I wish you all a very merry Christmas

It's not one of my photos, in fact I haven't picked up my camera for two or three months. It's a picture taken from the UH 88-inch webcam this evening at sunset. The weather here has been incredibly bad over the last couple of months and we've hardly been open but tonight we finally got back into action. The summit road has been closed for ages due to snow and ice and on the occasions it has been open to the public the summit has been in fog. This evening, however, the skies cleared and at least according to this view the summit was about the busiest I have ever seen!

Anyway, sorry for not posting recently, the last couple of months have been very difficult and also extremely busy. I'll try and get my act together regarding this blog in the new year. In the meantime:

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!

Tom

Spooky goings-on at UKIRT

It was almost midnight last night when the first spooky apparition was picked up by one of UKIRT's thermal infrared security cameras and triggered the motion sensor. It had been a cold, dark and quiet night up until then but suddenly the software sent out a burst of images capturing our warm friend ghosting across the field of view.

A second later it had drifted to the right, its unearthly body and eerie limbs glowing brightly in infrared light.

And before you could say "Is it Halloween yet?" it was gone.

UKIRT gets a shove

Just after two o'clock this afternoon a magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck the Big Island, located about 9 kilometers north west of Mauna Kea's summit and at a depth of approximately 19 kilometers. The earthquakes haven't stopped since then although none have been as strong as the first one. Although not a big earthquake anything over magnitude 4 on Mauna Kea has the potential to do some harm to the telescopes at the summit.

Fortunately the earthquake struck while we had a crew at the summit so they were quickly able to inspect both the JCMT and UKIRT. The JCMT was unscathed but a broken shear pin on UKIRT's south column was discovered which meant the telescope had been shoved out of alignment by the event and if it wasn't fixed we'd have no idea where the telescope would be pointing tonight. The amount of movement necessary to break a shear pin is tiny, less than a millimetre perhaps, but that small movement is multiplied several times on the sky and we could literally spend hours just trying to find out what we are looking at without a quick fix.

Fortunately our engineers and technicians were able to put the telescope back where it should be although this was a crude readjustment and we'll have to do a proper alignment in the next night or two, but it's currently good enough for government work! Still, this event is very unusual. We do experience earthquakes underneath Mauna Kea from time to time, but a cluster like this is very rare, I don't remember one like this occurring since I arrived here 15 years ago, but that's not to say it hasn't happened before, it's just unusual.

I think the following video was taken about a year and a half ago by a visiting observer from The University of Nottingham in the UK - they experienced a magnitude 4.4 earthquake underneath Mauna Kea during the run and the shear pins broke requiring a night-time fix by the observers. I remember being on the other end of the phone during this event! The stuff about the earthquake starts at about the 5-minute mark (and you'll see how physical effort at the summit is difficult!) but the whole video is interesting if you're curious about life on the summit!

California's Pacific Coast Highway - the sunny version

Alright, a lot of pictures here so I won't say too much. Although the weather wasn't so good on our trip the fog did disappear on our last full day in Cambria so we took the opportunity to head back up north on the PCH to see what we missed in the fog. It was in the middle of the day so the light is a little harsh - I'd love to do this trip again around sunset - but it was nice to see the sun again! The panorama above was taken a little north of Cambria near San Simeon where elephant seals just love to hang out.

And make a lot of noise. And very strange noises as well. There's the honking you get from regular seals plus lots of chatter and then the most bizarre low-pitched gurgling noise from some of the bigger males. Maybe female seals find that sort of thing attractive, who am I to say?

The really weird thing about these animals is that you would watch one of the males spot a competitor or perhaps a female and start rushing over to it as only massive seals can do, but halfway there they would just stop, collapse into the sand and go to sleep. Twenty minutes later they would wake up and go at it again just to stop as suddenly as last time. Sometimes one would get as far as their target only to stop and fall asleep with their head resting on the seal they were after. Utterly bizarre but compelling viewing.

No gurgling from these guys. We stopped a little further north and met these bikers on their way south. Nice guys - they asked if I would autograph the picture I took of their bikes!

