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| so i took a trip up to Lick Observatory this weekend and did some research. i was working on a telescope called the CAT, which i didnt take a picture of for some reason. So our job was to help in a project that was started a few years back to find planets orbiting around stars. Basically the CAT was a flat mirror that shines star light into a hole, which then passes the light through several different instruments (diffraction gratings, iodine cells, etc) then we use a ccd to take spectra of it.
i dont know how the hell they got Flaget from Floyd...
heres the front of the visitors center.
entrance
electric power plant donated by Thomas Edison himself.
stairs leading up to the visitors area
this was our comfy little control room, as you can see it was very crowded.
this is the box on the left on the image above. the thing connected to the fatty wire is the control stick which we use to move the telescope around. it reads out the right ascension and declinatin (astronomy longitude and latitude) and hour angle so we know where the scope is pointing. while doing that we also look at a monitor to see if the star is in our field of view. and if it is we basically push it around the monitor and try to trap is in these boxes displayed on the monitor so we can get a lock on it. its kind of like playing video games.
this is the slit room where the light passes through various insturments and stuff, it too is very crowded.
this is the stuff on the right side from the image above. you cant see it but theres a mirror, iodine cell, diffraction grating and other stuff the light is going to go through.
this is on the other side of the room and this stuff is used for tracking the star. the big white paper on the lower left is their fancy way of telling you that that part of the insturment is broken.
back in the control room we also have a nice warning sign because shit will happen.
here is one of the diffraction gratings the light passes through. my proffessor said if we bump it it would cause millions of dollars worth of damage.
here is my proffessor filling the ccd housing with liquid nitrogen to keep it cool. otherwise it will burn up and everyone would get mad at us. and apparently our spectrograph is 1 in about 10 spectrographs in the world that are good enough to accurately measure planets around stars. so when it gets hungry we gotta feed it liquid nitrogen.
so since i was considered an astronomer on the mountain and not a visitor they gave me a key that basically gave me access to all the building and rooms on the entire mountain so here are some pics...
this is the famous 36inch refractor scope. this thing is fuckin huge and weighs like 25 tons or sumthing. but its perfectly balanced so its suppose to swing around easily but i dunno.
this is the base of it, so as you can see it sits fairly high off the ground. but the cool thing is that the ground moves up and down on hydraulics so you can reach the end of the telescope and look through it.
so they say if you grab the white ring on the outside its easy to swing around.
from this view is kinda looks like a missle.
this is the 40 inch telescope that was kinda made from spare parts but its still not too bad. As you can see it is practically scraping the top of the dome, barely any room in there.
wires galore
this was the best, they have surge protectors and wireless routers literally duck taped to the scope.
oh yeah forgot to mention, James Lick, who pretty much funded the building of the observatory has his tomb beneath it. yup there is really a dead dude chillin in there. you can see the base of the tower the 36inch sits on.
and now comes the really cool part, our 120inch scope. this thing is super duper gigantic.
when i first saw it, it was like whoa.
this is taken from up on the catwalk, perks of being have an all access key.
got some people in there to give you a relative size of how big it is.
its booty.
to protect the mirror the telescope has these flower petal like things that cover it when its not in use.
i walked around here in the dark to get to the control room (double doors upper left) so i could talk to people using the scope, it was difficult.
so this telescope has an adaptive optics system which shoots out a fatty laser (like 6inchs in diameter or sumthing). the black box is the laser box, with a cone sticking out of it.
and the laser above is pumped with this laser below.
this giant red thing is the realuminizer or sumthing, every few years the 120inch's primary mirror needs to be recoated and this thing does the job.
800 wild fires burning in California makes the days look like this. you cant tell but San Jose is off in the background but its very heavily covered by smoke.
heres a pic i took, could only do a 30 sec exposure since i dont have a shutter cable but yeah. that thing on the bottom is the dome of the 120inch.
tada the milky way galaxy.
the smoke does however make for some interesting sunsets.
okay bye bye.
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| well its been a long time since i updated (obviously) havent been using the camera much and shcool is kicking my ass. i was also slightly addicted to tf2 during winter break. anywhoo heres pictures :pic was here:
lamp :pic was here:
5 dollar bill, at around 1:1. yes bills do really say that on them, you've probably already noticed though. be sure to check out the astronomy picture of the day on my buddy info. | | |
| i know theres no pictures taken by me, i'm gonna try to take some tmr. but for now heres a poem. Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough @#&!
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."
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| monthly update or whatever... got a new lens! Sigma 150mm F2.8 EX APO Macro DG HSM and B+W filter :pic was here: :pic was here: :pic was here: :pic was here: :pic was here: :pic was here: picture time! :pic was here:
this is as close as i could get it to 1:1 magnification without macro rails :pic was here:
whos that sexy dog? :pic was here:
posing for the camera :pic was here:
mr. fly chillin no a leaf that shot was kinda weird to take. i got really close to the fly and it didnt even fly away at all, i thought it was dead. its no where near as sharp as it could be because i was hand holding and the wind was blowing movign the leaf a lot so my focus would go in and out but it was the best i could do with it mounted on camera
:pic was here: :pic was here: :pic was here: :pic was here:
without the hood on | | |
| yeah i havent updated in a long ass time, leave me alone just two shots for now
:pic was here:
yeah it was a little freaky taking this shot cuz i obviously dont have a macro lens so i had to get really really close to it. :pic was here:
mr. guitar | | |
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