tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40396335061093624322024-03-05T01:07:51.051-08:00Big Telescopes, Big Questionstaniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-5494616424390570232013-06-13T07:55:00.002-07:002013-06-13T07:55:18.158-07:00Welcome to La Palma (Guest blog)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]-->We are currently sat almost 2,400 m above sea level with the
clouds beneath us, staring at some of the world’s leading observatories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My name is Martin and I am here with my
colleague Alastair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are both graduate
engineers from the UKATC in Edinburgh, and are currently here as part of a
placement scheme within the STFC graduate training programme.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin, optical engineer</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcL8DJFrQO_fLhPY1yoWoy2RtvRp-N7NmDjU3UAi8uXhTkwQcZnjQDa1uVLotDgla77AloFK-JXu6GN9MxLkW6NAXeK4izGvK4c_0JFuAaiLiSsDS5TDP8WkddMvh-DFxsWED24oyxdZw/s1600/Alistair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcL8DJFrQO_fLhPY1yoWoy2RtvRp-N7NmDjU3UAi8uXhTkwQcZnjQDa1uVLotDgla77AloFK-JXu6GN9MxLkW6NAXeK4izGvK4c_0JFuAaiLiSsDS5TDP8WkddMvh-DFxsWED24oyxdZw/s320/Alistair.jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alastair, mechanical engineer</td></tr>
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</xml><![endif]--> La Palma is the western most of the Canary Islands, and one
of the best sites for Astronomy in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is partly due to the local weather system and latitude, which means
that the clouds usually form at around 2,000m and thus below the peak of the
mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The high altitude also means
that the distortion, or twinkling, of the light coming from the stars is
reduced as there is less atmosphere for the light to pass through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island has been used as a site for
Astronomy since 1979, and as such there have also been measures to reduce light
pollution on the island.</div>
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The mountain top site is shared by several institutions, collectively
known as the Roque de los Muchachos (The Rock of the Boys) Observatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the telescopes of note here include
the Swedish Solar telescope (below right), a 1m diameter telescope with an
advanced adaptive optics system (allowing it to correct for atmospheric
distortion) for observing the sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
highest telescope on the mountain is the Nordic Optical Telescope (below left),
a 2.56 m diameter telescope first opened in 1988.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are many instruments that constantly
swap on and off this telescope, researching lots of different areas of
Astronomy; from asteroids to galaxies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
dome of this telescope is unlike any of the others in that the entire building
rotates with the telescope!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have been
told by some of the astronomers here that this can be very disorientating when
you try to access the building in darkness and aren’t sure where the door is
anymore.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirbQOPsc7HlnTmY1gbsgVaEOuc4Lv0M5oILDIoLtpJ20MZBQz3Y_v-UeqEj9wsoN_Bovoy8fy6ZIuBjOEIKnIogKuX3emDU89kgzkeSXNsU2mXkSmEBrrfpCw9LlcYxS5LfGrBnCq8wl4/s1600/MAGIC+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirbQOPsc7HlnTmY1gbsgVaEOuc4Lv0M5oILDIoLtpJ20MZBQz3Y_v-UeqEj9wsoN_Bovoy8fy6ZIuBjOEIKnIogKuX3emDU89kgzkeSXNsU2mXkSmEBrrfpCw9LlcYxS5LfGrBnCq8wl4/s320/MAGIC+1.jpg" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nordic Optical Telescope</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMeh90-s0mwCPHcsOOhDlGCHjx4Li0OO5JV6TcNehsdnT2rKvjCZy0o7ZSm0dypLuoi8-JcPobN-N33J0uflJARC-zbUfYxGfOtn1ch_KCrVIv_WRsoSBGxVk7j0DHT4nhFWF9WAL_M0o/s1600/MAGIC+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMeh90-s0mwCPHcsOOhDlGCHjx4Li0OO5JV6TcNehsdnT2rKvjCZy0o7ZSm0dypLuoi8-JcPobN-N33J0uflJARC-zbUfYxGfOtn1ch_KCrVIv_WRsoSBGxVk7j0DHT4nhFWF9WAL_M0o/s320/MAGIC+2.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swedish Solar Telescope</td></tr>
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Two of the most eye catching telescopes here are known as
MAGIC I and II.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These strange looking
telescopes have huge metal mirror and no dome, and are designed to detect
Cherenkov radiation caused by high energy particles entering the
atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are operated by over 20
institutes from across Europe.</div>
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Roque de los Muchachos is also home to the world’s largest
single aperture telescope, the Gran Telescopio Canarias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main mirror of this telescope is made up
of 36 hexagonal segments, each around 2 meters across, making up a single
mirror 10.4 meters in diameter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
visiting we saw the other 6 segments they have in various stages of having
their reflective aluminium coatings removed and replaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Due to the sand in the air here the mirrors
get dirty over time, and even with regular cleaning the coating still needs
replaced every so often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By having a
continuous stream of this happening, there are never any segments missing from
the telescope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also of mention is the
oil bearing on which the telescope mount sits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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There are several other telescopes on the mountain not yet
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taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-13312676579290492082013-06-13T07:40:00.002-07:002013-06-13T07:40:23.115-07:00Big Telescopes updateI have seriously neglected the blog for far too long, and it isn't because there hasn't been any news to report, certainly not. There has been plenty, but work has been busy, and I haven't been disciplined enough to set aside time to keep you all updated. But, I'm getting back into it now, and it seems fitting that I should do that almost exactly 1 year to the day since I set off for Chile on my wonderful WCMT Fellowship adventure (by the way, applications are open for next year's round of <a href="http://www.wcmt.org.uk/" target="_blank">Fellowship funding</a>).<br />
<br />
Since I last wrote, various different big telescopes have gone through some excellent stages. I shall attempt to summarise in chronological order, without overloading you too much...<br />
<br />
<b>The Very Large Telescope and KMOS</b><br />
<br />
Back in November, KMOS achieved first light on the Very Large Telescope. You may remember, this is the instrument which my colleagues at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre were heavily involved in and was shipped out to Chile just as I was coming home. After its arrival at the Paranal Observatory in August, it was checked out (for any damage during shipping etc.) and then fitted to the Nasmyth platform in September and October.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7MfVFtzlSgkCOx-lhutSRBAD6q8bH4JgGjizWmP8HmGQQaUt351JQ_EAv6rhHNCrGs-H8ZjH78xixdRucr9wI9bKXSRKl1G6Y_QGXLQfBU4DWnYQcRaZOpMRO8P_whXHWTY5unvPiCc/s1600/eso1251b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7MfVFtzlSgkCOx-lhutSRBAD6q8bH4JgGjizWmP8HmGQQaUt351JQ_EAv6rhHNCrGs-H8ZjH78xixdRucr9wI9bKXSRKl1G6Y_QGXLQfBU4DWnYQcRaZOpMRO8P_whXHWTY5unvPiCc/s320/eso1251b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">KMOS on the Nasmyth Platform of UT1 at first light</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
KMOS is only the second of the 'second generation' instruments to be fitted to the VLT.<br />
<br />
For a reminder of what KMOS is, have a look at this STFC 'Backstage Science' video clip<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/OyXd9gp--5c?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) celebration</b><br />
<br />
At the start of this year, in January, the Royal Observatory Edinburgh hosted a meeting called 'VISTA: A Celebration'. This meeting brought together many of the scientists and engineers who have been involved in this project over the years. There were talks about the planning and construction, as well as talks about the fantastic science VISTA has done so far and talks about the future.<br />
<br />
VISTA has been operational since late 2009 and has given us some spectacular images including this amazingly detailed image of the Milky Way<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGho3FqRssfIJyJYqdVHpbsqySgAafdDlnoPOflT0LyKgZHZ_ScGBV5UfrsDusKt29GEKN-q6OTpiprzWWYzdIYnlfHi9E4-WJduKtvpRlsDUEaxoPW5ocY97lSDp6JV0XCWakCqdn2Bk/s1600/milky+way.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGho3FqRssfIJyJYqdVHpbsqySgAafdDlnoPOflT0LyKgZHZ_ScGBV5UfrsDusKt29GEKN-q6OTpiprzWWYzdIYnlfHi9E4-WJduKtvpRlsDUEaxoPW5ocY97lSDp6JV0XCWakCqdn2Bk/s320/milky+way.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Using this data from VISTA, astronomers have been able to create a catalogue of over 84 million stars in the central parts of the Milky Way. Wow!<br />
<br />
<b>Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) Inauguration</b><br />
<br />
In March this year, ALMA<b> </b>had its official inauguration ceremony - this marked the formal transition from a construction project to a fully fledged observatory, although not all the dishes are actually in place just yet at the Operations Site.<br />
<br />
At work, we gathered in the canteen to watch the live stream of the celebration from Chile and even had an ALMA cake to enjoy!!<br />
<br />
Since first light in 2011, with a partial array of just 16 dishes, ALMA has already given some very interesting science results about galaxies, planet formation and stellar evolution.<br />
<br />
When I visited ALMA, there were just 34 dishes in place at the Operations Site. As of 29th May there were 59 antennas in place. I was very excited back in February, as the final North American dish was put in place at the 5000m site. When I visited the Operations Support Facility back in July last year, I posted a photo showing the final North American dish still in the construction hanger. Just goes to show that the construction of the dish itself is just one part of the whole process of building the observatory.<br />
<br />
The latest ALMA press release sheds light on how dust particles in the disc around a young star can clump together to start to form things like comets and planets. You can read the full press release on the <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1325/" target="_blank">ESO website.</a><br />
<br />
<b>European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) - UK support confirmation</b><br />
<br />
Also in March this year, we had confirmation that the UK will participate in the E-ELT project - great news for my colleagues at the UK ATC. Since then, Portugal and Denmark have both confirmed their participation in the project too, and Danish company Ramboll have secured the contract to provide consultancy services to ESO during the construction of the huge dome required for the E-ELT<b>. </b>Construction of the E-ELT will hopefully start later this year.<br />
<br />
<b>James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) update</b><br />
<br />
The last blog entry I wrote was about the second of the instruments for JWST having been delivered to Goddard, keeping the UK ATC led MIRI company. In May, the MIRI was installed into the structure which will hold all the flight instruments.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4VS8gqgYwB_B7qT0wkjw0IiFr9zRiiR3Q8VKSWpwKL0Maat9D4yUCS5DT-mCp8g8zrTFguufv_KjSQr7W4i-DJO5_FKn1HynwXgHMvn_BIqP99TcxN1l16UKeeWfcEMmGeZzJ_8hABFU/s1600/MIRI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4VS8gqgYwB_B7qT0wkjw0IiFr9zRiiR3Q8VKSWpwKL0Maat9D4yUCS5DT-mCp8g8zrTFguufv_KjSQr7W4i-DJO5_FKn1HynwXgHMvn_BIqP99TcxN1l16UKeeWfcEMmGeZzJ_8hABFU/s320/MIRI.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MIRI being fitted to the Webb structure</td></tr>
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<b> </b><br />
So, I think that about does it for a brief round of the main big telescopes news since I last wrote. The next few entries are actually going to be 'guest' blog entries from 2 friends who are out in La Palma.<br />
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taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-7182754556371644342012-10-05T09:25:00.003-07:002012-10-05T09:25:46.540-07:00MIRI is not alone anymoreThis week, I have been mostly preparing for the second part of our James Webb Space Telescope teacher CPD which we run annually with the National Science Learning Centre.<br />
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We held the first part shortly before I left for Chile, and 28 secondary science teachers and technicians from across the UK came to Edinburgh to learn all about the telescope and the UK's involvement.<br />
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Just before the workshop, the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) had been safely delivered to NASA Goddard - a real <a href="http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/MIRI/news.htm" target="_blank">milestone</a> in the project, and particularly significant for us at the Royal Observatory. Professor Gillian Wright, the director of STFC's UK Astronomy Technology Centre is the Principal Investigator for MIRI and has led a European consortium of 10 different European countries in this project.<br />
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During the workshop, we treated the teachers to a live link-up with NASA Goddard, and Martyn Wells, UK ATC optical engineer. Martyn, who had been involved in our JWST CPD the previous year, was unable to be there in person this year as he had to be at Goddard for some of the initial testing of MIRI.<br />
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You can find out more about some of the people involved in MIRI <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/miri-faces_prt.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
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On Monday, we hold the second part of the CPD in York, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the teachers have done since we last met and how they have been inspired by their trip to the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.<br />
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But, what has happened with JWST since then?<br />
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Well, MIRI was the first of the instruments to be delivered, and it has gone through all the necessary NASA checks since delivery and everything works as expected! Also, MIRI is no longer alone out there. Late July, the second instrument was delivered and is currently going through the same tests as MIRI did.<br />
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Even before it left the UK, MIRI had to undergo serious testing at STFC's RAL Space, including vibration testing which you can see more about in this video clip:<br />
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More recently, 2 of the mirror segments have been delivered. You can find out more about the segments in this <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19717177" target="_blank">BBC News article</a><br />
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Next year, all of the instruments will be tested together in a giant cryogenic chamber.<br />
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taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-49031830615287530162012-08-22T08:40:00.000-07:002012-08-22T08:40:51.118-07:00The last of KMOS leaves EdinburghToday, the final parts of KMOS left the UK ATC for their journey by air to Chile. The Cable Rotator left back in mid-July when I was still out there, and now the cryogenic unit has left too. But both deliveries will arrive at roughly the same time as the first went by boat - a 6 week journey.<br />
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There were 2 large lorries on site to pick up the 21 (!) boxes and take them on their journey to the airport.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A tight fit for the lorry through the gates!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the many boxes ready to go</td></tr>
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Inside these various boxes are a selection of electrical cabinets, electrical and mechanical components, pipes, pumps, documents and manuals to name but a few things. And, of course, the cryostat itself - this box weighing in at a whopping 3.7 tonnes!<br />
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On Sunday, 3 of the UK ATC team will head out to Chile too, for at least 6 weeks, to test the instrument after its journey, put it all back together and to be there to fit it to the telescope.<br />
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The guys heading out are Alasdair Fairley, Project Manager; Phil Rees, systems engineer; and George Davidson, Technician. Out at Paranal, they will be joined by 2 electrical engineers and 1 software engineer from Germany and a mechanical engineer from Durham.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGU6j52HHftGTCuP11xYJJ1QjEI8at3gVe1g4mmlxi8bl6nHEOk0mJkDjCPkeKl7J7Eyrb8bYiobpjQPgA3aKAGbhC07r4L1IiMVdMwRIprOcffv0TNY7w_syr9aLqR_ltX15aaVpl8BY/s1600/Proud+work+kmos.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGU6j52HHftGTCuP11xYJJ1QjEI8at3gVe1g4mmlxi8bl6nHEOk0mJkDjCPkeKl7J7Eyrb8bYiobpjQPgA3aKAGbhC07r4L1IiMVdMwRIprOcffv0TNY7w_syr9aLqR_ltX15aaVpl8BY/s320/Proud+work+kmos.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of those on the KMOS team</td></tr>
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taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-8932208954020140612012-07-25T22:01:00.002-07:002012-07-25T22:01:24.670-07:00Universidad de Concepcion - Astronomy OutreachOn Monday and Tuesday I had been invited by Paulina Hernandez Jara, of the Universidad de Concepcion, to observe their public astronomy activities, for the winter holidays.<br />
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I arrived at the university on Monday late morning, and after a little bit of asking around, I found Paulina in the hall with the planetarium. It was lovely to meet her and she proceeded to introduce me to various different people from the Astronomy Department.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and some of the Concepcion outreach team</td></tr>
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Paulina has worked as the outreach officer for the Astronomy Department for a couple of years and is a journalist by background. She had organised 2 weeks of public activities, following on from a very successful 1 week of activities in the past summer.<br />
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The programme of activities was fantastic - something for everyone, a great variety. The previous week they had 'Astro-Cine' and had shown various films, like 'Contact' and '2001 - A Space Odyssey'. Throughout the whole 2 weeks they also had various courses on different topics like black holes, exoplanets, stars and galaxies - given by professors of the department. They also had arranged for the Cerro Tololo Observatory outreach team to come with their planetarium and do shows each day for 1 week, as well as various other workshops and talks - including a workshop for pre-school children. They also had the IYA 2009 exhibition From Earth To The Universe on display. Also, each day, a post-grad or masters student would give a short talk on a different topic, like the history of astronomy, astrobiology and astronomy in different wavelengths.<br />
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The team providing the activities were a mixture of professors, post-docs and post-grads, as well as various undergrads helping out with the administration of the activities.<br />
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All the activities, bar the courses, were provided for free to the public. I asked Paulina how they got the funds for such a programme, and she told me that within the University there is an Arts and Culture department who fund activities for the public, but normally focussing more on the Arts side of things.<br />
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After chatting for a while with various people, and having a spot of lunch together with Paulina and Marcela (the department secretary) I went to the spectroscopy workshop which was being provided by Juan Sequel Beecher.<br />
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There were around 20 people who had booked in for this workshop, and they were a mixture of adults and children.<br />
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Juan started with an introduction to himself and the Cerro Tololo Observatory and made the very good point that there are many different people who work at observatories, not just astronomers. He himself is a mechanical engineer by background, and moved into outreach later.<br />
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He then continued to give a brief description of how our eyes work, comparing the sensors in our eyes to the sensors of a camera, and explaining that our eyes don't see colour well at night because of one of the cone cells.<br />
<br />After this he went on to explain a little about spectroscopy and the sequence of stars, and how we can find out information about the chemical composition of the stars by studying the light emitted, and using spectroscopy.<br />
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Juan had a selection of different lamps at the front of the room, and gave each member of the audience a handheld spectroscope and proceeded to go through each lamp in turn, so people could see the difference between the spectra. It was great and the audience were really getting it. He then did a great demonstration of what it's like looking at the stars - he switched on all of the lamps at the same time, so the people could see that there was a lot of information, as the spectra overlap. He explained that even though there is lots of information from one star, scientists are still able to distinguish the different chemicals.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking at the spectra of different lamps</td></tr>
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Next, Juan used a portable spectroscope he had with him to show the line spectra on the screen. This was great as he had already explained that our eyes only see in the visible region (400 - 700nm) so he was able to then talk about energy efficiency of the different lamps. For example, the halogen lamp is not very efficient as much of the light it emits is in the infrared (i.e. the lamp gets very hot) so is wasting a lot of the light. Also, he showed a white LED and showed that it has a large peak in the blue region of the spectrum, where our eyes don't pick up a lot of light either. I loved this and could really see this working very well in schools.<br />
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After the workshop, I headed to the lecture theatre to see Matias Blaña, one of the post-grad students, give a talk on the history of astronomy. Of course, it was in Spanish, so I didn't understand all of it, but I really enjoyed it and he got a lot of questions afterwards, so clearly the rest of the audience were very engaged too.<br />
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At the end of the day, Paulina took me to talk to Dr Ricardo Bustos, who works with the <a href="http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt/" target="_blank">GAVRT project</a>, a NASA initiative for schools. Chile is the only other country outside of the USA to participate in the project, which involves pupils in schools remotely controlling the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescopes in California. In Chile, this project has double value - as well as being beneficial to the pupils' science learning, it also helps them with their English as they have to communicate with the controllers in the states. The pupils can choose what they want to observe - satellites and planets for example. I really like the fact they can observe satellites as there is so much scope for then expanding the topic to different areas of physics and engineering.<br />