Time to stop and take a stroll down a trail. It didn't go anywhere other than to the edge of a cliff so I turned back (wuss!) and took a photo of the trip to come. Unfortunately this time of year the grasses and flowers are pretty colourless in California but it still looked pretty to me after all that British fog.

Nearby a remarkable white rock. Its colour is due to all the layers of bird shit guano that has built up over the years. There was me thinking it was some sort of interesting geological phenomenon. I think if I were a sea bird I might have moved on a few years ago...

No sea bird here. A couple of turkey vultures were circling way above us. Probably waiting for me to fall off the cliff.

Another stop, another photo of the drive to come and no restroom in sight (a loo for British readers).

I saw these grasses all over the place, at least I assume they're grass. Anyone know what they're called? I'm too lazy to look it up.

Pam told me that this had been a strange summer and early fall and that the coastline wasn't looking as brown as normal for this time of year. Well, you can make your own mind up, but I call this pretty brown. I'm hoping to visit again after the monsoon season.

This is as far north as we got on this particular drive - an overlook of the beach at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and the famous waterfall. This place was recommended to me some time ago as a great place to take photos, and suspect it is - at sunset and without half a million tourists milling about (don't you just hate tourists?). Unfortunately the sunlight was still harsh so I've added a little vignetting to make it look half-interesting. I don't know what the designers of this place were thinking - you need to be there at sunset but it's miles away from a nice hotel room and decent bar, so given our priorities we headed back south for a night of debauchery with the locals at Mozzi's Saloon in Cambria and some verbal abuse from the Irish barman.

What a wonderful day!

Are you an optimist?

I simply can't believe this article on the BBC website -maybe I'm being too pessimistic.

Brain 'rejects negative thoughts'

According to the article "They rated 14 people for their level of optimism and tested them in a brain scanner." Incidentally, the link in the article goes nowhere either, it just tells me that the DOI I asked for can't be found in the Handle System, whatever that is.

Fourteen people? They can't be serious, surely? I'm optimistic that a mistake has been made by the BBC, but if not can you really do a medical study and make a conclusion based on such a small number? The article says that 80% of people are optimists but how on earth can you say that based on 14 people? There's something wrong here...

Am I really back?

Can't believe three weeks went by so quickly! I played this song a lot during the trip. I think Pam liked it although I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd got a slap on the face towards the end of the trip for playing it yet again...

California's Pacific Coast Highway - the foggy version

I apologise for my apathy in not posting anything for the last two or three weeks but quite frankly I had better and much more enjoyable things to do! I've been back at work for the last few days which I'll admit has been very difficult to adjust to after such a wonderful trip, but anyway, let me go back to just after my last post...

So one thing I was really looking forward to was the trip south along the PCH from Carmel to Cambria - I know the drive but have only done it going north in the past and was told it's better to do it the other way simply because you're on the right hand side of the road and therefore nearer the ocean. What that person didn't tell me is that it meant the whole drive involved a rather intense feeling of vertigo throughout the drive and unfortunately not made any better by the thick fog we experienced. At least I knew what views we were missing but it was a real shame as this was going to be one of the highlights of the road trip. The picture above is what the place looked like last time...

...and this is how it looked on this trip (it's essentially the same spot and same view). Well, you know, it didn't matter, I had wonderful company which was the most important part of the journey and it's still a special drive, even if the conditions were distinctly British. At least it wasn't freezing cold and drizzling - that would have really reminded me of my home country!

Still, the coast looked interesting as long as we were down on the lower sections of the highway, out of the fog and the regime of vertigo (I never used to suffer from a fear of heights until a few years ago. Odd, isn't it?).

I would have tried to sit on this chair or whatever it is but it was far too close to the edge of the cliff so just used it to lean against (on the side away from the cliff edge) to take the photo above this (feel free to call me a wuss if you really must!).

The fog finally gave way to sunny skies when we were close to the small town of Cambria but the views aren't so spectacular here, so it was a quick trip down to the state beach in San Simeon to take in a little sun and watch the surf before checking in at our next hotel - and wasn't that the most wonderful place!

More later...

(As ever, you can click on the images to see larger versions).

