Observation trip at the Keck observatory in Hawaii
Dec 2013
Me on the top of Mauna Kea after my observation run at the Keck
(remote) observatory control room.
You can see that there are several telescope domes behind me, with the
leftmost one being the Subaru telescope, and the rest are the Keck 1 and Keck
2 telescopes. I know people love to think that I (and other astronomers) had to climb up to
a control room and use a joystick to control the telescope ... The truth
is ... I just had to code to plan my observation and fill out forms to let the telescope operator
help me... most of the observation was automated or else I might destroy
the telescope ;)
The "masks" (the metal plates with holes) that I designed for only allowing
target light to reach our detector on the Keck 2 telescope.
Lick Observatory workshop
Oct 2012