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Ricardo is the coordinator for Chile and currently there are 6 schools involved with the project. He is keen to get more teachers involved, but part of the requirement is that the teachers first go to California for 5 days of introductory courses and background information about the telescopes, which has to be paid by the school. Also, it is not financially viable for the GAVRT people to run the course for less than 6 people, so Ricardo has to get at least 6 people to go along. Another reason for having 6 is that following on from the course, not all of them will continue with the project, normally roughly 1 out of 6 will continue.<br />
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I could see similarities between this project and the likes of the projects involving robotic telescopes - Faulkes and Bradford - which are active in the UK. The benefit of course with this project is that it's a radio telescope, so the weather isn't quite so much of an issue and the timing of the observations isn't dependent on it being night-time.<br />
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On Tuesday, I met Paulina at about 9:30am, with Prof. Ezequiel Triester, and we headed off for one of the regional television channel studios! Ezequiel was being interviewed on a live morning show (a bit like 'Lorraine'!) all about the astronomy activities. It was fun to be in a TV studio and really funny to watch the piece before Ezequiel - the presenters were interviewing some kids, not sure exactly about what, but one little girl was in her tutu and doing ballet demonstrations which the presenters were copying!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the TV studio</td></tr>
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The coverage the activities got was fantastic. There was a short piece of pre-filmed footage, showing nice astronomical images and people coming out of the planetarium very happy. Then they interviewed Ezequiel, which I couldn't hear very well, but the whole piece was probably about 10 minutes long. I told Paulina that in Scotland, the TV companies are only really interested in our activities if it's a really big activity, with a particularly large audience. She has had excellent media interest for her activities, both regional and national TV companies had been in touch and along to film the activities.<br />
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Once we got back to the university, I met up with a group of about 6 post-grad students who are all really keen and active in outreach within the department.<br />
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I showed them our Deep Space activities and explained the thinking behind them, and how to run a workshop for a class. They were really enthusiastic and are very keen to use the resources. Paulina says they will translate them into Spanish and trial them with some schools, probably by the end of the year. She'll be giving me a copy of the translated worksheets, so hopefully I can get them going in Spain too.<br />
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The students asked me more about my job and the observatory, and I told them lots about the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland. They particularly liked the fact that the Deep Space resources encourage the class to discuss their findings together, and I explained that one of the outcomes of the curriculum in Scotland is that they should be effective contributors.<br />
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After a lovely chat with them, Paulina and I headed for lunch with Ricardo, Ezequiel and one of Ezequiel's post-docs.<br />
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When we returned to the university, there were another 2 TV crews (nationals this time) who were filming at the planetarium and interviewing Ezequiel. This time though, I also got interviewed! Paulina introduced me to one of the crew and explained who I was and why I was there, and they thought it would be great to include me in their piece! So, I have been on TV in Chile!! It wasn't exactly a long piece, and when I saw it on the TV I was very embarrassed to hear how strong my Scottish accent is when I speak Spanish! But considering I could barely string 2 words together when I first arrived in Chile, I think it's quite an achievement!<br />
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I had such a fantastic time at the Universidad de Chile and it was wonderful to share ideas with such enthusiastic people and to hear of all their activities. I have come away with some great ideas too, for Visitor centre public activities. A fantastic end to a wonderful trip around Chile - I'm really glad I could include a visit to Concepcion, and that it coincided with their winter public activities.taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-7557950743287182702012-07-25T21:11:00.002-07:002012-07-25T21:11:26.453-07:00A few days off in Valparaiso<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIdehUCrATs_KQZrcOxC8plXZScwtUmYTKTAd-RVukyEBYf34Op0iv_tVRj2Nqz_w_ozONljpeIHD6oHEMSlWist0S0nvgImQeXSz4wwVgaiehDfcbg3JvdNRbvYjfrxxMtcts4Om3eA/s1600/P1010239.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIdehUCrATs_KQZrcOxC8plXZScwtUmYTKTAd-RVukyEBYf34Op0iv_tVRj2Nqz_w_ozONljpeIHD6oHEMSlWist0S0nvgImQeXSz4wwVgaiehDfcbg3JvdNRbvYjfrxxMtcts4Om3eA/s200/P1010239.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valparaiso</td></tr>
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After my time in La Serena and Valle de Elqui, I had decided to take a few days out and visit Valparaiso, which I had heard such great things about. Also, it was my birthday, so I figured I deserved a wee treat.<br />
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I was not disappointed by Valparaiso - such a cool place. Sadly on the first day I was there it was cloudy and very foggy so I wasn't able to appreciate the spectacular views of this amazing hilly city.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I took a walk to Pablo Neruda's Valparaiso house, La Sebastiana and had the weather been better, I would have been blessed with amazing views down to the port and across the city along the walk. Nevertheless, La Sebastiana was lovely. They have an audio guide so you can wander through at your own pace. It was pretty busy, though which is a shame as a lot of the rooms are quite small so sometimes it was difficult to see everything. Still, a really cool house and I really got a good impression of how Neruda loved the sea and to collect many different objects!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Sebastiana</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After the house, I wandered down towards the Museum of Open Air - an art installation throughout an area of the city, which is made up of lots of different paintings and graffiti on buildings and walls. I didn't see much of it, as even with a map, the streets are really difficult to navigate!<br />
<br />
I then took a trip on the oldest of the 'ascencores' in Valparaiso - The Concepcion Ascencor. Built in 1883 and one of the 3 currently working in the city, it was an interesting experience! Thankfully the ride didn't last too long as I was a little worried about how rickety it was!! But still, good to take the trip.<br />
<br />
After a spot of lunch in Cerro Concepcion I went to visit the Museo El Mirador de Lukas - a museum of cartoons by the Italian born 'Lukas'. He did cartoon strips for the local newspapers for years, displaying the life and city of Valparaiso as well as the rest of Chile. My Spanish has obviously improved as I could actually understand a lot of the cartoons, which were very funny.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">On my second day, which was my birthday, the owner of the hostel took me and 2 German tourists to visit the Casablanca Valley and Isla Negra. This was a great way to spend my birthday - a bit of culture and some lovely wine!</span><br />
<br />
We visited 2 wineries in the late morning - William Cole and Emiliana - and tried a total of 7 different wines. The Casablanca Valley is actually famous for its white wines because of the climate, but they do also grow Pinot Noir grapes, and the Emiliana has some Merlot grapes too. A lot of the wineries also make other wines, like the Carmenere (a favourite of mine), using grapes from other wine regions.<br />
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I had a pleasant surprise in both of the tastings. At William Cole, there was a Pinot Noir to try and previously, for example on my numerous vineyard visits in Australia, I hadn't been a fan of this wine. But, wow! The smell of this wine was stunning - full of vanilla and cinnamon - and the taste was lovely too. So, now I know, I can buy Chilean Pinot Noir when I get home and I'll like it!<br />
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The second surprise came at the Emiliana winery - organic and biodynamic vineyards. I really did not think for a second I was going to like this one, as I have really disliked it in the past. The Viognier. Again, the smell was totally amazing, this time just like honey. And it tasted delicious!<br />
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After the vineyards, we stopped off for lunch and I had a lovely rabbit stew - have been hankering after some rabbit for a while now!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Casa de Isla Negra</td></tr>
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Then we headed to Isla Negra to see another of Pablo Neruda's houses, and this one, I think, is the best.<br />
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Again, an amazing collection of objects, and the rooms in this house are made out to either resemble a boat or a train carriage! In the first room, there is a huge collection of ship figureheads of all different sorts, some of them absolutely huge!<br />
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Pablo Neruda and his 3rd wife are buried here at Isla Negra, but this is a fairly recent thing.<br />
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The views from the house were beautiful too. Neruda called the place Isla Negra because, although its not an island, he felt like he was on an island when he looked out to sea and down to the black rocks below.<br />
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I loved Valparaiso, and it's definitely a place I'd like to explore more if I ever return to Chile.taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-465967292376057112012-07-17T18:36:00.001-07:002012-07-17T18:36:14.278-07:00Observatorio del PangueWhat a fantastic stargazing experience I had at Observatorio del Pangue on Monday evening. I had been in touch with Eric, who runs the observatory, since before I left the UK. Eric is a French astronomer, who, as it turns out, worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh for two years, back in the 90s. He and Christian, an astrophotographer from Vicuna, take small groups up to their small observatory approximately 16 km from Vicuna. The road there is mostly a dirt track, through amazing semi-desert landscape - lots of cacti!<br />
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There were 5 of us in total this evening - me and a Chilean family of 4. At the observatory, they have a 16 inch motorised Meade telescope, and of course, fantastic dark skies.<br />
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I've decided that for this blog post, I'm going to go through every amazing object I got to see...<br />
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<h4>
Alpha Centauri</h4>
<div>
We started with one of our closest neighbouring stars, Alpha Centauri, just 4.37 light-years from the Sun. It is the brightest star in the constellation of Centaurus and the 3rd brightest star in the whole sky. But, it is not just one star, Alpha Centauri is actually a binary star system - designated Alpha Centauri AB. When you look through the telescope at this system, it looks a bit like a pair of headlights coming towards you! Research shows that actually many stars are binary star systems, or indeed multiple star systems.</div>
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Omega Centauri</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7Y-clZWK-jV_Ma9a455JBCSAGO9Xciqc4aXMT009vhyphenhyphenlPoGV_18N8Y-yiph1uNjZeq7Y_XPqj-7A09D9D5CCCPKRYtOZ6vbr2ZhLGiCTDBQxIjvwJDXyxj272Bs0nHQHihHDRApEbG4/s1600/omega+centauri+ESO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7Y-clZWK-jV_Ma9a455JBCSAGO9Xciqc4aXMT009vhyphenhyphenlPoGV_18N8Y-yiph1uNjZeq7Y_XPqj-7A09D9D5CCCPKRYtOZ6vbr2ZhLGiCTDBQxIjvwJDXyxj272Bs0nHQHihHDRApEbG4/s200/omega+centauri+ESO.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">After Alpha Centauri we moved to another object in the constellation of Centaurus - Omega Centauri. I had seen this for the first time at Observatorio Mamalluca earlier in my trip and had been blown away by it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">It's quite astonishing to think that Edmund Halley first observed this back in 1677! But it wasn't until the 1800's that John Herschel (not the astronomer who discovered Uranus) correctly recognised it as a globular cluster.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Omega Centauri is about 15,800 light-years from Earth and contains several million stars - a huge cluster. It is of particular interest to astronomers because it is so different from other galactic globular clusters.</span><br />
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Carbon Star</span></h4>
<div>
Next, we moved onto something which I really wasn't familiar with at all - a carbon star near the Southern Cross. It was quite difficult to see with the telescope as it's not very bright and there was another bright star in the field of view, but once I had it, it was amazing - such an intense red colour.<br />
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Carbon stars are ones which are similar to red giants, and very close to the end of their life. Their atmosphere contains more carbon that oxygen, leading to the combination of the two elements to form carbon monoxide. This leaves carbon atoms free to form other carbon molecules, and leads to the striking red colour.</div>
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Swan Nebula</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQh4MJd2BCabRQf8Gj8FxupVBLWgJG-zWcHOUBxxsfLCrZ7lKAWZjUDd0dpIrtLapUnXOdbSVR0E6Xayt55HuhyWY9_QzmuTEeHXz-ptrgxqaPGfKVe6IcvqU4VrI4flErx1xKEtlhZrM/s1600/swan+nebula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQh4MJd2BCabRQf8Gj8FxupVBLWgJG-zWcHOUBxxsfLCrZ7lKAWZjUDd0dpIrtLapUnXOdbSVR0E6Xayt55HuhyWY9_QzmuTEeHXz-ptrgxqaPGfKVe6IcvqU4VrI4flErx1xKEtlhZrM/s200/swan+nebula.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
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<div>
The Swan Nebula forms part of the Omega Nebula, in the constellation of Sagittarius, between 5000 - 6000 light-years away.<br />
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The Omega Nebula itself is around 15 light-years in diameter but the cloud of interstellar matter of which it is a part spans some 40 light-years!<br />
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The Sagittarius Arm of our galaxy, where this nebula is, contains a large concentration of nebulae - in other words, is a large star formation region.<br />
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I can't honestly say I saw the swan shape of the nebula, but it was beautiful to see.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Jewel Box Cluster</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGZ9D_7f24Pk4KAp7r_YJ2ottwPYnmefM8cYKDprv8py7vO0yjHaL9oH1EXO9zV4R9if3QjtCMHoFBqj5sxhT8GsyclZebzkEafepfEp7IdC4uYmOekBqrcZKadGW57hkcKdfdyQW-QDQ/s1600/jewel+box+cluster+ESO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGZ9D_7f24Pk4KAp7r_YJ2ottwPYnmefM8cYKDprv8py7vO0yjHaL9oH1EXO9zV4R9if3QjtCMHoFBqj5sxhT8GsyclZebzkEafepfEp7IdC4uYmOekBqrcZKadGW57hkcKdfdyQW-QDQ/s200/jewel+box+cluster+ESO.jpg" width="199" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Next, we moved on to another type of cluster - an open cluster - called the Jewel Box cluster. This was one I had seen at Mamalluca and in San Pedro.<br />
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An open cluster is one where the stars have all been born out of the same nebula - like the Pleiades which we see well in the northern Hemisphere.<br />
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The Jewel Box is particularly pretty as it has 3 brightly coloured stars, including Kappa Crucis which is bright orange and so contrasts with its bluer neighbours.<br />
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It is estimated that the Jewel Box cluster is around 14 million years old - very young compared to the Pleiades at 65 million years old!<br />
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">47 Tucanae Cluster</span></h4>
</div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSh11Xuk2wOO_W1OEDhg6DgXJsjhzCLdb06jDgrZt1wxRg54DnIg1ltqKpY4txWkRfLqs6bREEDvryVB3CXjaAcjwNsntz44W91iUtpBuKqwl6KCqt43ictP7BNZeqITwqaZmsqhJ44o/s1600/47+tuc+ESO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSh11Xuk2wOO_W1OEDhg6DgXJsjhzCLdb06jDgrZt1wxRg54DnIg1ltqKpY4txWkRfLqs6bREEDvryVB3CXjaAcjwNsntz44W91iUtpBuKqwl6KCqt43ictP7BNZeqITwqaZmsqhJ44o/s200/47+tuc+ESO.jpg" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Sticking with clusters, but going back to globular, I got the chance to see the 47 Tucanae cluster.<br />
<br />
47 Tucanae is slightly further away than Omega Centauri, around 16,700 light-years away, but almost as bright. It too is made up from millions of stars.<br />
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Globular clusters are fairly common in galaxies - our own Milky Way has around 150. They are generally contain many more stars than open clusters, and are older.<br />
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Eric said he finds it difficult to choose which of Omega and Tucanae he prefers to observe, and I quite agree. They're both beautiful to look at.<br />
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Carina Nebula</span></h4>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zmDbaH4KWTuXQlPzJmI6puvCQix3NuU3pvQ4cmBWsiz9Y4op9BhOh1wPYeBaAy917wHJFqFShQo1zHNpl58ssdFByCM9va2wudatgYDm5eJxU4ZsVG990JBqgLijjyS44zMyRrvulzg/s1600/carina+nebula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zmDbaH4KWTuXQlPzJmI6puvCQix3NuU3pvQ4cmBWsiz9Y4op9BhOh1wPYeBaAy917wHJFqFShQo1zHNpl58ssdFByCM9va2wudatgYDm5eJxU4ZsVG990JBqgLijjyS44zMyRrvulzg/s200/carina+nebula.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
The Carina Nebula is really stunning to look at and is another of the star formation regions in the Sagittarius arm of our Galaxy. The nebula is between 6500 - 10000 light-years from Earth. It is one of the largest diffuse nebulae in the skies, 4 times bigger than the Orion Nebula!<br />
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It surrounds various open clusters of stars, and one bright star of particular interest is Eta Carinae - one of the most massive and luminous in our Galaxy.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjr7F1OWzZNLABb5pU1liGjSHPq04zSbsDI_VkTUbV5rMdDDDhuBuoDM_mit83W65X7Gb8bp8kdcvQr8hfMV1QdwTnCNctzOlkBvh2SBGi-v5b8vZD0nYsaHjFwO6BhUMGaYIM1tl-23o/s1600/eta+carinae+hubble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjr7F1OWzZNLABb5pU1liGjSHPq04zSbsDI_VkTUbV5rMdDDDhuBuoDM_mit83W65X7Gb8bp8kdcvQr8hfMV1QdwTnCNctzOlkBvh2SBGi-v5b8vZD0nYsaHjFwO6BhUMGaYIM1tl-23o/s200/eta+carinae+hubble.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eta Carinae. Credit Hubble</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Eta Carinae is so interesting because around it is a strange mini-nebula, which is thought to have been caused by an eruption of the star in the 1800's. Christian changed the eye-piece on the telescope to a higher magnification, so we could see this feature.<br />
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The star looked a bit like it had Mickey Mouse ears on it, one slightly larger than the other! It was amazing to see this 'broken' star, which really, isn't there any more. I saw something which doesn't exist any more!<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Tarantula Nebula</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kzCp5wRH9ec9fvJJQD7MBaGUXyFiKLC7q3CthjMSELZKixXjlpL9pFhF9phfdvkFERrXjXAf-OtsDFd9AdBhyrXHZShoH4lvfwkfGU1ftp6M7oyxNGVuMKskFbF-YX3C-CGloYSS-Bw/s1600/tarantula+nebula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kzCp5wRH9ec9fvJJQD7MBaGUXyFiKLC7q3CthjMSELZKixXjlpL9pFhF9phfdvkFERrXjXAf-OtsDFd9AdBhyrXHZShoH4lvfwkfGU1ftp6M7oyxNGVuMKskFbF-YX3C-CGloYSS-Bw/s200/tarantula+nebula.jpg" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Something I had been really pleased to see here in the Southern Hemisphere are the Magellanic Clouds. Although I have been in the Southern Hemisphere before, that was before I worked in astronomy. I was always interested in astronomy, but I didn't know to look out for these members of our local group.<br />
<br />
So, as I knew this would probably be my last opportunity to see them, I asked if we could observe one of them with the telescope. Eric and Christian obliged to my delight, and focussed the telescope on the Tarantula Nebula, within the Large Magellanic Cloud.<br />
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I mentioned this nebula in a previous post as my friend and colleague's research area is super-massive stars and the Tarantula Nebula has some of these, and some which are acting quite strange.<br />
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With this nebula, I could definitely see where it gets its name!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Sombrero Galaxy</span></h4>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Bc6-Z_FqZPFZDLq2A5GBpfh6nmWtWbocfmMzcJ_-add34pzcdUnXrRRSNLZzG7mEfRoUXNE_h8Tufp6RE6KGW-VujOxGtSszB4i1qMaRyJ7FfrRpdjKKtIlIBh69xrEcH5hm0U7Gt10/s1600/sombrero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Bc6-Z_FqZPFZDLq2A5GBpfh6nmWtWbocfmMzcJ_-add34pzcdUnXrRRSNLZzG7mEfRoUXNE_h8Tufp6RE6KGW-VujOxGtSszB4i1qMaRyJ7FfrRpdjKKtIlIBh69xrEcH5hm0U7Gt10/s200/sombrero.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
I also got another chance to see the Sombrero Galaxy, which I had seen in San Pedro. This time it was better though, as the telescope was larger, so I could really see the shape. In San Pedro it was more of a smudge and quite difficult to distinguish.<br />
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28 million light-years from us, it's just amazing that we can see something at this distance with just a 16" telescope!<br />
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The Sombrero Galaxy gets its name from the unusually bright nucleus and the dark prominent dust line.</div>
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Planetary Nebula</span></h4>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0-1R83hcsUhv1DkVWWtvEu256rrqHyKOxGif_U7h9O7lcMyGJkIkBc2hgHf_2MlX9w5098xaDtjNNT48htk_8WxufEWoHmYdpHkgYlQU75Rx4Ql69IOKb3nPaOWWNj-RdZwcU_hHHVg/s1600/ghost+of+jupiter.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0-1R83hcsUhv1DkVWWtvEu256rrqHyKOxGif_U7h9O7lcMyGJkIkBc2hgHf_2MlX9w5098xaDtjNNT48htk_8WxufEWoHmYdpHkgYlQU75Rx4Ql69IOKb3nPaOWWNj-RdZwcU_hHHVg/s200/ghost+of+jupiter.gif" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit Hubble</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
We also got to see a planetary nebula - a dying star. The one we looked at is nicknamed 'The Ghost of Jupiter' as when it was first observed, it was thought to be a planet.<br />
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A planetary nebula is a late stage in the life of certain types of stars. William Herschel (the one who discovered Uranus) came up with the term, because he thought this type of nebula looked like the planet Uranus through the telescope. Although the nebula has nothing to do with planet formation, the name has stuck.<br />
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With the telescope, it looks like a diffuse oval of light - not as pronounced as a planet, much hazier.
