Observing Run
Nov 13Soon I will be off on an observing run in Hawaii. I will be using the 15m JCMT telescope on Mauna Kea to take spectral line data using an instrument called HARP. Since this will be my first professional expedition I will be taking lots of pictures and notes as I try to get to grips with using a real telescope to doing real science. As much as possible I will blog here, though at this stage...
Perseids Overview from Astronomy Blog
Aug 10Astronomy Blog gives a great little overview of the upcoming meteor shower, including a top pic from Stellarium. I love this shower because I'm often in France for it where I can much better skies. read more | digg story
You Are a Time Traveller
Jun 13
The other day we were driving along and I found out that a friend of mine's father is a commercial airline pilot. We chatted about it for a while - apparently his mother was an air hostess and that's how they met - and I mentioned that he must have time travelled quite a bit. I wasn't being facetious by any means. It has always been a fascination of mine that Einstein's special relativity...
Essential Science – Part 2
Jun 04
So I'm still musing about the reasons for studying star formation and so I have begun trying to think in a more positive way. This is what I came up with earlier today... Star formation is a science at a turning point. It will not be long now before astronomers have the choice of several world-leading instruments capable of observing at millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelengths. NASA’s...
Give Us The Eleven Days Back
Nov 20
I've just spent the weekend in Rome. In fact I had one of the best holidays ever running around the Italian capital and generally being silly with my friends. We also visited the Vatican, naturally, and so upon returning home I thought I should do a Roman Catholic Orbiting Frog post. So what did the Pope ever do for Astronomy? Well quite a lot it seems. There is a Vatican Observatory outside...
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