A foggy view

I'm a sucker for the the 17 Mile Drive in Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, even when it's foggy and cold like today. Pam and I had planned to go on a whale watching cruise in the afternoon but thick fog and the fact we're both coming down with colds scuppered our plans so it was lunch at the Dametra Cafe in Carmel (highly recommended if you're in the area, one of the best and most fun restaurants I have ever visited) and then a trip to Pebble Beach.

Unfortunately, the last time I played golf was about 15 years ago and today I didn't have a spare $500 to spend hacking up the fairways and scaring everyone within a hundred yards with de-orbiting or worm-killing golf balls. Instead we spent a very pleasant two hours watching the fog and surf at one of the most beautiful and manicured places in the world.

Tomorrow brings a check of my bank balance, credit status and how much the California economy has improved since I've arrived. Then it's south on the PCH if I have any money left...

And I didn't check my email at work once today. Now that's an achievement I'm proud of!

An evening on the balcony

Our vacation starts here - sunset on a balcony overlooking Carmel-by-the-Sea. San Francisco was amazing by the way - what a fantastic city!

(Yes, I know it's cheap wine but I've been overspending a tad - can't imagine how in a place life SF).

Outta here

My usual youtube video for a California trip and just one of the best songs ever. I'll try and post a few pictures during the trip but will have other priorities! I've been looking forward to this for months and it's finally about to happen. Have fun while I'm gone, everyone!



Tom

It just seemed appropriate

Not long now - 6 nights in San Francisco, a place I've never visited (except for the airport hotels) and then a 2-week road trip on the Pacific Coast Highway. The San Francisco part is work-related but am not complaining. The rest will be pure pleasure!

I found this on youtube. I have no problem admitting I've never been a fan of Tony Bennett, but given my location and the upcoming trip it just seemed appropriate. (You might want to wait for 45-seconds to see what I mean!).

In need of a vacation

Wish I could embed this here but can't. It's a beautiful piece of music - Spanish guitar(*), jazz, Motown, a little rock & roll and some great electric guitar stuff from the early 70s. You'll recognize the song, I'm sure, and it's where I'm going to be for the next three weeks. For those who have followed my blog for a while, you'll know this is my favourite place in the world! I'm dreamin' about it as I write this...

George Benson, California Dreamin'

(*) When I was a kid, maybe around 9 or 10 years old, I could actually play a bit of Spanish Flamenco on my guitar. I gave it up to do other things (cricket and football, mainly) but about 10 years ago I found I could still play the same tunes. I guess it's like riding a bike. Then I gave it up again to do a bit of astronomy.

New science phenomenon: a jet-powered meteor with contrail

Sometimes I just despair. This video of a "meteorite" was shown on the Daily Telegraph's website, a UK newspaper that's supposed to be above the usual tabloid nonsense (and I apologise for the advert if one appears).



It reminded me of the so-called "mystery missile launch over Los Angeles" a little while ago and all the nonsense that followed. Those of you with a pedantic nature may point out that it's not a meteorite but a meteor since rocks from space entering the atmosphere are only called a meteorite once they hit the ground, so if this is space rock it's a meteor. Fine, but it's neither, and may I make a suggestion for those looking to find where it landed?

First place I'd search is an airport.

Astronomy on Mauna Kea

It seems those of us who work in the field of astronomy are nothing other than industrialists and/or working for the military. We're also addicts needing a 12-step recovery programme and are quite violent given this particular rant:

Big Island Chronicle letter

Nothing could be further from the truth of course, but this is a typical example of opposition to the TMT on Mauna Kea.

It seems to me that it's an argument about returning to the stone age versus understanding our universe and it'll be interesting to see who wins in the end.

An inside view of splitting light

Top marks for anyone who can figure out what on earth this is. Ex-UKIRT employees are automatically disqualified. As you might be able to tell, I had auto-focus turned on and the camera had absolutely no idea what to focus on. I should have realised that would be a problem from the start...

Submillimeter Valley with sunset clouds

Another shot from my time on Mauna Kea's summit last month. This is Submillimeter Valley although without the CSO which is just out of shot. The JCMT is bottom left and the SMA middle bottom. The clouds meant we couldn't observe this night but they did give us a spectacular sunset.