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<h4>
<span style="background-color: white;">Centaurus A</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6G7aJ2cnMK1YlaqPKaQv6hCLL5-tzalpf2KC28ew_vhpVbJZLqfFq33hv1kTrITLkLIeSamzyT9amSnQD9YaTN5GfmPeSL7e_rhYlMUm-59y48wEQctyUhi0Bg4kmd6obVB3IF35M5c/s1600/centaurus+A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6G7aJ2cnMK1YlaqPKaQv6hCLL5-tzalpf2KC28ew_vhpVbJZLqfFq33hv1kTrITLkLIeSamzyT9amSnQD9YaTN5GfmPeSL7e_rhYlMUm-59y48wEQctyUhi0Bg4kmd6obVB3IF35M5c/s200/centaurus+A.jpg" width="189" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit ESO</td></tr>
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<div>
We also got to see Centaurus A - a collision of galaxies.<br />
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At roughly 10 - 16 million light-years distance, Centaurus A is one of the closest radio galaxies and as such has been studied extensively. Studies show that the Sombrero Galaxy is undoing an intensified rate of star formation - something which regularly occurs due to galaxy collisions.<br />
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You can clearly see in the telescope, a black bar (dust) going across the brighter object (a spiral galaxy face on) <span style="background-color: white;">behind</span><span style="background-color: white;">.</span><br />
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<h4>
Saturn</h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkuJS_JeH81UeW_GGoS788OqGI77EZE0y6AfdJ6lIF2_5US4vpHMJDD7DjtKTVyB6SVv3A3sOl8T2sGKTyCUWxv_NATLKeqczVflisOMMw1fQ-DSbDf6an_FPw22HiXWKzgRDN6f6-Q8/s1600/P1010179.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkuJS_JeH81UeW_GGoS788OqGI77EZE0y6AfdJ6lIF2_5US4vpHMJDD7DjtKTVyB6SVv3A3sOl8T2sGKTyCUWxv_NATLKeqczVflisOMMw1fQ-DSbDf6an_FPw22HiXWKzgRDN6f6-Q8/s320/P1010179.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saturn, taken with my camera through telescope</td></tr>
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To finish the official part of the public event, we saw Saturn. This was by far the best view I've ever had of Saturn and I could even see 5 of its moons, including Titan and Enceladus.<br />
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I asked Christian if my camera would be able to capture the image of Saturn through the eye piece of the telescope, and with a bit of fiddling with settings, he was able to get this image.<br />
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He also took a couple of video clips of it which are also very cool.<br />
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I'm quite pleased that you can even see a little colour in the image too!</div>
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<br />
I stayed a little later with Eric and Christian after the family had left and played around with my camera trying to get some more good shots of the Galactic centre and even trying to get the Magellanic Clouds. I'm quite pleased with the results I got, which you can see on my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/taniaj78/sets/72157630620297144/" target="_blank">flickr account</a><br />
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Whilst I was playing around with my camera, Eric and Christian were doing some more serious work. 3 nights earlier, they had taken a picture of the night sky, towards the Galactic Centre. This evening, they were going to take the same shot again, with the purpose of getting an image of Pluto. They would be comparing the two photos to look for the object which had moved.<br />
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It was really exciting to be there and seeing the comparison, especially when they found it! What a fantastic way to finish off my stargazing experience in the Southern Hemisphere - to be able to say I saw an image of Pluto as taken with a 16" telescope!</div>
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<br /></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-56187823722822918372012-07-17T08:41:00.001-07:002012-07-17T08:41:34.791-07:00KMOS Has Left The Building!As I contemplate the sad fact that I have less than 2 weeks left in Chile, back home in Edinburgh, KMOS started its journey here on Monday.<br />
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The delicate job of packing KMOS up began on Monday morning at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre. A huge lorry arrived on site to transport the instrument and cable rotator to Tilbury Docks, London.<br />
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The Cable Rotator (CACOR) will be transported by boat and will take 6 weeks to arrive. The instrument itself goes by air and will be at the assembly hall in Paranal in 1 week. So as I fly home, I'll be flying over the CACOR in transportation somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean.<br />
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For a more detailed description of what KMOS is and how it will work, have a look at this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/BackstageScience?feature=watch" target="_blank">STFC Backstage Science</a> video clip:<br />
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And to find out more about being an instrument scientist, watch this video interview with Michele Cirasuolo, UK ATC Instrument Scientist for KMOS:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UT1 is ready and waiting for KMOS</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Whilst at Paranal, I specifically asked to see Unit Telescope 1 (Antu) so I could see where KMOS would go. It was great to see 'the other side'! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">During the 6 years I've been working at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, I've been seeing all these amazing instruments being created and tested in the Crawford Laboratory. Now, I've actually been able to see where one will go.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">It is incredible to think that by the end of this year, KMOS will be getting its first science results, right there, where I stood.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-63995779822616195412012-07-15T08:08:00.000-07:002012-07-15T14:13:43.751-07:00Paranal Visit<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJXT-0-x9v_mziE3eoYSl9qiGaaghRameNw0PiWkLgGciUs5FvNTo4qujlPd5FW-08OHzdl_LUp_otU9BiCXJ2Hlg7Dku-edFRG4TAcPZ0Javs2_HOhRXPMJtZMYqS6lcd9gfK90lG0z8/s1600/P1010097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJXT-0-x9v_mziE3eoYSl9qiGaaghRameNw0PiWkLgGciUs5FvNTo4qujlPd5FW-08OHzdl_LUp_otU9BiCXJ2Hlg7Dku-edFRG4TAcPZ0Javs2_HOhRXPMJtZMYqS6lcd9gfK90lG0z8/s320/P1010097.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and the Very Large Telescope</td></tr>
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To say I was excited about the prospect of visiting Paranal would be an understatement. I'm not sure exactly why this visit in particular held so much excitement for me. Perhaps it was because until I had actually started my trip in Chile, I thought I was only going to be able to visit as part of one of the tourist tours. Instead, as things turned out, I was able to have an overnight stay at the infamous Paranal Residencia.<br />
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Unfortunately, it was cloudy and extremely windy on the night I stayed over, so I didn't get to see the telescopes opening and operational at night - I barely even saw the stars at night - but still, that didn't stop the visit from being thoroughly enjoyable and hugely interesting.</div>
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My host, Laura, whom I had met at the ESO offices in Santiago earlier in my trip, was hosting a French film-making team, which was why I was able to go up and visit too. The French team had been commissioned to make a film for planetarium use, about an astronomer using the VLT and E-ELT to find out more about exoplanets. Specifically, using the E-ELT to try and detect water on an exoplanet.</div>
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I spent the night before my visit in a hotel in Antofagasta, and was picked up by the Paranal bus from outside the hotel. There were probably around 10 - 15 people also getting the bus there - mostly engineers.</div>
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<h3>
Life at Paranal</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paranal Residencia</td></tr>
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<div>
It seems fitting to start with some information about the Residencia, which in itself is a pretty amazing place. You may recognise it from a certain James Bond film, Quantum of Solace - its the building which gets blown up a bit at the end of the film! But enough about that for now.</div>
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The Residencia was finished and opened in 2001. It was designed especially so that it would not intrude too much on the surrounding landscape - in fact, when you first arrive on-site, you can barely see it as you're on the roof of it. The colour of the building is not down to paint, instead, pigments have been added to the building materials to blend in with the nature around. It has also been designed to withstand a Richter Scale 10 earthquake, which luckily it hasn't had to stand up to so far, but it has seen some big ones.</div>
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Inside the Residencia, the first thing you notice is the swimming pool, and tropical looking garden around it. It looks very luxurious. Not only is the pool there as a health and leisure facility for those working at Paranal, but it also serves a purpose in maintaining the humidity and temperature of the complex. Outside, there is typically 5-10% humidity but inside, thanks to the pool, there is around 30% humidity. By helping to maintain a constant temperature, it also serves for energy conservation - there is very little air conditioning or heating needed in the Residencia. Additionally, the pool helps to maintain the plants which surround it.</div>
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Laura explained that often, people who come to visit Paranal think the Residencia is a bit over the top for a workers' hotel. However, when you consider that people generally work shifts (8 days on, 6 days off, or similar) and they are 110km from the nearest small town (Taltal), having a good variety of leisure facilities and as comfortable a residence as possible is necessary.</div>
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The Residencia has also been designed to limit light pollution from it as much as possible. As such, the windows are all very small and have blinds on them. Also, the glass doors to the balcony areas have wooden sliding doors behind to be closed at night. Also, the roof above the swimming pool has a cover which automatically closes on sunset and reopens on sunrise.</div>
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Typically, there are around 120 people working on-site at any one time. Of those, only about 10% are astronomers, around 40-50 are engineers, and the remaining are contractors who look after the catering, maintenance, logistics, cleaning etc.</div>
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Everything has to be brought in from off-site, in particular, water. Around 60,000 litres of water are brought in per day, in 20,000 litre capacity tankers.</div>
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One really lovely touch in the Residencia which I particularly liked were the hand-made rugs you can see dotted around the communal areas. The rugs have images of the first science results from the VLT. </div>
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I also particularly liked the fact that all the crockery is branded with 'ESO Paranal' - and the towels too!</div>
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It was interesting to hear from Laura that many of the temporary buildings currently being used on the ALMA OSF site for accommodation and facilities, were also used during the construction phase of Paranal.<br />
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<h3>
Why Here?</h3>
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So why exactly was Paranal chosen as an optimum site for a professional observatory? The Humboldt Current, which comes in from the Pacific Ocean, helps to maintain the excellent atmospheric conditions of the area. The Current maintains the sea temperature at around 14 C, and creates a thermal inversion layer at around 1100m, meaning that normally, the VLT sits above the cloud layer and the atmosphere is very still.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Layer of cloud at 1100m and abnormal clouds higher up!</td></tr>
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<h3>
The Telescopes</h3>
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<div>
After a good look around the Residencia, getting settled in my room and having some lunch, we headed off up towards the telescopes. The film crew were looking for a good spot to film the sunrise the following day, and Laura suggested up near VISTA might be good. VISTA is on a hill which is referred to as the NTT Peak (NTT = New Technology Telescope) as originally the NTT was going to be situated at Paranal. Instead it is at the La Silla Observatory...so really the hill should be renamed the VISTA Peak. That has a much nicer ring to it!</div>
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Anyway, whilst the film crew were checking out the view and conditions, Laura took me in to see VISTA.<br />
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<h4>
VISTA - Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy</h4>
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VISTA is a 4.1m survey telescope, which the UK ATC project managed. It's one of the first projects I remember being completed in my time working at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. First light for VISTA was in December 2009.<br />
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It is a very compact telescope, with not much space between the primary and secondary mirrors - in other words, it has a very short focal length. It has a large field of view, of 1.5 square degrees (roughly the area the full Moon covers) and, due to the size of the primary mirror, can see faint objects too - so a perfect survey telescope.<br />
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The primary mirror on VISTA is quite special - it is the most highly curved mirror of this size ever made for a telescope. Also, any deviations on the surface <span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">are less than 1/3000th of the thickness of a human hair. As I mentioned in my ALMA OSF post, the precision in the surface of mirrors for infrared telescopes needs to be much greater than it does with ALMA. The level of precision </span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;">correlates</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"> with the wavelength the telescope works at.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The original coating on the VISTA mirror was silver, chosen, as with Gemini, for its good reflectivity in the infrared. However, its durability is not so great and so now the VISTA M1 is coated with aluminium. VISTA has its own coating plant right there in the building - so the mirror doesn't have to be transported far to be re-coated.</span></span></span></div>
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<h4>
The VLT - Very Large Telescope</h4>
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After some time having a look at VISTA, Laura took me up to the VLT platform. On the platform there are not just the four 8.2m telescopes of the VLT, but also the 4 Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) used for interferometry and the VLT Survey Telescope.</div>
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It was extremely windy by this time and very shortly after we arrived Laura got a message over the radio system saying we were no longer allowed to be out on the platform. Already at this stage, even with a good 3 hours til sunset, the opening of the telescopes was not looking hopeful. Firstly, the cloud layer wasn't looking like it was moving anywhere. Secondly, the gusts of wind were reaching higher than 18m per second - the maximum wind speed of operation.</div>
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So, we went indoors and to see UT1, or Antu - the telescope where the UK ATC instrument KMOS will be going. I had specifically asked Laura if I could see this telescope. There is a tunnel system underneath the platform which allowed us to still be able to enter the telescope. The tunnel system, as well as being a passageway for workers, is also where all the cables are for combining the light from the ATs for interferometry.</div>
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<h4>
The Unit Telescopes</h4>
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Each one of the Unit Telescopes of the VLT has a primary mirror of 8.2m diameter and 17cm thickness - 23 tonnes of glass ceramic! The material it is made from is called 'Zerodur'. This is a very stable material but as the telescope moves, gravity acts on it so active optics compensate for these deformations. There are 150 actuators on the primary mirror, and they move to make corrections roughly every 30 seconds.</div>
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The primary mirrors are re-coated roughly every 18 months, and unlike the VISTA mirror, they have to be transported down to base camp for this to be done. This is a particularly delicate operation - after all, it involves handling the most expensive and delicate part of the telescope. There are no spare primary mirrors! So, the mirror is transported down the hill, travelling at 5km/hr. The whole process takes around 1 week from when the mirror is removed from the telescope to when it is replaced.<br />
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The mirror of UT1 was covered when we were in to see it - to protect from any dust which might have been blowing around in the high winds. When dust accumulates on the mirror, it may only reduce the reflectivity by a couple of % but every photon is valuable, to preserve the quality of the image. To protect the mirror, when the dome is opened at night, the telescope is tilted to 9<span style="font-family: inherit;">0<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">°, to prevent anything falling on it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">The tower of the secondary mirror on these telescopes is mechanically the most complicated part of the telescope, as it has to move a lot to maintain the focus of the image. The mirror itself is made from beryllium - making it both light and stiff.</span></span><br />
