01-04-2013, 05:54 PM
OK, still haven't got the energy to respond as fully as I'd like, sometimes it's nice to get away from the job for a while and think about other things, but I did promise I'd reply. So here are a couple of brief thoughts, mainly in response to Pahoated and Dakine's intelligent and thoughtful comments.
Firstly, dakine, because this is easy and leads nicely onto Pahoated's comments!
Mauna Kea is still a superb site for optical and infrared astronomy, and still great for submillimter astronomy.
I don't know what you mean by heat but radio intererence is a problem, but it generally comes from wifi at the summit - the Chile locations will have the same problem. Wifi is banned at the MK summit observatories but I can tell you we know if someone is using it up there.
Your comment that it's nationalistic rather than scientific to keep the observatories on MK is, frankly, bizarre. That's a new one for me. Astronomers chose Mauna Kea because it is a superb astronomical site, right up there with any in the world. Nothing nationalistic in that and the reasons scientists want to keep them there is because the observatories provide superb astronomical data - comparable or better than anywhere else on the planet.
What I will say is that it is much harder to deal with the politics here than in Chile, but that's local politics, not nationalism, while scientifically there's every reason to keep supporting them. The most scientifically productive ground-based telescopes are right there atop Mauna Kea.
And you are correct about being a big blow to the East side if observatories start being decommissioned. A blow to Waimea as well I might add.
Sorry, went on a bit longer than I planned...
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/
Firstly, dakine, because this is easy and leads nicely onto Pahoated's comments!
quote:This is absolutely correct although there's more to Mauna Kea as an astronomical site than that. It's high, so above most of the water in the atmosphere (great for infrared and submillimeter astronomy). It's an isolated mountain in the middle of the ocean, so normally winds and weather go around the mountain not above it, hence the stable atmosphere (in Chile there's little option other than for the winds to go over the site, but of course it's more complicated than that). The free seeing on Mauna Kea, as far as I can determine, is significantly better than Paranal for instance (which is the main base for ESO's optical and IR telescopes). For those that don't know what free seeing is, it's a measure of the image quality you can measure after light from a star has gone through the Earth's atmosphere and reached the ground. The smaller the number the better. Mauna Kea's average is around 0.4-0.5 arcseconds, Paranal appears to be worse at around 0.9 arcsec (this is at optical wavelengths). Paranal is also much lower than the summit of MK which means it has a much wetter atmosphere - bad news for infrared astronomy. Same goes for La Silla, another ESO site in Chile and Cerro Pachon where Gemini South is located.
It is my understanding that Mauna Kea offers many advantages over other potential astronomical sites. The stable air quality being one of them. And therefore I doubt we'll fall out of favor for future land based facilities.
Mauna Kea is still a superb site for optical and infrared astronomy, and still great for submillimter astronomy.
quote:For the reasons I mention above I do not agree the locations in Chile are far superior. Some of their more remote locations clearly are for submillimeter astronomy because of their extreme altitude and remoteness, but Mauna Kea offers that as well and isn't anywhere near as remote, so costs, in theory, are lower.
The locations in Chile are far superior with much less light, heat and radio interference and so far up in the Andes, there isn't anybody to protest, much less know about, the observatory locations. The Mauna Kea observatories have, and will continue to provide vast contributions but it really seems like the time to start letting them fade away. The reason to keep supporting them is nationalistic, not scientific. It will be a big blow to the eastside economy but it seems eastside Hawaii is more in favor of shrinking than expanding. This decline won't be rapid and the 30-meter will be there far into the future but it wouldn't be a surprise to see astronomy shrinking rapidly as part of the island's importance. JMO.
I don't know what you mean by heat but radio intererence is a problem, but it generally comes from wifi at the summit - the Chile locations will have the same problem. Wifi is banned at the MK summit observatories but I can tell you we know if someone is using it up there.
Your comment that it's nationalistic rather than scientific to keep the observatories on MK is, frankly, bizarre. That's a new one for me. Astronomers chose Mauna Kea because it is a superb astronomical site, right up there with any in the world. Nothing nationalistic in that and the reasons scientists want to keep them there is because the observatories provide superb astronomical data - comparable or better than anywhere else on the planet.
What I will say is that it is much harder to deal with the politics here than in Chile, but that's local politics, not nationalism, while scientifically there's every reason to keep supporting them. The most scientifically productive ground-based telescopes are right there atop Mauna Kea.
And you are correct about being a big blow to the East side if observatories start being decommissioned. A blow to Waimea as well I might add.
Sorry, went on a bit longer than I planned...
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/