I want one of these

It's my birthday soon. Anyone?

Riots in my home country

There isn't much humour to be found in what's happening in the UK at the moment. I grew up in England near London and then spent many years in the north-west and then the east-midlands and those are the places the riots in England are occurring. I'm sure it's just a coincidence but maybe I forgot to turn off the gas when I left or something. Sorry!

In any case, you can always find something funny in any situation.

Just too busy...

Not much to say I'm afraid other than I'm simply too busy to post anything substantial to my blog and that's been the way for a while now. Unfortunately I don't see things settling down too much in the near future although I do have another California trip coming up, and you can't imagine how much I'm looking forward to that break!

The picture above is yet another from the Celeste run at UKIRT in July. Hope you like it and hope you're all doing well!

Last light

The Subaru telescope silhouetted by the setting sun and some mid-level clouds.

Missing the summit already...

I still have some photos from that last summit trip I haven't looked at yet, but suspect this is one of the last good ones. It was wonderful to be back on the summit again and am now getting used to life back at sea level. Lots of admin type stuff to deal with, which I hate, but it comes with the job these days.

This one was taken well after sunset - all the colours had gone and it was very dark so things are a little smoothed (OK, out of focus). Shortly after this I was back inside the control room hoping to take data on a few planets but the clouds that were above us at sunset descended in the cold air and then hung around the summit all night, so we didn't get anything this night. Fortunately, I can report that the visiting NASA team got some great data soon after this and it coincided with me leaving the summit, so I think I might have to review any future summit support that includes me.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted!

Summit tourists

At $200 a head I hope these guys enjoyed the sunset! We like to give them a show at UKIRT (pictured) by opening the dome and ventilation system early. It always attracts attention when the dome slit opens. I haven't the heart to tell them it's not for them, though, we open early so the dome cools down and we don't have to deal with local turbulence once the sky turns dark. Between dome opening time and a dark sky I try to stay incognito - I'm fed up answering questions about UFOs, black holes and my accent!

Fiery sunsets

Three sunset pictures from the last few days of the Celeste run at UKIRT. Not my best but it was really windy on those days. The winds calmed down on the last couple of nights but the clouds had dissipated by then so the sunsets were kind of boring and I didn't bother - I was also a little busy those nights. You never know, maybe this time next year I'll get another chance to take some Mauna Kea sunset shots!

Subaru and a setting sun. The Subaru observatory is closed right now due to a nasty incident they had with some glycol. I hope things get fixed and cleaned up soon. I was told they might be looking at being closed for six-months but they have recently sent out an email about their next laser show later this month, so am assuming they'll be open again very soon.

The NASA IRTF with some summit-level clouds at sunset. It almost looks as though there's a brush fire nearby, but the colours are simply due to the sunset. Despite a good forecast most of the summit observatories remained closed this night due to fog although one or two managed to open towards dawn when the clouds finally decided to leave.

The CFHT the same evening. It had an amazing glow from sunset clouds in the valley but thick mid-level clouds everywhere else made opening up impossible.

Incidentally, our visitors from NASA Goddard went home today very happy especially after a great last night on the summit. Conditions were excellent and they took a lot of superb data on Saturn and its storm, Uranus and Jupiter. I even found a little time to take some more data on Pluto not that I'm a planetary scientist or anything, just wanted to see how our image quality was holding up and if there were any changes. Pluto and its moon Charon were pretty obvious in the 2.2-micron data.

UKIRT by moonlight

Saturday evening, July 16th 8:30 pm Hawaiian Standard Time, 2011. Most people are out on the town enjoying themselves, having fun with family at home or at a party. Me? I thought I'd pop outside and take a photo of UKIRT observing Saturn with the Celeste visiting instrument. You can even see my shadow if you look carefully enough!

Apart from the odd day or two I've spent the last two and a half weeks on Mauna Kea and have just got down for a bit of a break. The NASA Goddard team are still on the summit of Mauna Kea and from a report I got just minutes ago have taken some stunning data on Saturn's super storm. Tonight is their last night at UKIRT so it seems all the effort they and we have put into making this happen has been worth it.