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The telescopes are built on altazimuth mounts rather than equatorial. This has the advantage that the enclosures are much smaller than they would be with an equatorial mount. With an altazimuth mount, it does mean the telescope has to move in 2 directions at different speeds to track an object. The NTT (New Technology Telescope - the name makes sense to me now) was actually a prototype for the VLT unit telescopes. It was the first large telescope to be built with an altazimuth mount. It was also a prototype for the active optics on the primary mirror.<br />
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<h4>
Instruments</h4>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tertiary mirror on UT1</td></tr>
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Each of the Unit Telescopes has 3 different instruments and the tertiary mirror sends the light to the chosen instrument. On UT1 there are currently only 2 instruments attached as KMOS will be<span style="background-color: white;"> fitted shortly. In fact, KMOS is getting packed up and shipped on Monday from Edinburgh. Watch this blog for more information on that.</span></div>
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The instruments UT1 has are CRIRES, on Nasmyth A and FORS 2 on the Cassegrain - both different types of spectrograph. KMOS will be fitted to the Nasmyth B position.</div>
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The VLT is now onto its second generation of instruments - typically an instrument will last/be used for around 10 years.</div>
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<h4>
Interferometry</h4>
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The VLT was built with the objective of combining the 4 telescopes together for interferometry. In practise, around 20% of the Unit Telescope time is spent on interferometry, but the Auxiliary Telescopes are used for interferometry all the time.</div>
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There are 30 different stations where the ATs can be positioned on the platform, with a maximum distance of 120m, which, by the process of interferometry, means the equivalent of a 120m diameter telescope.</div>
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In the interferometer, the combined light has a very complicated path to follow, bouncing off 17 mirrors on its travels. This means that most of the light is lost - only around 30% of the original light is received. Because of this, typically, the interferometry is only done for objects which are visible to the naked eye (approximately magnitude <6).</div>
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On the platform, there are certain areas where you are not allowed to walk, as even the smallest vibration can cause disruption to the interferometer.</div>
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<h4>
The Control Room</h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifT12tzBiTP2RQqVM705tDDyqp9uPmc-g9nUVjNnqxRI5c4hafyANNNw-gGuUKFXUQO8Owd3yM5LiPjhBITThxiAmv_gx_2Hvsq8xiTzQgg7kc9PenN3QKIdww8qPYAUj2hF2JwEpdEB8/s1600/P1010046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifT12tzBiTP2RQqVM705tDDyqp9uPmc-g9nUVjNnqxRI5c4hafyANNNw-gGuUKFXUQO8Owd3yM5LiPjhBITThxiAmv_gx_2Hvsq8xiTzQgg7kc9PenN3QKIdww8qPYAUj2hF2JwEpdEB8/s320/P1010046.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UT1 control station</td></tr>
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We headed back to the control room afterwards and spoke with a couple of the engineers and astronomers there.<br />
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Inside the control room, there are separate control stations for each one of the Unit Telescopes of the VLT, the 2 survey telescopes, and the VLT Interferometer - making a total of 6 control stations. There is also a control station already set aside for the European Extremely Large Telescope, but for now all the screens are showing are the weather monitors.<br />
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Each observing night, there would normally be 2 people at each control station: one astronomer and one telescope and instrument operator. Sometimes there will be extra people, for example visiting astronomers, or new staff.<br />
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On any given night, the number of observations can vary. One observation might be for 6 hours of the night, others can be very brief. To change between the different instruments on the telescopes takes a maximum of 10 minutes, depending on the position of the telescope. The telescope needs to be in the stand-by position to change instruments (i.e. pointing directly upwards) so the further from this position it is, the longer it takes to change instrument.<br />
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You could tell there was a mixed sense of disappointment and relief in the control room, since it was looking unlikely the telescopes would be operating. It must be tough working shifts like that - getting a night off must be a welcome relief at times. Although, I'm not sure exactly whether they would really have the night off, or be on-call just in case the weather improved.<br />
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<h4>
Maintenance Buildings</h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3-xqs5heEbgaJb4do7dqOuKTqu0vML11QBbBN4Vvpf_rvY-DWymDLwkuyMZZnAjnWDlX4mPhoZ18_xq8CGUgnIFVkcOLK36sBUgQMDawWN6KeioTJ3s9H2rvNuTTuwLS4bdxwcVh-EY/s1600/P1010071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3-xqs5heEbgaJb4do7dqOuKTqu0vML11QBbBN4Vvpf_rvY-DWymDLwkuyMZZnAjnWDlX4mPhoZ18_xq8CGUgnIFVkcOLK36sBUgQMDawWN6KeioTJ3s9H2rvNuTTuwLS4bdxwcVh-EY/s200/P1010071.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AT1 in for maintenance</td></tr>
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One of the ATs was in the maintenance building for routine checks and to have some of its mirrors re-coated. The primary mirrors on the ATs are only re-coated every 5 years. This one was having M2, M3 and M4 re-coated. This was the second of the ATs which they had worked on this year, and in September they would be re-coating the same mirrors on one of the other AT's. I think, by the end of the year, they would have worked on all 4 of them.</div>
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Usually, the re-coating is done with the large re-coating machine which is in the maintenance building, but at the moment, they're having some technical problems with this, so the mirrors of the AT were transported up to the VISTA coating plant.</div>
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<h4>
European Extremely Large Telescope</h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaFgfFtELyxNvmcc0t0JWRd12N-O-wH2NLS65lyXycZmxN2txB-gYwPLT3Yznj2TVjcme_pmNkxmv8dC-92_-mYN5vpS5utgAhrY9hFtJa99TVJTDl_IHz_oEUdw_gnOwr7gehibvlrM/s1600/P1010124.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaFgfFtELyxNvmcc0t0JWRd12N-O-wH2NLS65lyXycZmxN2txB-gYwPLT3Yznj2TVjcme_pmNkxmv8dC-92_-mYN5vpS5utgAhrY9hFtJa99TVJTDl_IHz_oEUdw_gnOwr7gehibvlrM/s200/P1010124.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Cerro Armazones</td></tr>
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On the Tuesday, the film crew wanted to get some footage of their 'star' astronomer driving through the desert on the way to the E-ELT, so we headed off on the dirt road to Cerro Armazones.</div>
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Once built, the E-ELT will be controlled from Paranal - although it is on a mountain around 20km away from Paranal, it is still going to be a Paranal Observatory telescope. </div>
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I still can't quite imagine just how big the E-ELT is going to be - it seems impossible to think of building something that big, having already thought the ALMA dishes were huge!<br />
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The E-ELT primary mirror will be made of segments and because there are so many of them (around 800), the re-coating process will be practically continuous. One segment will be re-coated each day, so it is very likely that the E-ELT will have its own coating plant on-site - it wouldn't be very practical to have to transport a segment 20km and back each day!<br />
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Although I didn't get to see the opening of the telescopes at Paranal, I still had an amazing time. I think having been to ALMA first, which is still under construction, and then to Paranal, really helped me to imagine both Paranal under construction and what the ALMA site will be like when complete. Just need to make sure I can get out here again to see the E-ELT being constructed!<br />
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<br /></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-14671944908132442862012-07-13T21:47:00.001-07:002012-07-13T21:47:23.823-07:00Valle de la LunaOn Saturday, I had an afternoon trip to the Valle de la Luna, an area where a prototype for a Mars Rover was tested because of the dry and challenging landscape.<br />
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Personally, I think it should be renamed Valle de Martes, since to me, the colours more resemble the surface of Mars rather than the Moon. Whichever you want to call it, it certainly does seem 'other worldly'.<br />
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It is an incredible place, which has been sculpted by wind and water over the years, and is part of the Salar de Atacama. Salt deposits occur from the water which comes down from the mountains. Over time the deposits built up and became compacted. Tectonic movements over the years have folded the layers and created strange curves of rock, sometimes perpendicular to their original orientation. A mixture of salt, rock and sand, form strange almost man-made looking, structures.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyiG_sYcy4Jz1NIbTxOqdWdvoY_BfaTD4gDa8uOogUGvbElWfgOCZoZEThMjk3Y6jdHmN2O36LpP5zUheYWOZLzfONeBJL2iS80fjyuwBBe4GCtkF-DMK_KBduCh5DwTfwtJt-eOX4KoI/s1600/P1000948.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyiG_sYcy4Jz1NIbTxOqdWdvoY_BfaTD4gDa8uOogUGvbElWfgOCZoZEThMjk3Y6jdHmN2O36LpP5zUheYWOZLzfONeBJL2iS80fjyuwBBe4GCtkF-DMK_KBduCh5DwTfwtJt-eOX4KoI/s320/P1000948.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Three Marias</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_Rp2FZN3vSb4gRpAmVf1uGjy_7dgfWxKBUs_ZArj1yWD1com5Wy1sK41yDXZHcbEZwRJINUTFeFDXDwkPsdfGwh6YvrQa6hqQXGkSiMeYitJVNJmHWBq37FZmmQ8dJKxMuUgoTdmTFE/s1600/P1000961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_Rp2FZN3vSb4gRpAmVf1uGjy_7dgfWxKBUs_ZArj1yWD1com5Wy1sK41yDXZHcbEZwRJINUTFeFDXDwkPsdfGwh6YvrQa6hqQXGkSiMeYitJVNJmHWBq37FZmmQ8dJKxMuUgoTdmTFE/s320/P1000961.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me in front of the 'Amphitheatre'</td></tr>
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After the Valle de la Luna, we went for a quick look at the Valle de la Muerte. Supposedly, the Belgian
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Jesuit missionary, Gustavo Le Paige, actually named it Valle de la Martes (i.e Valley of Mars) but didn't realise that Martes is actually a masculine word, so the name ended up being heard as Valle de la Muerte and has stuck ever since.</span></span><div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Anyway, I feel I'm getting a little too fixated on this valley naming business!</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">One cool feature there is in Valle de la Muerte, is a layer of volcanic ash, trapped in amongst the rock formations. There are many volcanoes around San Pedro, many of which are now inactive, but had plenty of activity in years gone by. In fact, not too far from San Pedro is the most active volcano in all of Chile - the Lascar Volcano. Apparently, there has been an 'amber' alert of activity on this volcano for the past 2 years.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS9b8QkBWwWyAkLYY8rozHTH9eMAHKfN-r7X9f0F7A81KsXozvFeMov26STtqmpt3wKPpFYLcsgAJ1xDz_yGK6PB1Yqavt6I9-Xjj7xT0JkAvC-3HQZuJ2L2o0zMR8779n0FYnIiN7FMw/s1600/P1000969.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS9b8QkBWwWyAkLYY8rozHTH9eMAHKfN-r7X9f0F7A81KsXozvFeMov26STtqmpt3wKPpFYLcsgAJ1xDz_yGK6PB1Yqavt6I9-Xjj7xT0JkAvC-3HQZuJ2L2o0zMR8779n0FYnIiN7FMw/s320/P1000969.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The white-ish layer is volcanic ash</td></tr>
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We headed off in time for the sunset, to watch the colours change over the Valle de la Luna. It wasn't really so much a case of watching the sunset, as the sky wasn't that spectacular, but the colour changes in the valley were quite stunning - from bright rust-red, to brown, to purples and pinks.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While the Sun was still up</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM0O93Vt1YiCOag9Fgrgf-PrAYBQsZ5wsN5M-vMoA3yf5PEdhCZ76WmfKecBLuis0sBqTvbroKFxgkIVp9GQJdrKafuV4MkZqbfDa6XbNffJu097fIGmnUjIWnmjiIPxeiTw2tsB6Y0mc/s1600/P1010002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM0O93Vt1YiCOag9Fgrgf-PrAYBQsZ5wsN5M-vMoA3yf5PEdhCZ76WmfKecBLuis0sBqTvbroKFxgkIVp9GQJdrKafuV4MkZqbfDa6XbNffJu097fIGmnUjIWnmjiIPxeiTw2tsB6Y0mc/s320/P1010002.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And once the Sun had gone down</td></tr>
</tbody></table>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-31845770490148076912012-07-13T20:48:00.000-07:002012-07-13T20:48:45.440-07:00Stargazing in the Atacama DesertAfter our trip to ALMA, Liliana, Olivier and I managed to get the last 3 places on one of the many stargazing trips on offer from San Pedro. We went with <a href="http://www.spaceobs.com/" target="_blank">Space</a>, whom I had read were the best ones to go with, and whom I had contacted before I left the UK. We did speak to another agency offering a tour, but I was severely put off by the fact the guy was trying to tell us that the fact that the Moon would be up (this tour was happening later in the night than the one we went on) wouldn't be a problem at all. Nonsense. The Moon was in a waning gibbous phase and would have made it more difficult to see the Milky Way, despite the low artificial light pollution levels. It definitely wouldn't have had no effect whatsoever.<br />
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Space is run by Alain Maury, an astronomer, who actually used to work at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. He and his partner, Alejandra, run tours in French, Spanish and English, every night - as long as its not cloudy. And thankfully, we had a lovely clear night.<br />
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We got picked up by the bus in the centre of San Pedro and were driven about half an hour out of the town where we found 10 telescopes outside.<br />
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There were a few French people in the group, so Olivier went with them, and Alain, for his tour. Liliana and I stayed in the English speaking group which was led by Ale.<br />
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Ale did an excellent job of leading us through the night sky, doing the usual sort of guidance, with a laser pointer. Being in this group, and also my experience at Mamalluca earlier in my trip, really did remind me that you shouldn't assume anything with a general public group. By that, I mean that its really important to start with the basics and work up, without being patronising, of course, because you can't assume that everyone knows and understands the difference between the Solar System and the Galaxy, or between a star and a planet.<br />
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Some things which Ale did which really impressed me, and which I'd be keen to use at future public events at the observatory:<br />
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<li><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Making people feel at ease with the notion of using light years as a measure of distance.</b> Ale did this by saying that using time to measure distances really wasn't that uncommon. She asked someone how far San Pedro was from there, and quite naturally, got the response 'about half an hour away'. Such a simple thing but so effective.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Explaining why we see different constellations in the Northern Hemisphere. </b>Many of the group were European, and as such, not so familiar (just like me!) with the Southern Hemisphere night sky. Ale did a great job of explaining that your latitude on Earth, and the fact that the Earth is tilted, dictates what constellations you will see. She used the laser pointer to make some examples, showing where Polaris would be in London for example. I really liked this. We get a reasonable number of tourists visiting the observatory in Edinburgh - maybe not so many from the Southern Hemisphere...but I still think its worth explaining.</span></li>
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We spent around an hour with Ale showing us the various constellations. We even saw the zodiacal light, something I had never seen (knowingly) before.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Liliana with one of the telescopes</td></tr>
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After this introduction, Ale took us round the various telescopes. I think this is possibly the one bit which could have been better. As we were such a large group - possibly about 25 of us - Ale took us round each telescope in turn telling us a little about the object the telescope was pointed at. This meant that at each telescope only around 5 people had a look as she was explaining, and then she moved on to the next telescope. Of course, we had time afterwards to go back to the different telescopes, but I just felt, that perhaps people didn't get as much out of it as they could. For example, there were around 20 of us at Mamalluca, and although there weren't as many telescopes, I felt the explainer there did a better job of showing us a few different objects and talked about each one in much more detail.</div>
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That said, I still think it was an excellent event, and I did get to see the Sombrero Galaxy for the first time, Alpha Centauri (a binary star system) and I had a better look at the Jewel Box cluster.</div>
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Unfortunately, I forgot my mini-tripod so wasn't able to get any fantastic shots of the Milky Way, but I did have a go, just laying my camera on the ground or sitting it on a table. I got a couple of mediocre shots. This one is my favourite although I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see it on your computer. It has Antares and Scorpio in it (well, most of the Scorpio constellation) and at the bottom of the picture is the Milky Way.</div>
