I often support survey observing runs with the most interesting people, and Friday night was no exception. It was one of the most pleasurable nights I've spent on the summit in quite some time! I'd only met the observer once before, just a few months ago when I took a tour party to the summit. That's strange enough because 1) we both used the same instrument at the UKIRT to obtain the data for our PhDs, 2) he was, in the past, a regular visitor to the summit to use the instrument I was responsible for and 3) we both got into the career at around the same time in the UK and we both have the same colleagues and friends. We just never happened to meet.

So on Friday night I was up on the summit with him and we had the most enjoyable chat; reminiscing about old times, current events and the future. Just before sunset, as the dome is cooling and there isn't much to do until the sky is dark enough to start observing, we took a gentle stroll around the summit while chatting about all sorts of things.

We walked up the summit road to watch the shadow of Mauna Kea and it was one of the clearest I'd seen. Because I knew I'd be busy around sunset I didn't bother to take a tripod with me, no time for spectacular photos on this evening (and the sky was clear which is great for astronomy but not so good for photography) so just took the odd handheld shot of the scene plus a few photos for our visitor's children.

As we wandered slowly back to the telescope I looked back and one or two tourists were clearly interested in what we were looking at. The bright orange-jacketed one was taking a picture of the true summit to the right while the person to the left was admiring the shadow of the mountain and of course the earth's shadow on either side.

We strolled down a little further and had a chat with one of the Mauna Kea rangers. He knew we were astronomers rather than tourists, I guess because we weren't wearing fluorescent coats or chatting excitedly about the views. We stopped and had a discussion about UKIRT and its future. The ranger knew more than I realised although not quite as much as me, so the exchange of views and opinions was very interesting! They are good guys these rangers...

It was getting close to sunset as we got back to UKIRT so we visited my favourite photo spot to watch the sun sink into the distant clouds above the Pacific. No green flash again. I think I'm destined never to see it from the mountain. The view was nice though with Hualalai and the slope of Pu`u Poli`ahu silhouetted against the bright sky to the west.

That was it, time to get back inside and start working. The first night of a run is always busy as there's much to teach the visitor about how to do the observations and how to use the observing software. Although we've made the software very easy to use, you always have to remember that people are working at night and at an oxygen-deprived 14,000 feet so efficiency is reduced, often quite dramatically. The next few hours after sunset on a first night are often quite busy!

Although not taken on Friday night (this was taken on Sunday evening well after sunset during my last stint at the summit) this would have been the view outside had we spent a little longer in the freezing temperatures. Gemini to the left and the UH-88-inch to the right starting their observations for the night - the sky is just dark enough to find some stars and start working. The shift won't be over for another twelve or thirteen hours.

Well, it's time to check in with the summit to see what's going on - that's part of the support job. We have all sorts of displays online so I can tell very quickly how things are going but there's nothing like getting the news directly from those on the summit. It'll be good to chat with our visitor again as well! We'll repeat this on Saturday night and then I'm back at the summit again supporting another visiting astronomer - this time a very good friend of mine and a damn good photographer! That should be another fun evening at work!

PS. Remember you can always click on the pictures to see larger versions.

What did you do to my office?

I came into work today and found I had a little surprise waiting for me! This was due to the news about Pam which she explains in "The Big C vs. My Surgeon". I have to say that I work in a wonderful place with wonderful people.

Where's that bloody laser beam then?

On Sunday evening at around 9:30 we called the Keck observatory to see if they were using their new laser on the Keck 1 telescope. I'll admit it wasn't a purely professional call, I wanted to go outside and take a picture! The answer was promising, the laser was in action (for PC reasons, I'm supposed to steer clear of using the term "firing off the laser"!).

It was a beautiful moonlit evening so I set the camera up on a tripod and took a couple of 60-sec exposures to create a panorama. I couldn't see the laser beam with my naked eye but that's not unusual, the lasers that Subaru, Gemini and the Kecks use aren't actually that bright and are only obvious if you know they're being fired, oops, used, and know where to look. A long exposure photo will, on the other hand, make the laser beam look very bright.

So, why is there no laser beam in the picture above? Three possible reasons: 1) they lied to us, 2) they turned off the laser just as I took the picture or 3) it's just so faint that it's not even visible on a long exposure photograph (the laser on Keck 1 is actually quite a low powered one).

Andrew needs to explain! He was up there that night.

Still, it's a nice panorama of the summit at night lit with a nearly full moon. At the bottom centre you can see the shadow of the UH 88-inch telescope and to the right the shadow of Gemini.

And now for something completely different:

I had a wonderful telephone call this afternoon. It's difficult to describe how happy I feel and what a weight has been lifted. Pam can explain in her own words!