Now it's time to relax and take a couple of days off work before getting UKIRT back to remote operations. I may even have another Mauna Kea sunset picture or two to post in the next day or so...

Poor timimg

I don't know what you think, but I thought this picture was crap until I looked at it again and thought, hmm, interesting...

The other day I went out to watch the sunset as I always try to do when I'm at the summit. Unfortunately I was a little rushed this time as we'd been dealing with several telescope and instrument complications and problems but just had enough time to set the camera on the tripod and take a few pictures. The scene was wonderful until I realised my camera wasn't working as it should. The sun was still above the high clouds and the colours were amazing but the memory card in my camera was screwed, at least that was my initial diagnosis.

So I rushed back into the dome to get a replacement card ("rushed" being a relative term at 14,000 feet) and a couple of minutes later managed to walk with somewhat wobbly legs back to the camera. Oh boy, it's so easy to forget how little oxygen there is at the summit. One of the Celeste visiting instrument team members had kindly stood guard next to my camera while I was gone but probably thought there was some drunk summit madman heading towards him until I got close enough for him to recognise me.

I need to talk to the summit management team about some comfortable benches...

Anyway - too late - the sun had appeared below the mid-level clouds so the scene was gone but I took a couple of pictures anyway before I went into a coma. This is one of them.

I still don't know if it's crap or not.

Twenty years ago, almost to the day

Just another picture of the NASA IRTF I'm afraid (taken yesterday), but wait, almost 20 years ago to the day a person who is currently up at UKIRT taking data was at the IRTF with an instrument called Celeste. That was 11th July 1991, but tonight, July 12 2011, Celeste is at UKIRT. Don't worry, it has been upgraded a little bit since then!

11th July 1991 is an important date in astronomy, especially for the telescopes that existed back then on Mauna Kea - it was the first total eclipse of the sun observed by major astronomical observatories. NASA scientist Don Jennings, who I'm sure is fretting and stressing getting Celeste to work on UKIRT, is, as I write this, working frenetically inside our dome. Actually, I'm sure that isn't the case, he's one of the most laid back people I've met and hasn't aged a day since this Nova episode of the 1991 eclipse was made in which he's a co-star.



It's a look back in time for me - 1991 was when I first visited UKIRT as a postgraduate student although it was a few months before the eclipse. Now I'm in charge of the place. How things change in such a short time.

For anyone interested, Don first appears at around the 07:50 minute mark in the video and then again at approx. 20:40 and 29:30. Then it gets exiting around the 33:40 minute mark and continues from there on switching between the various Mauna Kea eclipse observing teams. At around 46 minutes they do what I would have done had I been up there although of course I'd have done it in a stately English manner with a cup of tea in my hand and a comment to everyone along the lines of "jolly well done!".

Although it's very dated now, the video does give a reasonable impression of life at a Mauna Kea observatory, especially when there's a new project to be done which is exactly what I've been doing the last couple of weeks. I'm completely knackered because of it, but it's been tremendous fun and tonight we're starting to get the science data we've been preparing for the last couple of weeks!

Clouds and fog

Tell you what, the weather's been pretty awful up here the last couple of nights, but the sunsets have been to kill for...

Pluto and Charon

I'm currently taking a 24-hr break from the summit of Mauna Kea. It's ironic because for the last few months since UKIRT switched to remote operations I've really missed being on the mountain, but in a fit of telescope and instrument commissioning I've been up there for the last week and needed a short break at sea level before heading back up there again for the majority of the next 10 days. Anyway, the cats missed me...

We're hoping to do a little planetary science over the next week or so using an instrument designed and built by NASA scientists called Celeste. It's a mid-infrared high-resolution spectrograph designed to identify molecules in planetary atmospheres. I'm no planet expert but do have a background in spectroscopy and mid-infrared astronomy so am eager to help make this little venture work before we go back to surveying the infrared universe for UKIDSS with WFCAM. Plus this is fun if a little exhausting. Commissioning astronomical instruments has always been the most enjoyable part of my career in the past, and it's nice to get a chance to do something like that again.