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After we had all had some extra time to look through the telescopes, we headed inside (except it wasn't really inside - there was no roof, which was very cool!) for a hot drink (nice touch) and a chance to ask Alain any questions we might have. He's a really entertaining guy and gave very clear and interesting answers to the questions he was given.</div>
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<br /></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-23969232612022062572012-07-08T21:06:00.001-07:002012-07-08T21:06:13.805-07:00ALMA Array Operations Site VisitAn early start on Friday for our second day of ALMA activities. Liliana and Olivier met me at 7:30am and we met Valeria shortly after 8am at the OSF. At the control at the entrance, I had to do an alcohol test - first time I've ever done one of those!! Of course, I had heeded Valeria's advice and hadn't drunk any alcohol the evening before so I had a reading of 0. The guard explained that before 8am, all drivers must do a breathalyser test (and have a reading of 0) and passengers are subject to random testing too.<br />
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Although we had all submitted a medical certificate to say we were fit and healthy to go to the 5000m site, ALMA have a policy to do a quick medical check on everyone before they ascend. This involved checking our blood pressure. Mine was a little higher than usual - normally mine is around 120 over 70, but it was 130 over 80- but still within the limits set by the doctors. Thankfully, Liliana and Olivier were both fine too, so we could all go up!<br />
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Whilst we were waiting in the medical room, Valeria had gone to get the oxygen cylinders and some food supplies for us to take up to 5000m. She also got us each an ALMA hat, which I was totally delighted with! I'd seen them in the safety video the day before and quite fancied one!<br />
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Then we set off - Valeria drove us there, stopping along the way to get some photos and point out some of the traditional Atacame<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">ño features which have been preserved along the roadside. One of these was a stancia - a place where nomadic </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">Atacame</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">ño people would stay when up in the mountains with their animals. Valeria explained that before construction began, ALMA took an environmental and cultural responsibility and had employed an ecologist and biologist to ensure that native flora and fauna were protected. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The view was quite stunning on the road up and we also saw some HUGE cacti!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfupTYa7WiMO7Yu-WR2321O6tWBg4IOB9LNGidHeGgs9r4t7IA33RjQJAjLiHrxbfkDQCjU7SWdu6mvskO1OWnUmNd6Ry53IYjQp3R2FMkrbi_OMpM-0VNfjZ-vCC3Y5Rxt0fMFW_-dX0/s1600/P1000888.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfupTYa7WiMO7Yu-WR2321O6tWBg4IOB9LNGidHeGgs9r4t7IA33RjQJAjLiHrxbfkDQCjU7SWdu6mvskO1OWnUmNd6Ry53IYjQp3R2FMkrbi_OMpM-0VNfjZ-vCC3Y5Rxt0fMFW_-dX0/s320/P1000888.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valeria and I (with my ALMA hat) and a big cactus</td></tr>
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All the way up in the car, we had to monitor our blood oxygen levels and heart rate. We did this by putting a little meter thing on our index finger. If our oxygen levels dropped below 80% we had to take oxygen from the cylinder. Valeria also had to radio in every 10km to base. Valeria's and my oxygen levels did indeed drop below the 80% on the journey up, so I had my first experience of inhaling oxygen from the cylinder.<div>
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Once we reached the top, we found that once again we were very lucky - one of the North American antennae was being moved down to the OSF for routine maintenance and we were just in time to see this happening. It's quite an incredible feat. Each antennae weighs around 100 tonnes and the transporters (called Otto and Lore - German machinery of course!) are built to carry one antenna each. The transporters have 14 sets of double wheels which can move independently, meaning it can turn in reasonably small areas, despite its huge size!<br /><span style="line-height: 19px;"> We had missed the antennae first being put onto the transporter, but managed to see all the rest of the procedure. All in all, it takes around 5 hours to transport one antenna from the AOS to the OSF.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Seeing the AOS was incredible. Already, even with just over half of the antennae in place, it seems huge - and it can be even bigger too. There are 250 pads where the antennae can be moved to for different observations. All the proposals requiring the same configuration of dishes will be gathered together and the dishes moved into the positions and the observations done.</span><br />
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I certainly felt the altitude in terms of lack of oxygen - it made me feel very sleepy at times, although it's not really much wonder. My oxygen level at one stage was 65% and my heart rate 94 bpm. So, needless to say, I needed a bit more supplementary oxygen.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oxygen please!</td></tr>
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Once we had watched the antenna being lifted onto the transporter and the transporter started to move off (Olivier and Liliana even had a go in the drivers cabin!) we headed inside to the technical building to speak to some of the computer engineers who handle the correlators.</div>
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<br />We met 2 guys, who were attached to a permanent supply of oxygen. I asked if they always had this when working up at the AOS and they said they did. They normally spend around 4 hours there, and because they need to use their brains a lot, they need their oxygen levels to be at a reasonable level.</div>
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They showed us the super computers which are the correlators. First the one which is just for the Atacama Compact Array, so only the 16 East Asia dishes, and then the second super computer for the wider array.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Atacama Compact Array correlator</td></tr>
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The job of the correlator is to collect all the signals from the antennae. In the 'Base' correlator (the one for the wider array) there are 4 quadrants, each one working in a different wavelength range. Each quadrant has an energy consumption of 40kW per hour. To compare, typically, your television uses 0.2kW per hour. There are 1250 cables for each quadrant (see picture) and each quadrant receives approximately 120gigabytes of data per antennae per second!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The room where the correlators are must be kept at a stable temperature (less than 20<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">°C) and with reasonably high humidity (around 30 - 40%). These conditions help to avoid electrostatic charges.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">On our way back down to the OSF we caught up with the transporter and American antenna number 11 on its journey:</span></span></div>
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Another fascinating day, and so amazing to see the Array Operations Site itself. I really don't know how the people work up there - it is absolutely freezing outside with the antennae and the lack of oxygen made me so tired! Whilst we were up there some of the work actually got stopped because the wind was picking up again. Just a clear example of the challenges this huge project faces.<br /><div>
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</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-27026221743099524962012-07-08T20:01:00.003-07:002012-07-08T20:01:44.153-07:00ALMA Operations Support Facility VisitOn Thursday I had the pleasure of visiting the ALMA Operations Support Facility. I had hired a car to get me there and had 2 passengers to accompany me - Liliana, a Columbian journalist, and Olivier, a French engineering student. They met me at my hostel around 12:30pm and we set off to meet Valeria at the site for lunch. The Operations Support Facility is around a half hour drive from the town of San Pedro, where I've been staying for this week, and is at an altitude of 2900m.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Liliana and I on the road to ALMA OSF</td></tr>
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After about 15 minutes driving on the main road, we took the turn off for ALMA and stopped at the control. We had to give our passports in and watch a safety video about being at the site - mainly covering driving rules and safety tips in terms of sun protection. We were given our entry passes and headed off up the dirt road to the OSF.<br />
The road was very similar to the road to Gemini, so I wasn't too worried about my driving on it. Also, I had another ute to drive, so I was quite happy!<br />
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Once we arrived on site, we met Valeria in the canteen and had lunch, chatting to some of the people who work there. Valeria told us that there are around 500 people currently working at the OSF.<br />
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ALMA truly is an international project. There are 20 countries involved - the dishes are being made by ESO (14 European countries, plus Brazil), North Americans (USA and Canada) and East Asia (Japan and Taiwan), and of course, Chile is hugely involved. The East Asian companies are making 16 of the antennae (including all eight of the 7m dishes for the Atacama Compact Array), and the Europeans and North Americans are making 25 each of the 12m dishes. The North Americans are due to be finished their dishes by September 2012, and the whole project is due to be complete by the end of 2013.<br />
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During lunch, the wind picked up and when I looked out the window I could no longer see anything for the dust! This actually ended up working in our favour.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RAL cryostat</td></tr>
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After lunch, Valeria took us into one of the lab areas, where they were testing cryostats - cryostats made by our STFC sister site Rutherford Appleton Laboratory no less. The engineers were testing the cryostats for leaks and making any repairs necessary. We talked with a few of the engineers, and one had actually been at RAL last year helping with the assembly of the cryostats.<br />
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One of the cryostats was open as they had discovered a broken piece inside, so were removing the small fragments of plastic. The cryostat looks amazing inside - first time I've ever seen inside one - with lots of copper. The cryostats are used to cool the 'Bands' (I'll come on to them in a little bit) and the central area is cooled to 4K, then there is an outer sleeve at 15K and an outermost sleeve at 110K. The noise in the lab area was very familiar - exactly the noise I've heard many times in the Crawford Laboratory of the UK ATC, of the Helium being pumped in and out of the cryostats.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgC4YgtPel53lQdcZBPdOtzkuVaSciQ_DIwzQGdSJZmEY00dU6vdalZ7JR9rRO59bCJirWIyR5Pig73VK2KqNCroQ8biZ8tuLWzWDI55XBS9Y812N3NM9DIDbFVcNLNj68jyHbyF_VnY/s1600/P1000850.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgC4YgtPel53lQdcZBPdOtzkuVaSciQ_DIwzQGdSJZmEY00dU6vdalZ7JR9rRO59bCJirWIyR5Pig73VK2KqNCroQ8biZ8tuLWzWDI55XBS9Y812N3NM9DIDbFVcNLNj68jyHbyF_VnY/s320/P1000850.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside RAL cryostat</td></tr>
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<br />After seeing the cryostats, we went into another lab space to have the 'Bands' explained to us. Unfortunately, this is probably one of the most complicated parts of the technology and it was explained in Spanish, so I definitely didn't catch everything! Having said that, I'm not sure I would have understood it all even if it had been explained in English!<br />
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Here is my very simple explanation of what I understood about the Bands. The Bands take the signal from the telescope and they work at different frequencies. In total, when complete, there will be 10 different Bands, and at the moment, I think there are 4 operational, and a further 2 working as prototypes. The Bands need to be cooled, which is what the cryostats are used for.<br />
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From what I understood, we are not able to work with the frequency of the signal we receive from the telescopes, so it is mixed with another signal of known frequency and they cancel each other out to produce a frequency which can be worked with. As I said, this really is something I'm not familiar with and having to translate from Spanish didn't help things! Apologies if my explanation doesn't make sense. I'll endeavour to find out more and do a better explanation at a later date.<br />
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After the labs, we were taken to meet Christian, one of the European engineers working on the assembly of the antennae. We got into the assembly hall, where 2 antennae were being worked on. I found this part absolutely fascinating.<br />
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The European dishes arrive in 2 parts from France, and are glued together at the OSF in the assembly hanger. This process involves around 30 people, takes around 4 hours and is normally done at night, in stable temperature conditions. The glue is like super-glue, and comes in 2 parts. Once mixed together you have a couple of hours before it sets.<br />
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During the process, the accuracy of the positioning is checked using a laser and once happy that the position is correct, the bolts are tightened. Lightening protection (copper wiring) is also added to the dish.<br />
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The dishes and the cabin beneath are made from carbon fibre and the base and arms are made from steel. Carbon fibre is used for the dish to keep the temperature stable.<br />
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Once the dish is stuck together, the reflective panels must be added. The panels come from Italy, and the final reflective coating on the panels is nickel, which is chosen specifically for the wavelengths ALMA works at. Since it is such a large dish, there are many panels - 120 per antenna. Each panel has 5 actuators so it can be positioned with an error of only 12 microns. Although this is extremely precise, because of the wavelengths ALMA is working at, it is not necessary for the positioning of the panels to be as precise as an optical/infrared telescope. For example, the European Extremely Large Telescope, whose primary mirror will also be made up of segments, requires its segments to be positioned with precision on the nanometer scale.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH5XDK6TvtKngxAkVASFUuvnR3xu1g7_dTRoxY2QZ538CHwyRW3Z02GE6C9igDSnxOVi-yQMbBDVKbMRqHdnp7YP44GwECS0VgcDPag6wp6p1iGzO2ZdsaO1MIwatFYK3l0sL0xCrH-5g/s1600/P1000859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH5XDK6TvtKngxAkVASFUuvnR3xu1g7_dTRoxY2QZ538CHwyRW3Z02GE6C9igDSnxOVi-yQMbBDVKbMRqHdnp7YP44GwECS0VgcDPag6wp6p1iGzO2ZdsaO1MIwatFYK3l0sL0xCrH-5g/s200/P1000859.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Positioning the panels</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">We were really lucky to be able to see this process in action, as work had just started positioning panels onto one of the dishes in the hanger. The whole process of adding the panels takes around 2-3 weeks per antenna.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">First, the engineers attach the actuators for one panel, and check the accuracy of the position with a laser system - making the tiny corrections as needed. After all 5 actuators are in the correct position, the base of the panel is attached (as in the photo) and finally the panel itself. Even once the panel is in position, it is still possible to adjust the actuators.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">In the hanger we also saw one of the holders for the secondary reflector. Inside the holder is a piezoelectric hexapod, allowing the secondary reflector 6 directions of freedom.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwDHkY3sSGJZj0No3ukUp0UN_4KYhDA2uc6xsC5ESL_2OqN_oZkqUTUXaxCcpQCt_1UnwNDinbVIsI6TgBZtl8vrkINciGQWvlx7yDZ2Z4QyEpmEwl73quuSE_GhTUIdKH29emY8VSp_g/s1600/P1000856.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwDHkY3sSGJZj0No3ukUp0UN_4KYhDA2uc6xsC5ESL_2OqN_oZkqUTUXaxCcpQCt_1UnwNDinbVIsI6TgBZtl8vrkINciGQWvlx7yDZ2Z4QyEpmEwl73quuSE_GhTUIdKH29emY8VSp_g/s200/P1000856.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Piezoelectric hexapod for the secondary reflector</td></tr>
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Christian then took us outside to have a closer look at one of the completed antennae, which was ready for testing. Because of the wind, many of the outdoor operations had been stopped, which meant that we got to see a lot more than we maybe would have otherwise. We even go to go inside one of the cabins of the European antennae - can't believe I've actually stood inside one of the ALMA antennae! It was cool to see where the cryostat would be positioned and to see the gortex shutter system which is used to protect the instrument from dust.<div>
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Outside the hanger, there were a few complete dishes, all waiting for their testing - it was incredible to stand next to them and get a real idea of the size of them. It did also leave me totally amazed thinking about how big the E-ELT will be!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_x7lEJPhQ5beRL4PAWWpsK7Iyts2KU5PsE1P8wubkqju9BmopleYVJcM6llSNLytZjr3wmd95OjpC7j52em-SLjuSBPyMvB6I9K6B-d2N2LNKXFgtyBWAqFwiNJcs5Qbbe9s2HXrEWE/s1600/P1000865.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_x7lEJPhQ5beRL4PAWWpsK7Iyts2KU5PsE1P8wubkqju9BmopleYVJcM6llSNLytZjr3wmd95OjpC7j52em-SLjuSBPyMvB6I9K6B-d2N2LNKXFgtyBWAqFwiNJcs5Qbbe9s2HXrEWE/s200/P1000865.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A European 12m antenna</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Number 24 and the dish of 25</td></tr>
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After speaking with Christian, we were extremely lucky as Valeria managed to get us a little time in the North American construction hanger. In the hanger we saw dish number 24 complete, and dish number 25 under construction - so they really are on schedule with finishing by the end of September.