The Big C vs. My Surgeon

A moment frozen in time

Bang! Oops.

I know it's out of focus but anyone care to guess what this is? It's not as nasty as it looks but will take a bit of cleaning.

Update: Feb 2nd 21:30.

Brian and Kevin got it right, Hilary was very close and Alice, you need to know that I don't drink coffee! Can't stand the stuff. As a Brit I only drink tea but you have me interested and I think I'm going to try and find out what a frozen tea splatter looks like!

They don't build soda cans like they used to. Sigh...

In my own shadow?

A year ago I would have been so proud of the picture above. Now it's well down in the list of my pictures I think are good - there's that slide show of mine which resulted in the most wonderful feedback and it won't be in there. Then it struck me. I'm trying to be a perfectionist. The picture isn't so bad after all!

The odd thing is that I don't think I've ever tried to be a perfectionist until the last two months. In that time I've been told that I'm facing redundancy and the most important person in my life has cancer. I can't put two and two together and make four, I think I make it five or three or perhaps two-and-a-half. There are just too many things going on right now for me to make sense of them. Tonight, a close friend and colleague lost his father. Too many bad things are happening at once. Keera, another friend, is also facing a difficult time. Hopefully things will even out soon and those I care about will be around to tell stories of their eventual success. I know Pam will be and I'll be there to make sure it happens.

The moral of the story? I'm not sure I have one and even if I do, I'm not of the right mind to comprehend it. Perhaps in a few months or so when I can post something about the treat lady (Pam) arriving back in Hawaii I'll have a better idea of what I want to say. I hope so because even I can't make sense of what I'm writing, I just need to write it.

Pam gets her pathology report tomorrow (Tues 2nd) and she's scared and nervous. So am I.

Oh, it's the shadow of Mauna Kea with a sort of anticrepuscular ray combined with the earth's shadow and the eastern flank of the mountain with its cinder cones. It was taken on Sunday evening so too late for the slide show anyway!

It's been two long months...

...since my last view of a sunset from Mauna Kea. Tonight is the final night of a three-night run on the summit and I'm feeling it! Due to various scheduling reasons I didn't really have any summit time in December and I was planning to take vacation in January. Unfortunately, that was canceled due to Pam's illness but since I wasn't planning to be around, I wasn't scheduled to be at the summit. Those two months at sea level certainly made the effects of the altitude a little more noticeable although it wasn't long before I was back in my groove.

Alessandra, an astrochemistry PhD student and scientific collaborator from The University of Nottingham is observing with me after spending a few nights at Gemini. She definitely improves the atmosphere in our control room with her delightful Italian accent! Unfortunately for her the first two nights of this run were rubbish. We were open the first night but high winds made it difficult to take any useful data and even higher winds and high humidity, plus a nice dust storm inside the dome meant that we remained closed most of the second night.

Tonight the winds have calmed, the sky is fairly clear although at sunset there was cloud to the south west - the sort that helps to make the sunset look pretty! The picture above was the view from just outside the UH 88-inch telescope looking north to west with Gemini to the left, the cinder cones which run from the summit area down to the Saddle in the middle and the shadow of Mauna Kea to the right. Walking back down from the UH 88-inch I stopped to take this (HDR) photo of UKIRT against the setting sun. That wouldn't have been possible yesterday evening, my camera would been blown off the mountain and my face sandblasted.

Wolf moon

Moonrise and the shadow of Mauna Kea taken at sunset this evening from the summit. January's full moon is called the wolf moon, a name that can be traced back to native American Indians who described the moon after the packs of hungry wolves that would howl outside their villages at this time of year.

This year's wolf moon is also the largest and brightest full moon of 2010. The apparent size of the moon depends on where it is in its orbit around the earth. Since the orbit isn't circular but elliptical, there's a point at which it is closest to the earth (perigee) and of course a point where it is furthest from the earth (apogee). When a full moon just happens to occur around perigee, as it is tonight, the full moon appears larger and brighter.

Tonight also sees some pretty spectacular action from the US army at the Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. After waking up this afternoon I took a stroll outside at Hale Pohaku and could hear machine gun fire, jet aircraft, artillery and bombs. Tonight, up on the summit, we could see the light from the flares and explosions reflected in the clouds below us. They stopped at around 10pm. Time for bed I guess.

Slide show

I put together a Flickr slide show of some of my favourite pictures from the last year or so that have appeared on this blog. I hope you enjoy the show. You can see a much larger version using this link.




It's a shame I can't use any music to accompany the show, but when I first played the slide show I listened to one of my favourite slack key guitar songs, "The Beauty of Mauna Kea" by Keola Beamer. If you have the song or have access to it online, you might consider playing it!