Sometimes the thrill of uncovering the true nature of the Universe doesn’t quite last all day. Today… well it’s really boring and slow. I tried to work – I really did. I stared at a paper I am writing for at least an hour but nothing came out of my head and into the document. Wait, I lied; there was a spelling correction I think.

So why am I telling you this? You came here for astronomy news, right? Well sometimes my PhD is really very slow and for some reason, I need you to know that. Currently my university projects are:

• Editing conference proceedings for .Astronomy
• Pestering speakers to hand in conference proceedings for .Astronomy
• Writing a paper dealing with emission from infalling protostars
• Organising the Star Formation Christmas Dinner (a Mexican for some reason)
• Waiting for the response from a telescope proposal (I’ve managed to do this one all day!)
• Creating the new Observatory website
• Writing a cool web app that simulates an aspect of star formation

As you can see, there is plenty to do. I just can’t do it today. I can’t focus, I can’t think and nor can I write a decent blog post either.

Is anyone else out there having a witless day? If you are – may I suggest going home? It’ll be more productive. I have a meeting at 4 so am obliged to sit and wait. Maybe I’ll get so bored, I’ll actually do some work.

Update: Maybe not.

The Cardiff HAlf metre Newise Telescope (CHaNT) officially opens today. The new, half-metre telescope is big enough to see Andromeda’s companion galaxies, to study the red spot on Jupiter and to see stars which, frankly, I never thought I’d see from Cardiff.

…it would be possible to view a postage stamp being held up at Castle Coch from the roof of the university’s physics building in the city centre around six miles away.

It will be used by undergraduate students studying astronomy and astrophysics and we are hoping that some of those students will take some amazing images through the telescope in the coming months. A new observatory website will pop up by 2009 to showcase our new toy, and I will give details here on Orbiting Frog when that happens.

CHaNT has an interesting design. It is ‘not-quite-newtonian’ in that it has a spherical primary mirror and flat secondary mirror. Corrective lenses are then placed before and after the secondary mirror to account for spherical aberration. This means that the telescope is smaller than an equivalent newtonian design and thus is even more powerful than it appears!

The opening of the new telescope will take place today, Friday 24th October at 3.30pm in the School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University. You can read more about the telescope here. You can also follow CHaNT on Twitter, if you’re so incline.

View Press Release | View BBC News Article

Let’s say I have a telescope with a computer attached to it. This telescope always knows exactly where it is pointing in the sky and exactly what time it is. Finally this telescope knows where it is on the Earth in terms of latitude and longitude. Now let’s connect this telescope to the internet and constantly feed the images it produces to a server.

To anyone working in astronomy, this is already true for professional telescopes. In fact Stuart over at Astronomy Blog created his telescope RSS feeds using just this data not too long ago.

Now finally let us do something that isn’t normally the case: let’s connect every telescope to just one server. This central server can use the data to construct an image of any object in all four dimensions using the positions both on the sky and on the Earth from each scope. All you have to do is have enough telescopes looking at the same things.

In the case of Comet Holmes there were a great many telescopes pointed at the object as it flew by, creating a lovely glowing ball that later faded away. The various stages of its evolution were imaged and these images could all be compiled into a kind of virtual space. You ought to be able to fly around inside a computer generated model which is constructed from the images. The projections of those images into virtual space just come from the telescopes own properties and position.

I am trying this technique with another, less exciting dataset. If it works then I may try it with some images from telescopes. However this data is sparse and spread out over the world. I do not have enough of it myself to make a good start. Maybe next time a big event is occuring we, the internet (if there is such a thing) could get organised and try to create a 4D record of an event? Astronomy has eyes everywhere and if these eyes can work together, via Google Earth, AstroGrid or other more novel collaborations, then 21st Century astronomy will be a turning point, and we can all be a part of it.

Although rare, altitude sickness is not unheard of on Mauna Kea. The conditions at the summit are below 40% the normal oxygen levels, and under half the usual atmospheric pressure. The fluids in your body tend to ‘leak’ as I understand it. Your blood’s ability to convey oxygen around the body is greatly impaired and your reactions are often sluggish and unusual.

Tourists have been known to simply keel over after reaching the top because they didn’t spend enough time getting used to the altitude on the way up. Astronomers have also been known to be carried down, despite days of preparation at 9,000 feet. Altitude in rare cases induces people to heart attacks and hypothermia in extreme cases.

The best story I have heard is of a telescope engineer who had been up many times but on one occasion called back to base to complain of a cable that was too short. He stressed that despite cutting it three times already, the cable still would not reach the desired spot. He was told to return immediately and was right as rain upon his return.

Descent is the only cure for altitude sickness, and in most instances a short while at lower altitude will correct the problem entirely. Alas this wasn’t to be the case for me. After a time at the observer’s station I still could not breathe normally and so James di Francesco, my mentor on the summit, took me down to the town of Hilo to the Medical Center.

They administered a series of tests, an injection and a lot of oxygen; and got me better. The doctor also informed me that if I needed, I could return to the station at 9,000 feet that very same day after collecting my prescription.

Jollied by this prognosis I did indeed return to the station where I began struggling to breathe again almost right away. I was swiftly returned to the medical center at sea level where a longer wait and a different doctor told me I had a pulmonary oedema. This time I did not return to the station. I was instead restricted to lower climbs for 48 hours. Over that time, my breathing gradually returned to normal.

I have since flown to San Francisco and today walked a fair away across the city. It’s good that my lungs are almost mended, but a shame that I apparently picked up a nasty cold during that time. I never get colds and so I’m pissed about it.

On the plus side, I got to see more of Hawaii than I would have done and San Francisco is a brilliant city which everyone should visit if you haven’t already.

A great many people from home have sent their kind thoughts via email and phone and I am very touched. The hardest thing about getting ill is doing it on your own. I am very grateful to those who have been here with me. James di Francesco, Henry Matthews, Antonio Chrysostomou, Sarah Sadavoy, Ben the Telescope operator, the rangers of Mauna Kea and the Jason and Co. at the HP station have all at some point kept me company. Thanks guys!

It is only days until I get home and truthfully I can’t wait. Until then San Francisco is a very good place to spend time that needs to be served.