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Bill, the lead on the North American construction, explained that there are around 12 people in his team who are there all the time, and all the rest are contractors. They have around 16 - 20 people working there at any one time, and not just from North America - they have contractors from Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and the UK.<br />
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Bill explained that each of the contracted construction companies for the antennae have a 2 year warranty period, so they will have to service the antennae during this period. He said once all their dishes are complete and in place, there will still be a small core team on site initially, but after that it may be a case of people coming in as and when required.<br />
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Although all the dishes have their slight differences since made by 3 different companies, they all had to comply with certain standards. For example, they all have to be able to plug into the same bases up at the summit - mechanically and electronically. Also, all the antennae have to match up with the transporters so they can be moved at the summit, and down to the OSF for maintenance when required.<br />
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After seeing the American hanger, Valeria took us to the control room to speak with one of the astronomers there about their work. Although not all the dishes are in place currently (only 34 in place at the moment) the first science has already been done with ALMA, using 16 dishes. A call went out for proposals some time ago and around 1000 proposals were submitted from scientists around the world. A panel of about 50 people reviewed the proposals and around 100 were selected. The next phase of science, using 32 dishes, is just around the corner. The call for proposals is open just now, and indeed I know of a couple of people who are working on such proposals.<br />
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Theodore Nakos, one of the astronomers, explained the control room to us and answered some more of our questions. He explained that all commands are run from the OSF and that currently about half of the time is used for testing and the other half for actual science. At the moment, only the 12m antennae are being used for science, not the 7m dishes of the compact array. In the control room, they have a constant live feed showing the Array Operations Site (AOS) with live weather observations. There are huge climatic challenges with the project - wind, rain, snow, dramatic temperature changes.<br />
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By the time we had finished chatting with Theodore, it was around 7pm and getting quite dark, so Liliana, Olivier and I headed back into San Pedro for dinner. We arranged to meet Valeria the next day at the OSF at 8am, for our trip to the AOS.<br />
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It was a truly fascinating day at the OSF and I would like to thank all those who answered our questions and explained many parts to us. Lots of food for thought and plenty of ideas swimming round in my head for ways to link to the Physics curriculum in Scotland.<br />
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<br /></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-76620763623196741952012-07-04T15:25:00.001-07:002012-07-04T15:25:19.679-07:00Preparations for ALMAAs I'm due to visit ALMA tomorrow, I thought I'd write a post about the medical I had to go through before leaving the UK.<br />
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This was a high altitude medical, which all astronomers and engineers have to do before heading off to work at any of the high telescopes (e.g. James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, ALMA in Chile). The purpose of the medical is to check you have no underlying health problems which could be an issue at altitude - mainly heart issues.<br />
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I found the medical totally fascinating!<br />
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I had to go to the HeartSound Centre in Swindon for the medical, and, after a brief family medical history interview, I went into another room where I was to have some ultrasound done on various parts of my body.<br />
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First were my carotid arteries. Of course, since this was an ultrasound, I was able to watch everything and ask the doctor to explain everything. He explained that he was checking the lining of the arteries, for any damage or thickening. He looked at the arteries in cross section and length ways (don't know the proper terms for that!) and in particular wanted to check where the artery splits in 2. Thankfully, my carotid arteries got the all clear.<br />
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Then he checked my femoral arteries and explained that in actual fact, it is damage in these which most highly correlates with heart problems. He did the same checks and gave them the all clear too.<br />
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After this, he checked my pancreas and my kidneys. He measured these and checked their size against the norm for my age, and thankfully I have healthily sized kidneys and pancreas! There is also a big vein (I think it was a vein of some sort) which was in front of the pancreas which he measured the size of too.<br />
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After this, came the coolest bit of the whole medical - an ultrasound of my heart! It was amazing! He did this from the top looking down and side-on. The side-on view was the best as you could really see the valve opening and closing. He added some colour to show the movement of the blood in the heart, to check for leaks and that everything was working as it should be (i.e. blood travelling in the right direction!). It was unbelievable to be able to watch my own heart beating away in front of me!<br />
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After the ultrasound was finished, I then went into another room to check my lung function and get an ECG done whilst exercising and pushing my heart to 95% of its maximum rate. This part was done because whilst at altitude your body is under extreme strain, similar to that experienced when exercising. Your body compensates for the lower oxygen levels by increasing your breathing rate (definitely felt that today and yesterday) and your heart beats faster.<br />
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This part of the test also went well, and I got the all clear to be able to go to visit ALMA should the opportunity arise. And of course, the opportunity has arisen and I'll be at 5000m at the ALMA Observing Site on Friday. Naturally, the medical doesn't give any indication of whether I'll suffer altitude sickness. In fact, there is no real way of knowing if you will. Some people who have been fine at altitude in the past can still suffer from sickness at a later date. So although I've been fine today and yesterday at 4200m, I'm not counting my chickens just yet, but I'm hopeful.taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-76251840157623471222012-07-04T14:47:00.003-07:002012-07-04T14:47:46.820-07:00San Pedro de Atacama and aroundI feel I have neglected my blog a bit, although it has only been 5 days, and one of those I spent travelling here to San Pedro de Atacama.<br />
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I decided to get the bus up from La Serena, mainly so I could see the scenery changing. I ended up on a 1:20am bus from La Serena, which meant I slept for the first 8 hours (thankfully!) and by the time I woke up I was well and truly in the desert!<br />
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I'm not sure exactly where I was when I woke up but the scenery was quite spectacular - literally no vegetation at all.<br />
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Having slept for less than half the journey, I still had plenty to see though. The countryside changed in the sense that mankind changed it. As we got further north towards Antofagasta, there were what seemed like countless industrial plants, which I can only assume were related to the mining industry which is so prevalent in this area.<br />
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After a quick stop in Antofagasta for lunch (which was awful!), we carried on towards San Pedro and one of the huge advantages to the timing of my bus was that we approached San Pedro just as dusk was setting in. The landscape and colours were gorgeous - coupled with a beautiful full (or almost full) Moon. The photo below doesn't really do it justice but in my defence I was on the bus!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZpgLY02Yg6nsFsSgsTtg3RQjb47nU94d0_XtAuK3sCRDRC0jx2U2dwoNkCkg5KHeCQUGBA5QiE7OhKDGUfpRWVjVFrk_Tw3G6R8uTH58VfZ3Y0ca7bSkcmF10DdCZ8CWuqlMFjKa1gA/s1600/P1000689.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaZpgLY02Yg6nsFsSgsTtg3RQjb47nU94d0_XtAuK3sCRDRC0jx2U2dwoNkCkg5KHeCQUGBA5QiE7OhKDGUfpRWVjVFrk_Tw3G6R8uTH58VfZ3Y0ca7bSkcmF10DdCZ8CWuqlMFjKa1gA/s320/P1000689.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching San Pedro de Atacama at sunset</td></tr>
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I really did feel like our bus could have been on Mars! There are amazing rusty-red rock formations just before San Pedro, right alongside the main road, which really do look out of this world!<div>
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Anyway, I managed to find my way to my hostel alright (San Pedro isn't very big) and then met a couple I'd met in La Serena for dinner that evening. Didn't have a late night as I'm pretty much non-stop here!</div>
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On Tuesday morning I was up bright and early, ready to be picked up for a tour to the Lagunas Altiplanicas at 8am. We were a nice small group, and our guide was excellent. We first went to a small village nearby called Toconao, and on the way there I got my first glimpse of the ALMA OSF! I was very excited, when I saw it and the guide told the group about it. I then told him that I was going to be visiting it later this week. He didn't quite believe me at first - I think he thought I thought I could just go myself - but when I explained about my trip he was so jealous! He says if he sees me net week he'll be quizzing me all about it!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga91QXFqos3Ik867TPtARNijVENYg3q1ngtQuiLL-nLo2Qi3DfHSPrxCxnR5i-ZXJWqt58U0QKwXw0xYB8afqy0BT6UFbBtdnwuwxA2kU2q1zi909V3fzjBKKWWRMYMVEG4GIrS5GEuHg/s1600/P1000696.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga91QXFqos3Ik867TPtARNijVENYg3q1ngtQuiLL-nLo2Qi3DfHSPrxCxnR5i-ZXJWqt58U0QKwXw0xYB8afqy0BT6UFbBtdnwuwxA2kU2q1zi909V3fzjBKKWWRMYMVEG4GIrS5GEuHg/s200/P1000696.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laguna Chaxa</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">After Toconao, we went on to the Salar Atacama (the salt flat of Atacama) and to see the Laguna Chaxa. It is part of a National Reserve for flamingos and we were not disappointed, although we didn't see any very close up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br />As well as flamingos, the Laguna Chaxa is home to various other birds, including Andean Avocets, Andean Gulls and Puna Plovers (Puna is the name given to the plateau). I took rather a lot of photos of the birds.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Again the scenery here could have easily been from another planet! Fantastic jagged sculptures of salt going on for miles, only interrupted by the occasional pool of water, and surrounded by incredible mountain ranges.</span></div>
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After the Laguna Chaxa (which is at 2200m approx.) we headed up into the mountains and to some Lagunas between 2 volcanoes. We had to climb to 4200m to reach these lagunas, and this was to be my first experience at high altitude. Thankfully, other than feeling slightly more out of breath than usual (although quite hard to tell really since I'm so unfit!) I felt fine - which bodes very well for my trip to the ALMA site at 5000m on Friday.</div>
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It was pretty chilly up at 4200m, and a bit windy, but it was worth it. We saw Laguna Miscanti and Laguna <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Miñiques - both stunning lakes of beautiful turquoise blue water, with amazing mountains around them.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8W7uyNx37_kUhzn3Yu1vrn3eGmD-VPmbSvfhq7H37RCeE1PGYpGCQwSFVIG4N5KRVuBmJKE6APgQ5oAV5gl_JnVDTbb684iv7m2U72tS3mWQFlO2btNJYesXAakBIY6S9ubYZcc8OOo/s1600/P1000732.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8W7uyNx37_kUhzn3Yu1vrn3eGmD-VPmbSvfhq7H37RCeE1PGYpGCQwSFVIG4N5KRVuBmJKE6APgQ5oAV5gl_JnVDTbb684iv7m2U72tS3mWQFlO2btNJYesXAakBIY6S9ubYZcc8OOo/s320/P1000732.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laguna Miscanti, with Cerro Miscanti volcano behind</td></tr>
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On the way back down from the high altitude lagunas, we saw some<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="line-height: 19px;">vicuñas - the smallest of the camelid family.</span></span><div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Being at high altitude surprised me really. I would have expected there to be less vegetation the higher you got, but in fact, there was more in the way of flora up at 4200m than there is at 2200m.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Today, I got up super-duper early to go and see the highest geyser field in the world at sunrise - the El Tatio Geysers. I was picked up at 4am (rather bleary-eyed I have to say) and we had an hour and a half journey to get to the Geyser field - of course, I slept for the journey there. Well, it was dark anyway, so I couldn't see anything out the window of the minibus!</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Once there, it was quite magical. The sun didn't really start to rise properly for about the first half an hour, so we were in the dark with all these steaming, bubbling geysers around us. And it was minus 9 degrees! The Moon was still up so that created an even eerier experience! Our guide for the tour cooked our breakfast in one of the geysers which was quite good fun. The water is boiling at about 85 degrees (since we're at altitude of course, the boiling point of water is lower - remember that from my chemistry lessons at school!) so he popped some eggs in to cook, and some cartons of milk, so we would have hot milk for breakfast.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">We had a wander around some of the geysers whilst our breakfast cooked, all the while the light was changing as the sun started to rise behind the mountains. It was quite incredible to feel the change in temperature. Don't get me wrong, it was still VERY cold, but you could definitely feel the difference. The smell was also quite pungent of course, but in a very weird way, I quite liked it!</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">After we'd had breakfast, we went to the 'swimming pool' part of the field and some brave soles actually got in! Mostly, the water in the pool was about 28-30 degrees, which I'm sorry, but for me just wasn't tempting enough with the outside temperature the way it was. But I did paddle a bit which was nice - got some feeling back into my toes, other than just pain from being so cold!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">I've really liked what I've seen of San Pedro and the surrounding area so far, and for the most part it does very much feel like I could be on another planet, or a moon of another planet. Today at the geysers I did find myself thinking about Enceladus and its active eruptions, possibly of sub-surface water...</span></div>
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</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-54372470380758536732012-06-29T15:31:00.000-07:002012-06-30T15:49:30.153-07:00Gemini Visit<h3>
The Journey There...</h3>
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I got up bright and early today to be at the Gemini offices to meet Manuel Paredes, who would be my guide at Gemini today. Thankfully, I survived rush-hour in La Serena (in my ute!) and made it on time - only made one small error in directions, which I managed to correct very easily.</div>
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Once I had met Manuel, I had to go and get my authorisation signed off, which consisted of providing my passport number and the vehicle registration number, then signing a form, which I had to hand in at the gate of the road to the telescope.</div>
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We headed off on the road towards<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">V</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">icuña. About half way between La Serena and </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">V</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">icuña we took a turning off to the right onto a dirt track, which we followed for not very long before getting to the gate to the road up to Cerro Pachon and Tololo. I handed over my authorisation papers, got told the rules of the road by Manuel and we set off - me following Manuel through a cloud of dust!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">The road pretty much all the way to the telescope is just a dirt track, but a reasonably well-maintained one. Even so, by the time I got to the top my ute was no longer quite as shiny and I had lots of dust up my nose!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Inside The Building</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">So, here I was, at almost 2700m, and at my first professional observatory - how exciting! And from the outside, the size was impressive, but kind of what I expected. It was VERY windy at the top, so we didn't hang around outside for too long.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">We headed indoors and first went to the 'Crew Room' which is a mixture of a coffee room and a video-con meeting room. We met a few of the daytime staff - engineers - of whom there are about 15 who work there each day. And they travel there and back every day. At many other observatories, the daytime engineers work in shifts, but not these guys. One guy told me his typical day is about 14 hours long if you include the travel there and back!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Manuel told me a bit about Gemini-S and N, and the history of the telescopes. Construction on Gemini-S started in around 1995. One of the engineers told us that one year they had to stop construction completely, and close the site down for the Winter, as the snow storms were so bad. First light for Gemini-S was around 2002.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">After this, Manuel took me around the various different bits of the building...we'll start with the best!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">The Telescope</span></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5dukYj4Z8rjIXkOoGwlOz2auE3yST9mw4kzc5bCulcz3-8OZ6dy6GZSuRTJ61HkyhfhS55-v8w8Qb2r02LnjFTwJpm3HNJ-NDRTU0bojfbTMrtkcNuVwuJLQ9n_vKszIuoq3MmuHpUAA/s1600/P1000646.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5dukYj4Z8rjIXkOoGwlOz2auE3yST9mw4kzc5bCulcz3-8OZ6dy6GZSuRTJ61HkyhfhS55-v8w8Qb2r02LnjFTwJpm3HNJ-NDRTU0bojfbTMrtkcNuVwuJLQ9n_vKszIuoq3MmuHpUAA/s320/P1000646.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gemini-S telescope - with me for scale!</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The size of the telescope did, of course, impress me. I had an idea what it would be like, having seen instruments like KMOS and SCUBA 2 in the lab back in Edinburgh, but still, my first time standing looking up at such a large telescope will be a memory I keep for a long time.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The room is very cold - must remember to take gloves with me when I go to visit Paranal! I knew it would be, since the telescope needs to be maintained at the same temperature as outside, but it really was chilly! Manuel explained that everything in the telescope dome is painted with a special paint which has low heat emissivity, to help keep it all at a low temperature.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Underneath the telescope (just above my head in the photo) the instruments are attached. Gemini can work with up to 5 different instruments in one night. Currently it has just 3 instruments attached - GMOS (mentioned in my last blog post), a calibration instrument (the 1st thing which is needed to be done each night is to calibrate the telescope), and NICI which is a coronograph used to find exoplanets.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Gemini currently uses Active Optics to compensate for the atmospheric distortions. I must admit, active optics is not something I am particularly familiar with, but from what I have understood (from Manuel and a bit of googling!) it is a technology which uses natural stars and deformable mirrors to calibrate for the distortions. They are also in the commissioning phase of an adaptive optics system called GeMS, which uses a laser guide to create 5 laser guide stars, and again, deformable mirrors. It is the only adaptive optics system in the world currently which has 5 laser guide stars, and it has 5 because of the large field of view the telescope has. They are hopeful it will be finished the commissioning phase and being used for science next year sometime.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The telescope weighs around 300 tonnes and sits on a pillar which goes around 11m into the mountain. This is for earthquake protection. This design means that the telescope can withstand an earthquake that measures up to 8 on the Richter Scale.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">To move the telescope with high precision and accuracy, the telescope's hydraulics system involves a layer of oil on which the telescope sits. In theory, if you remove all the brakes from the telescope, you could move this 300 ton piece of equipment with one hand - impressive!</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The Control Room</span></h3>
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<span style="line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">On any given observing night (and in theory Gemini is used for observing 365 nights of the year - of course there are occasions when the telescope needs to be closed for maintenance, or adverse weather) there are 2 people working in the control room. The astronomer, who controls the instrument, and the Supporting Officer who controls the telescope. At the end of the day shift, there is a handover from the engineers to the astronomer and supporting officer, basically to say that the telescope is good for use. This is why the engineers are there every day - to ensure the telescope is good for using all night for observing.</span>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">Once GeMS is up and running for science, there will be 2 more people working each night. One to operate the laser and another, a 'spotter'. The 'spotter' has to keep an eye out for any planes flying overhead!</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">On an average night, 7GB of data are collected, which are sent via a microweb to La Serena and then on to the data archive in Victoria, Canada. A principal investigator can have access to their rough data from their observation just 5 minutes after the observation has been done.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The Mirror</span></h3>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">I think the mirror deserves a section all of its own as I found this the most fascinating and interesting aspect of the telescope.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The primary mirror, or M1 as it is referred to in the field, is 8.2m in diameter, and weighs 20 tonnes. During the day it is covered up to save it getting any unnecessary dust on it. Manuel removed the cover of the mirror a little so I could see it:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The very shiny M1</td></tr>
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The secondary mirror, M2, sits at the top of the telescope structure:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shiny M2 with M1 reflected in it</td></tr>
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M1 is coated with silver, for a number of reasons. Firstly, silver has low heat emissivity, so helps to keep the whole structure cool. Secondly, silver is very reflective and particularly for infrared light - more so than Aluminium for example. However, silver also oxidates quite quickly with humidity, so this means that the mirror needs to be re-coated every so often. I'll come on to the re-coating process in a bit!<br />
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M1 gets cleaned every Thursday, using carbon dioxide. The mirror is tilted to<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;">90°</span> and the</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;">CO</span><sub style="line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap;">2</sub> is applied, freezing the particles of dust, which then fall off the surface of the mirror. Additionally, every 6 months, the mirror is cleaned with water, soap and mops!</span></div>
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The re-coating process takes place every 6-10 years, and takes 15 days for the whole thing to be completed...and it's some procedure!</div>
