A shout-out for small telescopes

R-band CCD image of Mrk 501 from ROVOR.

I think this quote from Napoleon Hill (essentially the “founder” of personal-success literature) is a good starting point for this post: “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” I think this applies wonderfully to many of the not-greater-than-1-meter telescopes.

My undergraduate project was to build and operate a remote observatory. The Remote Observatory for Variable Object Research, or ROVOR, was located about 2 hours away from the main campus of Brigham Young University (BYU). It is only a 16-inch telescope, but the main purpose of ROVOR was to be able to sit constantly on an object for a long period of time. For example, part of my capstone project was dissecting sixty days of observation on a single blazar—a compact galaxy with a very active supermassive black hole in its center pointed face-on at us—known as Markarian 501 (Mrk 501); we totaled more than eighty images of the galaxy per night, making observations about every 3 minutes (we had another project going on during the first half of the night, so we typically had about four hours of observations every night we observed). And the big question is, of course, why?

BYU's ROVOR in Delta, UT.

A lot of time, effort, and money have been placed into the development of large telescopes. They are important in studying extremely faint and distant objects. So, as a disclaimer, I am not at all against larger telescopes—they are needed desperately (even the Hubble Space Telescope is a 2.4-meter scope)! However, the emergence of the “small and simple” telescopes is quite important.

The availability of smaller telescopes allows individuals and smaller organizations (such as universities, community colleges, and high schools) to have a working telescope at their fingertips. This allows undergraduate students to sit on a single object for months on end. These smaller telescopes have opened the door to the time-domain portion of astronomy. Simply, the time-domain is evaluating the brightness of an object over long and short time periods. My undergraduate advisor, Dr. J. Ward Moody, discussed the importance of this aspect of astronomy almost daily.

Take the Kepler spacecraft as an example. It is a 0.95 m space telescope that has confirmed more than 240 planets around other stars! (The video shows an animation of the "confirmed" planets in their respective orbits around their companion sun.) Its discoveries were made possible by viewing one part of the sky for years. And the point of the mission: to “[stare] at the same star field for the entire mission and continuously and simultaneously [monitor] the brightesses of more than 100,000 stars for at least 3.5 years, the initial length of the mission…” (Kepler mission QuickGuide). The concept of Kepler was to look for small, intricate changes in the light curve (the brightness of a star over a period of time) of a hundred-thousand stars. By doing so, Kepler has been able to detect hundreds of otherwise-unobservable planets around other stars. The mission says that much more is coming—and not just in planet searches.

Columbia Basin College's REMO, in Richland, WA.

My undergraduate work with Mrk 501 was looking for changes in the light curve of this blazar, ranging from ∆t = 3 min to 3 months. In galactic astrophysics, the shorter times scale fluctuations correspond to the physical size and mass of the central supermassive black holes. So, in essence, we were searching for details that only constant, frequent observing would be able to find. Additionally, I worked with a community college in western Washington (Columbia Basin College) that was able to purchase a similar telescope to ROVOR (the Robert & Elisabeth Moore Observatory). The work they were interested in was transiting bodies—another time-domain project.

In conclusion, big telescopes are great—we all need them in our observing work. But small telescopes have a niche in the time-domain (and others, such as bright objects). They do small things great. If you need something looked at frequently and constantly, try finding a small group that has access to their own telescope. I know a few.

Scientist Highlight: Vera Rubin

I've always found that it's helpful to have role models to look up to: when I was a kid and wanted to be an astronaut, it was Eileen Collins, the fist female shuttle commander.  (Her autographed picture is still on my wall in my old bedroom!)  When I started studying astrophysics, I learned about Vera Rubin, and I've always been inspired by her.

Dr. Rubin truly broke down barriers for women in astrophysics.  She attempted to attend Princeton for graduate school, but women were not allowed in their program at the time (in the late 1940s-early 1950s). Instead of letting this discourage her, she enrolled at Cornell, where she got her masters, and later received her PhD from Georgetown, where her thesis focused on the idea that galaxies formed in groups as opposed to being distributed evenly throughout the universe.  We know this to be true now, but at the time it was not a popular idea.


Dr. Rubin is most famous for her discoveries in galaxy rotation, which led to the idea of dark matter.  While studying the speeds of stars in the Andromeda Galaxy, Dr. Rubin realized that the speeds of the outer stars were not consistent with our understanding of Newtonian gravity.  This meant that there must be more matter in the galaxy than we can see -- which was named dark matter.  Of course dark matter is still largely a mystery to cosmologists, but it was Dr. Rubin's work that provided the background for this groundbreaking and important discovery.