As part of the preparations, UKIRT had to be converted back to Cassegrain mode for a couple of weeks and that involves a lot of night time calibration and testing work. On our first night after the conversion we did every measurement and calibration possible other than reshaping the primary mirror to take into account gravity. The latter takes several hours of observations and couldn't be done right at the start but despite that Jack (the telescope operator) and myself thought we'd have a quick test of the telescope by taking some infrared images of Pluto using a facility instrument called UFTI. I didn't expect much, after all the primary and secondary mirrors hadn't been calibrated, but we had a nice surprise!

In the top image, Pluto and its moon, Charon, are easily seen. Charon wasn't discovered until 1978 and even then the discovery was controversial. Ground-based telescopes are always subject to the effects of the atmosphere and until quite recently resolving Pluto and Charon was a very difficult task. Imagine my surprise when the automatic data reduction software spat out the image above (oh, OK, it didn't have the circle in it!). Remember, the telescope wasn't ready for this type of observation, I just wanted to see what image quality we had before working on the engineering models for the mirrors. I was also curious to see if we could figure out how to find Pluto in the first place!

The second image is actually two images combined. I wanted to make sure that we were actually looking at Pluto so we took another image a few minutes later; the idea being that the stars should stay in the same place but Pluto and Charon would have moved with respect to the background stars. They did and we could still see Charon.

OK, not as exciting as the most distant quasar ever seen, but given it's been nearly three years since we were last in this mode, the telescope had just been handed over by the engineers and I'd forgotten everything about running things in Cassegrain mode, I was rather impressed!

This is a close up of the K-band image of the Pluto-Charon system. The images are a little elongated but that's because we hadn't done the wavefront sensing at this point. For those who know a little about optics, there's some coma and astigmatism in the images which I hope are now removed after last night's engineering observations. For those that know little about astronomy, here's a little spiel I wrote for our staff:

Pluto, now classified as a dwarf planet, is approximately 2.9 billion miles away at the moment and it takes light over four hours to reach us from there, just to give you some idea of the scale of our Solar system. It's about a fifth the diameter of the Earth and its mass is only about a fifth of our own moon. Charon is only about 750 miles across and only about a fiftieth of the mass of our own moon.

Tomorrow night it's back to commissioning and engineering and after that hopefully some world-beating planetary science. And then maybe I can get some sleep...

As high as a kite

Not something you see every day. A kite flying high above the CFHT around sunset earlier this evening. Apparently, and I quote a CFHT source, "This is just to characterize the wind". Scientists, I don't know...

High over its cloudy domain

The NASA IRTF waiting for sunset high atop Mauna Kea on Independence Day evening. Haleakala on Maui is visible in the distance. A photo of the IRTF seemed appropriate as I've been working with a group of NASA scientists on the mountain since late last week.

Back above the clouds

Subaru and sunset clouds taken a short while ago just after sunset on Mauna Kea's summit. It's been a long time!

Baking at 14,000 feet

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I reported that we had ice on or near our wavefront sensor which would make it impossible to align the telescope, but an overnight bake on our oven fixed the problem, and the image above shows the result. Now I have to figure out the mirror-image results of the N, S, E and W markings and why the E is the wrong way round!

More importantly, the secondary mirror could now be aligned. It turned out I didn't have to make any large adjustment at all, our engineers reinstalled it perfectly. The bright circle in the middle, which is the secondary, has to be centered between those bars, and it was almost spot on first go. In addition, our 1-2.5 micron camera, UFTI, is back on the telescope and working perfectly and while all this is going on a filter problem with WFCAM seems to have been fixed or at least a work around has been found. All this in four days.

At the end of the afternoon I fully expected us to still have some problems, you have to remember it's been 30 months since we were last in this mode (Cassegrain) and everything has been updated since then. Thanks to a wonderful group of technicians, engineers and software people we left the mountain late this afternoon with everything working perfectly.

Given all this work is for a couple of weeks of night time observing while WFCAM is undergoing planned maintenance, the effort everyone has put in is phenomenal. Despite all the cutbacks and uncertainty about our future, we still have the most incredibly talented and dedicated staff. After fifteen years working with them I'm still in awe of what they can do.