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The stages are as follows:</div>
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<li>M1 is removed - this involves removing all the instruments from the telescope, then removing the mirror using a big crane. The mirror is lowered down to Level 1 (from Level 4 where the telescope is) and put on a special cart.</li>
<li>The mirror is cleaned with water, soap and mops</li>
<li>It is then dried by laying paper (the same sort of paper towels we would dry our hands with) over it</li>
<li>Acid is applied over the paper, which removes the silver layer, then the paper is removed, and the mirror is washed again with distilled water. At this stage, the mirror is transparent as it doesn't have the silver reflective layer anymore. It is still slightly reflective but if you put your hand underneath it, you would see it through.</li>
<li>M1 is then dried with the 'Air Knife' which is basically like a big hairdryer</li>
<li>M1 is picked up by the crane which has a 'grabber' attached to it - a bit like the arm in one of those fairground games where you have to try and pick up a cuddly toy to win it by controlling the arm</li>
<li>The cart M1 was sitting on is moved to another room and the bottom section of the coating chamber is put in its place</li>
<li>M1 is lowered into this chamber and the chamber is closed up</li>
<li>A vacuum is created inside the chamber, removing any humidity and air.</li>
<li>Then the coating process is started - this involves 3 magnetrons, one for each of the materials which is to be coated on the mirror. Sadly, I didn't understand fully the process of the sputter coating using the magnetron....need to do some more research I think!</li>
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In the end, the mirror gets a coating of first nickel chromium (as an adhesive), then the silver, then another coating of nickel chromium and finally a protective layer of silicon is applied. This layer is 1000 times thinner than a human hair!</div>
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I had a fantastic day at Gemini and found it so interesting. Huge thanks to Manuel for being a great guide...I'm looking forward even more to my visits to the other observatories!</div>
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Just to top the day off, on the journey back I saw another of those South American Gray Foxes, and this time I managed to get a picture...</div>
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For those who are interested, I'll be posting all my photos from Gemini on my flickr account - see the link on the right hand menu.</div>
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</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-74629366012474443042012-06-27T15:54:00.002-07:002012-06-27T15:54:29.999-07:00Pending Professional Observatory VisitsI'm getting very excited about my pending visits to various professional observatories here in Chile. Over the next 2 weeks I'll be visiting Gemini, ALMA and Paranal.<br />
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This coming Friday I will visit the Gemini Observatory, which is situated on Cerro Pachón, at 2700m. As the name would suggest, Gemini is one of a pair of telescopes, the other situated on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, at 4200m. Each telescope has an 8.1m diameter mirror and are optical/infrared telescopes. With their respective locations, they can collectively observe the entire sky.<br />
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You can find out more about the Gemini Observatories here: <a href="http://youtu.be/h8iKFLGFEC0" target="_blank">Introduction to Gemini</a><br />
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Both of the Gemini telescopes have an instrument called GMOS, which scientists and engineers at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre helped to build. GMOS is a multi-object spectrograph and camera. The multi-object mode of GMOS allows astronomers to obtain spectra of hundreds of objects simultaneously.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPtVove9S6DN8OMiQFgFx0kXpbzAIXqWOtTZZ9hYspJxauI0QyovI0bbl3ffGWWMOzbAhPcSwPbs3f3CDcr5WfSnuN63ag31QIcGeB26iFd4KzTo2OiguywoUkku3LKQ_XTBBGcmDxpJk/s1600/gmos+gemini+s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPtVove9S6DN8OMiQFgFx0kXpbzAIXqWOtTZZ9hYspJxauI0QyovI0bbl3ffGWWMOzbAhPcSwPbs3f3CDcr5WfSnuN63ag31QIcGeB26iFd4KzTo2OiguywoUkku3LKQ_XTBBGcmDxpJk/s320/gmos+gemini+s.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GMOS being installed at Gemini S (copyright UK ATC)</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the commissioning of GMOS-S, this image of the Hickson Compact Group 87 (HCG87) was obtained - previously only seen from space. HCG87 is a diverse group of galaxies located about 400 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Capricornus.</span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvokDGryNx4_DCr5hlDjeslMBSvN1NQXlBjsJ08iquPidj6FGyWo-xSAd5yYEmgwtE-nVnjjVmLc-XX42YwU5Z6NwH3bdAZ_3oDJ6aWWKInBHGpQLh96r9H1gbk0VnxxgGCdQcSMuQRoY/s1600/HCG87-GMOS-S.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvokDGryNx4_DCr5hlDjeslMBSvN1NQXlBjsJ08iquPidj6FGyWo-xSAd5yYEmgwtE-nVnjjVmLc-XX42YwU5Z6NwH3bdAZ_3oDJ6aWWKInBHGpQLh96r9H1gbk0VnxxgGCdQcSMuQRoY/s200/HCG87-GMOS-S.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hickson Compact Group as taken with GMOS-S</td></tr>
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Another multi-object spectrograph which the UK Astronomy Technology Centre have been heavily involved with is KMOS, which is heading to Paranal later this year - another place I'll be visiting soon. The Paranal Observatory is managed by ESO, a <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">research organisation for </span>astronomy<span style="line-height: 19px;">, supported by fifteen countries. Paranal is at an altitude of 2635m and is home to various telescopes. The most well-known of these is the VLT or Very Large Telescope. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">The VLT consists of four 8.2m telescopes, each given names of object in the sky in the Mapuche language - Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun.</span><br />
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Sadly I'll be at Paranal before KMOS, as it would have been great to see it installed having seen it for all these past months seeing it being built and tested in the labs in Edinburgh. <span style="background-color: white;">KMOS will be installed on the telescope called ANTU (The Sun in Mapuche) at the VLT.</span><br />
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KMOS has 24 robotic arms, which means it can obtain spectra for 24 different objects in one observation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCRQRFGjtpLbWP3BNXINlauMfQa-11v7LzwoeUeSZDbXzs1-5oHHrRo_SQmaUu5qB0cFjyyi1IsUaGiw3Zg_DBkz4zGYeXNA9NSJoI3tyyAEc3V64ACS-XqbBmr_xeyTLaLUrlotTRPw/s1600/kmos-arms.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCRQRFGjtpLbWP3BNXINlauMfQa-11v7LzwoeUeSZDbXzs1-5oHHrRo_SQmaUu5qB0cFjyyi1IsUaGiw3Zg_DBkz4zGYeXNA9NSJoI3tyyAEc3V64ACS-XqbBmr_xeyTLaLUrlotTRPw/s320/kmos-arms.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">KMOS and its 24 arms</td></tr>
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The capability of KMOS will allow astronomers to further investigate star and galaxy formation and evolution. </div>
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As well as seeing the Very Large Telescope, I'm also hopeful I'll get to see VISTA at Paranal - a 4m wide field survey telescope, the project management of the design and construction of which, the UK ATC was responsible for. Not long after I started work at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, VISTA was being shipped out to Chile, so it would be amazing to see it in its home.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Being a survey telescope means that VISTA maps the sky systematically, sometimes <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">studying small patches of sky for long periods to detect extremely faint objects and at other times surveying the entire southern sky.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> One such survey VISTA has been doing is that of the Magellanic Clouds - our neighbouring galaxies. The results obtained from this survey are allowing astronomers (including Dr Chris Evans, based at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre) to </span><span style="line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">study not only the inner regions of the Tarantula nebula (within the Large Magellanic Cloud) but also to study the multitude of smaller stellar nurseries nearby. These studies will allow astronomers to look into the regions where massive stars are still forming and look at the interactions between these and the older stars in the wider region.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhututmZkTe0K9nhr6EdiBwHxodrRyOqJLMnOGRcPbmFCSNHorUCyBuQwvadyCV6_E59hVGRkSshfMDk5J3w38loUQcLpPdTWqnI10wfPbmb_qeoeAsZy436xTiEBiUpg4nj0QGJgTmeZw/s1600/tarantula+vista.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhututmZkTe0K9nhr6EdiBwHxodrRyOqJLMnOGRcPbmFCSNHorUCyBuQwvadyCV6_E59hVGRkSshfMDk5J3w38loUQcLpPdTWqnI10wfPbmb_qeoeAsZy436xTiEBiUpg4nj0QGJgTmeZw/s200/tarantula+vista.jpg" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey view of the Tarantula Nebula (credit ESO)</span></h4>
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One thing I really hope to see in action during my overnight stay at Paranal is the laser guide star of the VLT's adaptive optics system. This would be absolutely amazing to see.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73ToQcB2xGCMp_b6ldnKrSf3lL1Qw_eUtoEN-T2kYQSmM96rU2_Y5kfdeuSIh-e_o9Wo9GSd6RA_CwEeuprl4u-6c5u0kt2JBRzcRiowP6jnlSR6QVkSue5_lXtKUZRJZy7Y9LA3zyFo/s1600/vlt+laser+guide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73ToQcB2xGCMp_b6ldnKrSf3lL1Qw_eUtoEN-T2kYQSmM96rU2_Y5kfdeuSIh-e_o9Wo9GSd6RA_CwEeuprl4u-6c5u0kt2JBRzcRiowP6jnlSR6QVkSue5_lXtKUZRJZy7Y9LA3zyFo/s200/vlt+laser+guide.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">VLT Laser Guide Star in Action (credit ESO)</td></tr>
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Adaptive Optics is a technology used on telescopes to help remove the distortions caused by turbulence in the atmosphere. This turbulence is what causes the stars to 'twinkle' and, for astronomers, causes blurring of images. By using a laser guide star and a deformable mirror, corrections can be made for the atmospheric distortions.<br /><div>
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Between my visits to Gemini and Paranal, I'll be visiting ALMA - a different sort of telescope altogether. ALMA is an array of radio telescopes, which work at millimetre and submillimeter wavelengths, and is the current largest ground-based astronomical installation in the world. When complete, it will consist of 66 dishes acting as a single giant telescope, using interferometry. Because it is an array, it will have greater sensitivity and higher resolution than existing submillimetre telescopes, like the James Clark Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii (on which SCUBA 2 is installed - another instrument built by the UK ATC). The ALMA site is on the Chajnantor Plain in the Atacama Desert at an altitude of 5000m.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Interferometry works on the basis of </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">two or more separate telescopes combining their signals, offering a resolution equivalent to that of a telescope of diameter equal to the largest separation between its individual elements. It requires high precision engineering as all 66 antennae must work in complete synchrony with a precision of </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">one millionth of a millionth of a second. Also, the path followed by the signal from each antennae to the central computer must be known with an accuracy equivalent to the width of a human hair - not much room for error.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16px;">These 66 antennae will be able to be moved to span an area of 10 miles at its largest, creating nearly 71,000 square feet of radio light collecting area.</span></div>
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Currently there are 34 antennae in position and already the Early Science phase has produced some fantastic results. One such result is the observation of some of the dust ring around Formalhaut - a star around which there are planets - which has led to some exciting developments. Astronomers had already obtained direct images of this system, but the new observations by ALMA, along with computer simulations, have helped to determine that the 2 planets orbiting the star are actually much smaller than it was originally thought. This observation was done when only a quarter of ALMA's antennae were in place...just imagine what it will help to discover in the coming years!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYT7XCFA08OH758GkGRW5lsqS8DPXot9qRibIJeUAk-XDWHPj2T_I3tWie2IQgKu96pUkswSAfo5bxPq_IsPtNgSmxkDowOoLSssRmPnZdxStGBRU3P35FTDGspuAVS-UMVgGtHBPDiA/s1600/formalhaut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYT7XCFA08OH758GkGRW5lsqS8DPXot9qRibIJeUAk-XDWHPj2T_I3tWie2IQgKu96pUkswSAfo5bxPq_IsPtNgSmxkDowOoLSssRmPnZdxStGBRU3P35FTDGspuAVS-UMVgGtHBPDiA/s200/formalhaut.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ALMA's observations of dust ring around Formalhaut. Blue image shows earlier image obtained by Hubble (credit ESO)</td></tr>
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I look forward to blogging about my visits to these magnificent observatories!!<br /><div>
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</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-65213325423061809682012-06-27T09:10:00.000-07:002012-06-27T09:10:02.910-07:00Sampling the local tippleYesterday I took a trip to Pisco Elqui in the Elqui Valley, which has been renamed in honour of the local tipple in Chile - Pisco.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8_cxzAgl3hFPRt1ae89CUTCDVyDOlveJOjr5mv5NwbmsiemkooexI_UIH7XaeAtGB8cX_G9PKph-cc5iJZlLlWpRGliVyz7oAPRzBxiE7FLXEX6_EPSbm_b2RWep2XEakDhjt54ZscQE/s1600/P1000604.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8_cxzAgl3hFPRt1ae89CUTCDVyDOlveJOjr5mv5NwbmsiemkooexI_UIH7XaeAtGB8cX_G9PKph-cc5iJZlLlWpRGliVyz7oAPRzBxiE7FLXEX6_EPSbm_b2RWep2XEakDhjt54ZscQE/s200/P1000604.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pisco Elqui</td></tr>
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Pisco Elqui is a very cute village and I'd definitely like to return there once I'm back in this area after my time up north. I had a wander around the village and found out about the various things one can do as a tourist there, including hiring a bike to travel to Los Nichos, a nearby village which has the oldest pisco distillery in Chile. I also found out that there was an observatory visit scheduled for last night from Pisco Elqui, but since I didn't know in advance, I couldn't go - it would have been tricky for me to get back to<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Vicu<span style="line-height: 19px;">ñ</span>a at midnight. But I shall keep it in mind and I think I'll make a point of staying a night or 2 in Pisco Elqui on my return.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After I'd had a wee wander, I stopped for some lunch - a delicious platter called 'El Pangue' (the name of one of the observatories I'll be visiting!) which had a mixture of pastes/dips, olives and goats cheese. It was possibly the healthiest meal I've had since getting to Chile and totally yummy!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After lunch I decided to do a tour of the Mistral distillery, in Spanish. I could have waited until 3:30pm for an English tour, but I'm trying to challenge myself to get more familiar with the local lingo and I do understand a lot already...just need to get more confidence with the speaking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, as it turned out, I had the tour all to myself, and my guide was very good and spoke at a really nice pace so I think I understood about 95% of what she said. The Mistral distillery is a really pretty place, and has a museum with various historical artefacts which used to be used in the distillation process.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old distillation equipment</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRzldWEw8NTTpPFoz2mw_8LD4DMVL7poJ67ttlw0wYOFHWfJB1jdvDHLryhpwhVM4m0FONnD0TVJFlYaUQXQpRzkFPtPourwwwjm48k4LdWIfVlRfuk58wBCvIYcACW7tfRoLswyIXzvo/s1600/P1000608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRzldWEw8NTTpPFoz2mw_8LD4DMVL7poJ67ttlw0wYOFHWfJB1jdvDHLryhpwhVM4m0FONnD0TVJFlYaUQXQpRzkFPtPourwwwjm48k4LdWIfVlRfuk58wBCvIYcACW7tfRoLswyIXzvo/s200/P1000608.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grounds of the Mistral Distillery</td></tr>
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After the tour, I got to see a small exhibition of barrels an artist has converted into visual art:<div>
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And finally tried my first taste of Pisco... The guide gave me 2 different ones to try, both straight. The first one, reminded me of whisky and I wasn't mad keen on it. It was a bit harsh to drink straight for my liking. The second one was a lot smoother. Still possibly a bit too strong for me to enjoy straight, but it went down easier.</div>
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At the end of the tour I was able to go to the bar and get a free Pisco sours...now that I did like!!! I chatted to the barmaid for a while, who was born and raised in Pisco Elqui. I told her how I couldn't imagine a life without rain!! </div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-89055706954431062292012-06-27T08:49:00.001-07:002012-06-27T08:49:08.202-07:00A Starlab show for the Southern HemisphereOn Monday I was invited to accompany Dalma Valenzuela from the Gemini outreach team to a local school with their Starlab planetarium.<br />
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I went to the Gemini offices in La Serena for 9:45am - just a short 20 minute walk from my hostel - where I met Maria Antonietta Garcia, Manuel Paredes and Dalma, all from the Gemini PR and Outreach team. The site where the offices are was bigger than I imagined, but as the security officer explained, there are also houses of those who work at AURA on site.<br />
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Dalma and I headed off to the school at about 10:15am, and it was only about a 15 minute drive away. The school is in a suburb of La Serena and is for pupils right from 'Pre-Kinder' (age 3-4 years) to about 17 years. It is a school for pupils from economically challenging backgrounds.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6CqCRqBKG8QsQ5FSqAuUG9xOaP4wAsRzCdvkrKUhSkxOq6JJJBj3eQdZYNV45q7IZpCoXWtR_P6SrxGDxaF1B4nF6cD328GJktasdF9-klloUshAdFWPhjdwWyPTeaIWerOAp-cPNiCo/s1600/P1000590.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6CqCRqBKG8QsQ5FSqAuUG9xOaP4wAsRzCdvkrKUhSkxOq6JJJBj3eQdZYNV45q7IZpCoXWtR_P6SrxGDxaF1B4nF6cD328GJktasdF9-klloUshAdFWPhjdwWyPTeaIWerOAp-cPNiCo/s200/P1000590.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting the Starlab set-up with eager helpers</td></tr>
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Once we found the school and the best entrance - Dalma has exactly the same issues as we do when visiting schools: making sure you get the vehicle as close to the school as possible is always a requirement - 4 early secondary students came to help unloading the van. Dalma has an original Starlab with tunnel entrance, and considering the places she has been with it, it's in exceptionally good condition!<br />
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Dalma puts down a sort of soft 'astroturf' section onto the hard floor of the hall so the pupils have a reasonably soft surface to sit on - perhaps something we could consider doing, although many times we are in a carpeted room so the floor isn't too uncomfortable to sit on.<br />
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Once we were all set up, the first class arrived. This was a 'Pre-Kinder' class of about 30 students aged about 4 years old. They were quite lively and didn't really follow instruction well in terms of sitting in the right place!! But Dalma is clearly well-used to this and was extremely patient with them. They were very sweet it has to be said.<br />
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Dalma did a fairly brief 'show' which started with the star cylinder (of course showing the southern hemisphere stars). Dalma had the Moon visible and did something which I had never considered doing before, but which worked extremely well and which I think we really should do, particularly with the younger years. She has the Moon showing, and explains the phases by covering up a bit of the hole on the cylinder which is acting as the Moon to show half moon and crescent moon. She gets the pupils to shout out New Moon and Full Moon when she shows these phases. Really works well and so simple to do.<br />
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After showing the pupils the Southern Cross and explaining about how you can use it to find South, she then swapped over the cylinders to show the pictures of the constellations (this time the cylinder is actually for the northern hemisphere) and she goes through the zodiac constellations, pointing out which ones you can see in which seasons. She also points out Orion's belt (or the 3 Marias as they call it here) and tells the pupils this can be seen in the summer, but to notice that Orion disappears below the horizon at times.<br />
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Dalma even got me involved with the Starlab shows. She explained that since I am from the Northern Hemisphere I see different a different night sky to the pupils. I introduced myself, and said that I am from Scotland and then pointed out Ursa Major and Minor, saying that I can see these all year round, but that I can never see the Southern Cross.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The final class getting seated for their show</td></tr>
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It was a great experience to be out with Dalma, and to see the similarities in what we do, despite the different hemispheres! Also great to get the idea about the Moon - I think primary teachers would appreciate that addition to a Starlab show.<br />
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Dalma and I talked a bit about schools in Chile and Scotland, and Dalma told me that class sizes in state schools in Chile can be as big as 45 pupils, even into secondary school.<br />
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Normally Dalma goes out about 2-3 days per week to schools, and if it is to a local school, she goes alone (but always getting pupil helpers to unload). If she is going further afield (she has been to Argentina, Uruguay and Easter Island with the Starlab) then Manuel would go with her too.<br />
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When I return to the La Serena area after my time up north, I hope to go out again with Dalma, perhaps to a secondary school.<br />
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<br />taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-37877438876543076162012-06-24T13:07:00.001-07:002012-06-24T13:07:58.850-07:00Observatorio Mamalluca<span style="font-family: inherit;">Last night I visited the Observatorio Mamalluca, which is situated just outside of Vicu<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">ñ</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">a and is a public observatory.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">I did this trip through an agency, but it is also possible to go as an individual. The observatory organises a mini-bus to take people from Vicu</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">ñ</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">a.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was already extremely excited as we journeyed towards the observatory and spent most of my time looking out of the window of the minibus, delighted by the clear skies!</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">As we started onto the road up to Mamalluca, we had to put the bus headlamps onto just sidelights and drove up what looked like a runway, with green lights either side of the road to guide us.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">The Mamalluca Observatory is a well-oiled machine indeed, and I was extremely impressed. There were probably around 60 visitors that evening and we were split into 2 groups - one large group of those who would take the tour in Spanish and a smaller group (around 17 people) who would take it in English. I opted for the English tour as I wanted to actually get to grips with the southern skies and I figured I'd have more chance of that in my own language!</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">We had a little time to have a look in the visitor centre, which had a few interactive computer games for children and some nice displays, as well as a small cafeteria and gift shop.</span><br />
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At 9pm, our guide (Jamie, I think, but it may have been a Spanish name which sounded like that!) led our group towards another building for the start of our tour. The Spanish group stayed in the visitor centre where there was also a lecture theatre type space - they would have a presentation first. We were getting to do the observing first!</div>