When I did my first summer internship in astronomy research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, we had a welcome lunch for the interns on the first day.  I sat down next to an elderly woman and we had a wonderful conversation about astronomy and how excited I was to begin my first research project.  At the end of the lunch, I asked her name, and she told me it was Vera.  I ran back to my office and looked her up -- and indeed, I had just had a conversation with Dr. Rubin, whose office was around the corner from mine that summer.  She was 80 years old then, and still came to work every day, as I imagine she still does.  She truly exemplifies what complete devotion to and love for your work looks like.

I had the chance to talk with her a few more times that summer.  When asked how she came to work at the Carnegie Institution, she said "well, I needed a job, and a lot of people weren't hiring women.  So I just knocked on the door and asked."  That kind of tenacity and fearlessness is incredible.  Although women in astronomy are still a minority, it's people like Dr. Rubin that broke down barriers to make it much easier for us today, and for that I am thankful.

Space snow

The off-and-on snow we’ve been getting in Denver has actually been pleasant. It’s like Mother Nature is fighting with itself: “I want it to be spring, but it’s really supposed to be winter…but I want it to be spring…but…” I’ll take what I can of the non-sub-zero temperatures.

And those temperatures I am referring to are typically in Fahrenheit, or °F. In astronomy (and physics in general), we commonly use temperature units of Kelvin. The Kelvin scale is significant because 0 K is “absolute zero”, or the point where all thermal motion has ceased. The scale itself seems a little strange at first (70 °F = 294 K; 32 °F = 273 K; and 0 °F = 255 K), but again, it is a very useful tool. It makes temperatures of objects “easier” to understand and reference.

Astronomy provides (probably) the greatest temperature extremes that are to be found. The center of the sun is about 15,000,000 K; the “surface” of the sun is “only” about 5,800 K; interstellar space sits at about 2.5 K. What is amazing is thinking about how our solar system was able to form from a massive cloud of cold gas and dust, that created a hot star in the center (the sun), that helped create a disk of material that accumulated into planets.

Anyway…where does the snow concept come into play in astronomy? An important feature of planet formation is where the planets formed. Since the temperatures around the central star, or in this case, our sun, are too hot for gasses to form ice (or liquid, then ice), then there must be a point that the heat from the sun is low enough for ices to form. The point at which this occurs is referred to as the “snow line”, or sometimes, the “frost line”. This is the point where gas and ice are able to “survive”, as shown in the figures.

From Sean Raymond's PlanetPlanet blog.

Subaru telescope press release in 2009.

The sun is so hot that as the solar system was forming, it pushed the gas and ice out towards the outer part of the solar system. It is there where we find the “gas” and “ice giants” (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). The inner planets are made up of mostly rocky material, or solid material that was not pushed out by the sun’s intense radiation. It is a parallel concept to think about the snow line on a mountain range, like this image of Mt. Sophris in western Colorado. You can see where the temperature/weather is suitable for snow formation.

Keith Cooper image of Mt. Sophris.

Understanding the distribution of material in the early solar system provides answers to how the solar system formed: frozen moisture is vital in helping dust stick together (to then form planets). Inga Kamp, an astronomer studying protoplanetary disks at the Kapteyn Institute, at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) explains it fairly succinctly here. Various molecules condense from a vapor to a solid at different temperatures, but water ice, for example, condenses at about 180 K; methane, on the other hand, condenses at about 40 K (Lodders 2003). Dust grains also have condensation temperatures and this is important because silicate rocks need to form in order to make rocky planets (condensation temperature for a silicate ~ 1400 K). Even in my disk research—where the disk I am studying is quite warm (around 550-1150 K at the edge)—it is important to understand these condensation temperatures so as to better comprehend the make-up of these astronomical objects.

Scale of the Universe

One thing that can be difficult to grasp in astronomy is the distance scales involved.  This Flash animation helps give a sense of some of those scales.  Sorry for the ads by the way.  It appears that the original website is no longer being maintained.

The animation begins at a 1 meter scale, showing the size of familiar objects like a beach ball or an average-sized person.  If you move the slider at the bottom to the right, it increases the length scale displayed in the bottom right corner of the animation), expanding the view outwards.  You begin to see larger animals, then buildings.  Zooming out past the 1km level, you see some smaller astronomical bodies, such as Mars' moon Diemos and Halley's comet shown together with geological features on Earth.

White Dwarf Size Comparison

To see the first star in the animation, the white dwarf Sirius B, you need to zoom out to around 10^7 meters. There, you can see that it is not much larger than Earth and smaller than the gas giants in our solar system (and apparently also the Minecraft world).  You continue seeing larger stars until 10^12 meters, at which scale they are compared to the size of our entire solar system.

Continuing to zoom out, you see nebulae of increasing size.  While not photorealistic, I think the diagrams of these look particularly nice.  It continues extending out to show galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and superclusters.  The final limit is 10^27 meters with "the estimated size of the universe."

