Keck it Up! Greetings from Hawaii!
posted by: krueff
Say Hello to the Keck Telescopes in Hawaii:
Where am I? I am NOT actually at the telescope, which is at ~ 14,000ft on Mauna Kea Summit.
I am in Waimea, at the Keck Remote Observing site.
Today we are up early (10am… which is 4pm Notre Dame time), and going on a hike somewhere on the island and then back to the site to prepare for observing run tonight.
Why not go up to the summit? We are, but only for a visit tomorrow. At that elevation, it’s not easy to quickly adjust physically. So we are in these SWEET observer suites in Waimea. They are gorgeous and if you look closely you can see Keck Telescopes and all the other Telescopes on top of Mauna Kea mountain from here. I’ll try to get a pic 
Tonight we are going to use LRIS on Keck 1. LRIS = Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and we will be using a multi-slit mask to take multiple spectra in the galaxy NGC 891.
(You can think of it as if the telescope were trying to look through a keyhole and you want JUST the light from that keyhole to reach you eye…)
I’ll explain more of the science latter, with pics and explanations, so STAY TUNED!
October 13th, 2010 at 10:08 am
I’d like to be a fly on the wall when your students at Adams see these pics:)
October 13th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Terrific, CB, Great Work!