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We started outside with a 10" (approximately) reflector and Jamie lined it up to observe the Moon, which would shortly dip behind the mountain, so she explained that we had to start with that. Whilst each person had a look at the Moon, Jamie continued to talk to the group about the features of the Moon, every so often checking that it was still visible through the telescope. She was very good at keeping the group's attention whilst they were waiting to observe. The group was mostly adults, but there were a couple of kids.</div>
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Once everyone had seen the Moon in the telescope, Jamie offered, for those who wanted, to take a picture of the Moon with their cameras. Of course, I was thrilled at this prospect and thought it was a great touch - it was such a quick and easy thing for her to do, and fantastic for people to have something to take away with them.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Moon image!</td></tr>
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After this, we moved inside the dome to use the automated 40cm telescope. In here, Jamie showed us Saturn (probably the best view I've ever had of Saturn - the rings were really clearly visible), all the while, again talking to the group whilst people were taking their turn to observe.<div>
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She then rotated the dome and set the telescope to view the Carinae Nebula, and explained to the group the life cycle of stars, and the concept of light years, and how the nebula probably isn't there anymore.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mamalluca's largest telescope</td></tr>
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After viewing these 2 objects, we returned outside to a different reflector telescope (probably again about 10") and observed some more objects with the telescope - first NGC 4755, or the Jewel Box (an open cluster), and then, my favourite view of the evening, Omega Centauri (a globular cluster). Omega Centauri was just amazing to view.</div>
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Jamie then did some naked eye observing with us, using her laser to point things out. She showed us the zodiac constellations of Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra and Virgo, pointed out the Southern Cross and gave instructions on how to find south from it, and she pointed out Saturn and Mars to us too. She gave useful information about naked observing, like how to tell a star from a planet and that its best to observe when there is no Moon.</div>
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When telling us about the constellations, she made the observation that these patterns had been made up by people in the northern hemisphere (i.e. Greeks or Romans) and told us a little of what patterns the Andean Indigenous people had seen. Instead of using the stars to make patterns, they saw things in the dark patches of the Milky Way. I remember that this is similar to the Indigenous people of Australia.</div>
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The Andean people see a llama, a fox and a snake in the dark areas - some are easier to see than others, but then I guess the same is true for the Greek/Roman constellations. I remember the indigenous people of Australia see an emu where the Andean's see a llama.</div>
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Jamie then led us back inside and gave us a presentation, which started with Stellarium. She gave a quick introduction to the main features of Stellarium, which was really good. After this, she did a presentation which went through various different things. It started with some information about the history of telescopes and how a reflector telescope works (this was a nice touch, and not too complicated). She then spoke of some of the big telescopes in Chile, like the VLT and showed various pictures and animations of them. She also then spoke about the E-ELT.</div>
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She finished with an animation about the scale of our Solar System, then different stars, and then finally the whole Universe. She finished by saying how she had enjoyed working with us and that she hoped we had enjoyed the evening. And that if we got lost on the way home...we always have the Southern Cross to help us!</div>
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The whole experience was about 2 hours long and really was fantastic. I think splitting the group in 2 worked very well, and could work for our activities at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh too - even though we have less visitors in one session, I still think it could be advantageous. I suppose the only downside we have is the weather - at Mamalluca, they didn't have to worry about clouds coming in and the second group not getting the chance to observe.</div>
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The experience made me think about how we could incorporate the new IfA telescope into the Friday night sessions and some other ways we could potentially make the whole experience even better for our visitors.</div>
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All in all a very inspiring trip - I'm looking forward to visiting more tourist observatories later in my trip. </div>
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Oh, and I did try my hand at some astrophotography, and I thought at least one of the milky way had come out okay, but when I looked at them on the laptop, they don't look so great, hence why I haven't included any on this post.</div>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-92197461285401948692012-06-23T08:33:00.002-07:002012-06-23T08:35:34.227-07:00The Humboldt Penguin National ReserveYesterday I took a day trip to visit the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve. I'm a bit of a fan of penguins so I was quite excited to do this trip.<br />
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We set off from La Serena at about 8:45am and drove along the Panamerican Highway for about an hour. Then we turned off onto a pretty rough road towards Punta de Choros where we would get the boat out to the islands.<br />
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Along the way, the scenery was fantastic and we saw some great fauna. I got see my first Chilean guanacos in the wild.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guanacos in the wild</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cool scenery</td></tr>
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We also saw lots of vultures and even a type of fox - I think it was a South American Grey Fox, but I couldn't be sure. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it.<br />
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We got a boat out to Isla Choros, which is the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve. It is fair to say the sea was a little choppy! Thankfully, I didn't feel ill but there were a few hairy moments and the boat wasn't exactly a big boat compared to the swell!</div>
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But, we made it and finally got a glimpse of the Humboldt Penguins.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some Humboldt Penguins</td></tr>
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We only saw about 9 penguins altogether but we also saw lots of cormorants, some sealions and a few sea otters, which were gorgeous (but too quick for me to get a picture of!).<br />
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After sailing close to the coast of Isla Choros for a while, we then went to Ilsa Damas where we docked for an hour and were left to wander around. It is a stunning little island (only 2km long) with a couple of nice beaches and some cool rock formations.</div>
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After the hour on Isla Damas we boarded the boat once more and headed back across the choppy sea to shore, where we saw some pelicans.</div>
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We headed back towards home, stopping off on the way for a late lunch of empanadas (cameron queso for me) followed by some delicious swordfish.</div>
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</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-39162496279109950012012-06-23T08:04:00.001-07:002012-06-23T08:04:47.469-07:00La SerenaAfter my few days in Santiago, I got the bus to La Serena, to place myself firmly in the Astrotourism area of Chile for a wee while.<br />
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The bus journey took about 7 hours and was fine really as South America is well-equipped with extremely comfortable buses. In fact, in Chile they have different classes of bus tickets you can buy. The Classico is the cheapest and is basically a seat like you would expect on a National Express coach, except a bit comfier.<br />
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The next class up is the Semi-Cama, which is what I went for, and involved a slightly larger seat, with much more ability to recline the seat and a comfortable foot rest. After this there is the Cama option, in which, from what I have understood, your seat is as close to a bed as you could imagine on a bus!<br />
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Anyway, the scenery along the way changed a lot. Most of the journey was along the coast, but to the east there were vast areas of desert at times, with very little vegetation, sometimes big mountains, and sometimes semi-desert like landscape. I saw lots of cacti.<br />
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I arrived in La Serena around 6:30pm and got a taxi to my hostel (just as well really as it was a reasonable distance and I didn't know where I was going). The hostel is ok, but not great. I don't think I'll be staying here when I come back to La Serena next week. It does have some good points, like a fab roof terrace, which has allowed me to take some nice photos of the city.
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I've done a bit of exploration of the city whilst I've been here and a bit of research into the area, in terms of the variety of tourist observatories nearby - there are loads!</div>
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<br />I visited the Archaeological museum where I saw an Atacameno mummy and a real Moai statue. I also had a wander around the Japanese Garden (which I had thought was a bit of a random addition to the city, but which I found out yesterday is a symbol of the good export relationship Chile has with Japan).</div>
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I booked myself onto a trip to the <a href="http://www.mamalluca.org/index/" target="_blank">Observatorio Mamalluca</a> for Thursday evening, but sadly the trip got cancelled. They told me it was because there were clouds in Valle de Elqui where the observatory is, but I spoke to people yesterday who had been at the observatory on Thursday and said it was really clear. I think it was probably a case of not enough people booked on the trip I booked on, or maybe the observatory was fully booked. Anyway, hopefully, I'm going this evening. I've been doing a bit of stargazing from the rooftop of the hostel, I even was able to see the Milky Way (faintly but still), but I really need some guidance on what I'm looking at!!! Hopefully by the end of my time in Chile, I'll be an expert on the constellations of the Southern skies.</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-18514373752795640042012-06-20T20:56:00.001-07:002012-06-20T20:56:54.834-07:00Such an 80's childAfter my meetings at the ESO offices, I had lunch with William from ALMA at the <a href="http://www.museodelamoda.cl/" target="_blank">Museo de la Moda</a>,which I had been planning to visit anyway.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Exhibit at the entrance to Museo de la Moda</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I was in heaven! The 2 exhibitions they have on at the moment were just perfect for me.</span><br />
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The first exhibition was a Michael Jackson exhibition which features lots of his interesting outfits from over the years.<br />
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This was so cool! He had such a lot of amazing outfits. There was also a wall displaying various album artworks and posters from concerts. And, to my delight, plenty of his tunes playing in the background.</div>
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The second exhibition which was on was one called 'Back to the 80s', which was quite simply awesome!!! not least because of the fantastically cheesy 80's music they had playing throughout the different rooms.</div>
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Being the Museo de la Moda, there were a lot of clothes from the 80's on display (although I was a little disappointed that the puffball skirt didn't make it in to the collection - that was a favourite item of mine in the mid-80's. I loved my purple with black spots puffball!!). There were also various displays of magazines arranged alongside screens showing compilations of clips from various music videos. </div>
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One of my favourite bits in the exhibition had to be the display of Barbies and Swatch watches - both things I was very proud to own. In fact, 2 of the Barbies on display I actually had!!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I particularly loved the little walkman that came with this one!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can't see this one so well because of the reflection but the earrings this one had were amazing!</td></tr>
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And of course, I couldn't possibly do an entry about this exhibition without including mentioning the fact that they had the DeLorean from Back to the Future!!!! They also had the 'futuristic' jacket which Marty wears but I didn't get a photo of that.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Now, where is my hoverboard???? Its almost 2015...surely they must be nearly ready!!</div>
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I loved this exhibition and actually had forgotten just how mad some of the fashion from the 80's was. It did leave me wondering though...when exactly did we all stop thinking that huge shoulder pads and fluorescent everything were good to wear? It feels like the madness just all stopped suddenly, but I'm sure it must have been a gradual thing. And of course, some of it has come back around again in the fashion cycle, like batwing tops for example. One thing I had forgotten (or perhaps hadn't really realised as I was too young) was the androgyny of the 80's.</div>
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I could have quite honestly stayed in the exhibition for hours, purely to listen to the music!</div>
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<br /></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-24795101064991807382012-06-20T20:30:00.001-07:002012-06-20T20:30:03.856-07:00Visiting the ESO officesYesterday morning I had meetings with outreach people from ESO and ALMA.<br />
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The ESO offices in Santiago are in the rather plush area of Vitacura (lots of designer shops and fancy housing). I got the metro at what I found was clearly still rush-hour. 'Busy' doesn't even come close to describing how the trains were! But, there are assistance on hand at the busiest stations to keep things in order - nice touch to an already excellent metro system, I have to say.<br />
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Anyway, the walk from the metro station to the ESO office took around half an hour and involved a couple of hairy road crossings, but I made it in one piece, and was delighted to see they have some nice astronomy images around the fencing of the site.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ESO Offices, Santiago</td></tr>
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My first meeting was with Laura Ventura and Valentina Rodriguez of the ePOD Chile team. Laura is the Education Officer, and Valentina the Press and Outreach Officer and head of the team. We chatted together about the different activities ESO does in terms of outreach, and that currently, their focus is mostly on wider public outreach and social media. However, they do provide funds to support other astronomy education projects in schools and universities around Chile. For example, next week there is an event in La Serena for various different colleges with an astronomy focus, which ESO are supporting. They also told me of a school in Calama which they have links with, which has a very strong astronomy focus - I may look into visiting the school when I am in that area.<div>
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I told Laura and Valentina about some of the projects I've been involved in through my work at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, including our recent links with the ESERO network, the James Webb teacher CPD we run and our Deep Space schools resources (which I also showed them on the internet). I also explained the set-up of the observatory in Edinburgh and the work of the Visitor Centre in general.</div>
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Laura showed me some information from an astronomy summer school ESO used to run in conjunction with the <a href="http://www.eaae-astronomy.org/home/" target="_blank">European Association for Astronomy Education</a>, for teachers from across Europe. We discussed the challenges of ESO having so many member states, and hence different languages and school systems - making it difficult to run training appropriate for all. The astronomy summer school was run in English, but Laura said that some of the teachers had found that challenging as not all the teachers had the same level of English.</div>
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One exciting result of my meeting with the ePOD team was that I will hopefully be able to have an overnight stay at Paranal. Laura is accompanying a group up to do some filming (I think she said for a planetarium film) from the 4th to 11th July. I was already planning to be in the north around those dates so it works perfectly. Super excited about that opportunity! I also got some nice ESO materials to take away with me including a nice mug with the Helix Nebula on it and some stickers (including one of the E-ELT saying 'Size really does matter' which I found very amusing!</div>
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Following my meeting with the ePOD team I went across the site to the ALMA building to meet with the ALMA outreach people. I first met Valeria Foncea who I had been in contact with before I left the UK. Valeria leads the outreach team for ALMA and is Chilean. She also introduced me to William Garnier, who is French and is the Education and Outreach Officer for ALMA.Valeria and I talked a bit about ALMA and she showed me a brand new (hot off the press!) brochure which has been created for the public. Valeria also told me of work the ALMA outreach team have been doing with an
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">Atacameño</span> </span>school, using inquiry based learning with the pupils to support their English and Science lessons. There is more information about this project <a href="http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/announcements-events/430-the-deserts-vessel-documentary-about-the-toconao-school-and-alma" target="_blank">here</a></div>
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Valeria and I also discussed the plans for my visit to ALMA. Valeria has a Columbian journalist visiting and has invited me to join this visit. At the moment, the plan is to visit the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_69721624">Operations Su</a><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/about-alma/location" target="_blank">pport Facility</a> on 5th July and the Array Operations Site (at 5000m!) on the 6th July. The logistics are still to be firmed up, and I have to send Valeria confirmation that I passed my high altitude medical in the UK so she can authorise the visit. Even though I have done this medical, everyone still has to do another short medical assessment the day before going to the AOS.</span></div>
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I got a few nice giveaways from ALMA too, including one of their brand new brochures, a paper model to make of one of the ALMA dishes (which is earmarked for someone back in Edinburgh!) and a fantastic book all about the flora and fauna of the Chajnantor plain, where ALMA is situated.</div>
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William and I then went for lunch at the nearby Museo de la Moda, and chatted lots about our jobs - career paths, diversity of tasks, enjoyment, difficulties.</div>
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All in all a fabulous morning and some very lovely people!<br /><br /></div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4039633506109362432.post-62706392830557639022012-06-18T16:38:00.001-07:002012-06-18T16:38:33.142-07:00Today I fell a little in loveFor the first few days here, I hadn't been 'feeling' Santiago. I certainly didn't dislike it, it just hadn't grabbed me quite like Buenos Aires or Rio had, for example.<br />
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Today, all that changed and I fell a little in love with Santiago.<br />
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I spent the whole day exploring and checking out the recommended sights and at times, felt quite emotional.<br />
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I started the day by heading up Cerro Santa Lucia which is a hill (altitude 629m, but only 69m above the surrounding area) literally 10 minutes walk from my hostel. The weather today was absolutely perfect so I got great views of the city and nearby snow-covered mountains.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from Cerro Santa Lucia</td></tr>
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At the top of Santa Lucia, there is a castle and a viewing tower. Lots of lovely greenery around, including the 'Darwin Garden' and I saw quite a lot of humming birds. It was great to get an idea of the spread of the city and the diversity of the buildings compared to the amazing mountains behind (and get a view of those mountains reflected in some of the high-rise buildings).<div>
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At the bottom of Santa Lucia there is the Plaza Neptuno which I thought apt to mention. It comprises a fountain (funnily enough!) with a statue of the God himself.</div>
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After my trip up Santa Lucia, I thought I'd head up another of the city's hills - Cerro San Cristobal (altitude 880m, and approx 300m above the rest of Sanitago).</div>
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I took the metro to Baquedano and wandered through the very trendy area of Bellavista to the bottom of San Cristobal, only to find that the funicular didn't start until 2pm. Of course, I could have walked up, but I like funicular trains!</div>
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So, to fill in some time, I wandered around the streets taking a few pictures of the awesome graffiti and the most famous of Pablo Neruda's houses, La Chascona (sadly as it was Monday, I couldn't go in - most museums and galleries are closed on Mondays). I also stopped off for a bite to eat - traditional Chilean fodder: empanadas. Yum!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amazing graffiti in Bellavista</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pablo Neruda's house</td></tr>
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Once at the top of San Cristobal, the view quite simply took my breath away. This was really the first time I appreciated the scale of this city and for some reason, it made me quite emotional. A mixture of being overcome by the beauty of the view and excitement at the trip which lies ahead of me.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Its a big city!</td></tr>
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I had a good walk around the hill, including to the top where there is a large white Virgin Mary statue watching over the city.<div>
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After this, I headed to the bus terminal to buy my ticket to La Serena for Wednesday and then made my way slowly back to the hostel, stopping off at the Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda which had a fab exhibition on about India - lots of wonderful Hindi god statues and paintings from the mid 1800's. There was also a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violeta_Parra" target="_blank">Violeta Parra</a> exhibition on, which was incredibly moving. This exhibition also had a very cool feature which I don't think I've seen in any other museum/gallery before. Certain pictures had a sensor on the floor in front of them, which would trigger a particular song, relating to that painting, to come on. It worked really nicely.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Moneda</td></tr>
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That about sums up my day really. But I feel I should finish on an astronomical note...<div>
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Just along the road from my hostel is this shop:</div>
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</div>taniaj78http://www.blogger.com/profile/09866366978622782323noreply@blogger.com0