If you move the slider to the left, you can move into the world of the very small.  This includes scales from the microscopic to the subatomic.  Rather than trying to describe any other comparisons I find interesting, I'll just say it's definitely worth a few minutes to takes a look (assuming you haven't already).

Images of scientists

I was thinking about the subject matter for my new post. And I came across the blog post that is linked below.
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2010/05/05/reconsidering-the-image-of-sci/
This blog is talking about how the image of scientists is changing in movies and television over time. It is a very interesting blog that talks about how the scientists are shown more in positive light in present cinema and television. So I thought that I should compare characters from two of my favourite comedy series.
 First I want to talk about very popular show The big bang theory.

It is one of the popular comedy series running right now. I admit I love this show and I watch it regularly. But let's think about the characters in the show. I understand since it is a comedy show, you portray the characters as funny as you could make. However, since this show is popular among masses, it is conforming the stereotypes we already have about the scientists. The show consist of six scientists and one waitress. All the six scientists are socially awkward, although the intensity is different. None of them are good at communicating. They have no social life other than video games and sci-fi movies. It is very difficult for them to find any date. These things are conforming the stereotypes we already have. Well I know many of you might think why this even matter. I wanted to talk about this because the article I have linked below talks about why there are so few women in sciences. There are many interesting stuffs in it. One thing I remember after reading this article was that some woman was scared to say she was a physics major. She thought she might not get a date after that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&
I guess once you are matured enough these stuffs doesn't matter, but for younger generation who are deciding what to study in college these things are important. Lets admit most of us want to look good or at least normal most of the time.
Now I want to talk about the character Ross in the show Friends.

Ross is a palaeontologist in the show. His character is very nerdy but at the same time he is very normal person. He has passion for the work he does, and will jump into discussion with friends about the science he loves. But he also jokes, goes out and date people. As in the image he is very excited about the tie with dinosaurs. I feel I can relate to his character much more than any one character of the big bang theory. Even though we love our work and act crazy sometimes, we are normal most of the time.
 It would be so much better if scientists were  portrayed more as Ross rather than a character of The big bang theory. This would help to get rid of the stereotypes we have and also encourage lots of younger people to study science in general.
Here are some links to videos from the two television shows to differentiate the portrayal of characters and for some laughs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS-ameyp9Ag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXr2kF0zEgI


Which is your favourite scientist television character?

The Wonderful World of LaTex

Have you ever heard of LaTex? Don’t worry, in the grand scheme of things, not many people have. It is largely used within the mathematics and some of the scientific communities to write peer-reviewed journal articles or make snazzy looking presentations. LaTex is a masochist’s version of Microsoft Word/PowerPoint but I mean that in the best way possible. You are writing a code to compile your document with special LaTex syntax. According to the official LaTex website, “LaTex is a document preparation system and document markup language. LaTeX uses the TeX typesetting program for formatting its output, and is itself written in the TeX macro language. LaTeX is not the name of a particular editing program, but refers to the encoding or tagging conventions that are used in LaTeX documents.”

So why should you care about LaTex when you have gotten so used to making your documents in Microsoft Word? Because it will change your life. Sure, there is a learning curve to it and even though I have been using it for years to write everything, I still consult the Comprehensive LaTex Symbols PDF regularly, but my documents look beautiful. It is a harsh world out there, especially if you are apply for funding (scholarships, fellowships, anything where you turn in a document). When it comes down to it, presentation not just the quality of writing, matters.

Now that I have convinced you that you should probably look into this, I have news for you. It is FREE! Just go here to download. It is fairly easy to download and install. 

Now it is time to start creating. Like I said earlier, there is a learning curve. From Wikipedia, here is what an example document looks like:

On the left is what you type. On the right is what compiles as a PDF.
I would just start with looking for examples, such as this one, from around the web. The best way to learn a programming language is just to start programing. As you become more experienced and creating a vast array of documents, you will build up your own library so you will never have to start from scratch.

My motivation for writing a blog entry about LaTex came from the discovery of interesting new ways to use LaTex.

First, is GmailTex. It is LaTex for Gmail and it is also FREE!! You can download it through the Chrome App Store. You will need to clear your cookies and restart Chrome to get it to work, but it is worth it. Now, if you are trying to ask for help on a homework assignment or something for work, everything can be spelled out in a nice and ordered format.

Second, WriteTex. Do you have a group assignment/project, want it to look nice, and have everyone working on it at the same time (like documents on GoogleDrive)? No problem. WriteTex can do it and it is also FREE! Of course, everyone will have to know how to use LaTex. If someone in your group doesn't, this is a perfect opportunity to enlighten them!


Note, resumes and CVs look amazing in LaTex too!