sand drawing - reflections of WWII

Kseniya Simonova is a ukrainian sand artist who recently won "ukraine's got talent." she interprets germany's invasion and occupation of the ukraine during WWII. beautiful and haunting...

the big bang briefly

this little 2 minute video features the easily-understandable physicist janna levin.

The Big Bang Briefly 1 from Keith Olwell on Vimeo.

you can read a bit more discussion about the big bang from the astronomist.

or watch more of janna levin during her appearance on the colbert report.

UKIRT - from 100 hours of astronomy

this video, created as part of the 100 hours of astronomy project for the international year of astronomy, describes the UKIRT telescope - where i'm spending my week.

twinkle twinkle little stars

while sitting inside the control room of a telescope, we are isolated from seeing exactly what's happening with the weather outside, except for when we venture out into the cold to check the sky. i like to go out and check fairly often, acclimate my eyes to the darkness, see the stars... but its cold and conditions can change rapidly enough, that its necessary to have weather monitoring devices working all the time (if possible!).

inside UKIRT's control room, there is a screen showing the realtime view from an all-sky camera! the image below shows that view... you can see the telescope on the left side and the milky way galaxy streaming across the sky!


the green plus sign is where our telescope is pointing and the little yellow crosshairs show the position of a companion telescope. at the upper left, above the white telescope, you can see a fainter silver dome with a big line shooting out of it! that is the laser used by the gemini telescope adaptive optics system. the laser is clearly visible when i go outside, and i think its great fun to watch it change positions!

so what are adaptive optics and why do we shoot lasers into the sky??

because photons of light from distant stars get shaken up as they pass thru the earth's atmosphere, causing them to "twinkle" to our eyes. the more the photons get shaken up, the bigger and "fuzzier" objects appear in a telescopic image (this is the major advantage of putting telescopes in space). if we can somehow determine the turbulence in the atmosphere as the photons pass thru it, we can correct for it and get sharper images of the stars!

adaptive optics is a fascinating technique that has recently come in to use by several major telescopes around the world to improve the image sharpness. to correct for atmospheric distortions, you use a specific guide star, a quick computer to measure how the star "twinkles", and a special deformable mirror that sits inside the optical path of the telescope.

the computer measures the changing light coming from the guide star every millisecond or less, then rapidly sends signals to adjust the shape of the special mirror in order to immediately correct for the "twinkle." if there is no natural guide star bright enough to use in the part of the sky that you happen to be observing, you can create an artificial guide star with a laser! a "laser guide star" it's called.

here's a nice example of how impressively the use of adaptive optics can improve image quality!


pretty amazing difference, no? adaptive optics systems are incredibly complicated to develop and produce, so not all telescopes use them, but they become more important as telescope mirror sizes increase.

now to go check the sky....

height difference - star wars

here's a great, relaxed photo of most of our favorite star wars characters!


from left to right: Harrison Ford (Han Solo), David Prowse (Darth Vader), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker). Undated. link

square root of minus one = i

super cute!


i love that they advertise this shirt in pink, although she's not going to get anywhere here counting with her fingers!!

successful journey to the big island

i arrived on the big island with about a day and a half to enjoy before i had to start working. i stayed with a friend near the southeast coastline and certainly fulfilled the desire to have a quick island adventure holiday!

my confused body demanded sleep soon after i arrived, and awoke in time to admire the sunrise over the ocean!


we walked across a lava field...


saw beautiful flowers...


relaxed at a black sand (clothing-optional) beach...


enjoyed the company of a friendly dog named rufus...


went snorkeling... (last time i visited this part of the island, i didnt have the waterproof case for my camera!)...



saw lava trees...


and cooked some fresh ahi for dinner! very nice.

now i'm up at the 9000 ft astronomer's residence, called hale pohaku (HP). i have to stay here for the night to begin to acclimate to the altitude and night schedule. tomorrow evening i head up to the 14000 ft. summit!

shine a light

here's an excellently produced little video about light and lightbulbs, created by clifford v. johnson who writes one of my favorite blogs, asymptotia.

space day and moon watch

mark your calendars... we're putting on a "space day and moon watch" event at nottingham castle on october 31st (halloween!), 2009! i'm really excited for it, even though it's quite a complicated series of tasks to organize such a huge event!


thanks and props to mark hammonds (of supernova condensate) for designing the great poster.