04-06-2015, 04:26 PM
Dakine,
Thanks for your reply. I'm only going to use snippets of your post to respond to otherwise things get too long and unreadable. I'm also not in the best of health right now so forgive for being brief:
"The project was done under contract for Bishop Museum, and at one point considered for publication by Sky and Telescope who were very encouraging though it never went to press for various reasons. If you really want to read the manuscript I still have it along with all the material that was intended for inclusion in the final product, just let me know."
I would be interested in reading it. I'm also currently involved in a couple of books about Mauna Kea and astronomy (one about UKIRT, one about astronomy in general) and would love to see how it compares. You should be able to email me via PW, if not, just reply here, we can find another way.
"Btw Tom, my point about your scope not being a direct competitor to the larger scopes still stands. Not to say, and I didn't say, yours is not viable. I just think it's like saying one could get the same results with a wide angle verses a telephoto lens, though maybe the analogy isn't spot on, I do sense the two, yours and TMT, would be used for different lines of enquiry. I also imagine viewing hours on yours would be much less expensive than on the TMT so a researcher wouldn't even consider the bigger scopes unless their interests required them. As such I imagine there's no direct competition. Am I missing something there?"
The point you make is not a bad one, it definitely has something to it, but some of the observations we used to do, especially follow-up observations with spectrometers after survey work can be done so much faster with the TMT (or the Kecks, Subaru and Gemini) that in that respect they will be a direct competitor. However, I suspect what might happen with the TMT, assuming it is actually built and UKIRT still exists then, is that UKIRT will act as a finder. This is sort of happening now with the other 8-10 meter telescopes, but in the past we used to do our own follow-ups, but in many cases we can do those observations it's just so much faster to do them elsewhere.
As for Subaru, Kecks and Gemini, TMT will be a direct competitor as it will have similar capabilities and but much larger and therefore much more sensitive. This is the problem the 4-meter class telescopes faced in the 8-meter era and the one faced by the 2.5 meter class telescopes when 4-meter telescopes were built. Most find a niche (like UKIRT has done in the last few years), but it is challenging. It's going to be a very interesting next decade in astronomy.
There's a lot more I could write but that's about it for tonight. I need to go back to bed...
Please excuse any typos, nonsense etc. No energy left to proof read.
Thanks for your reply. I'm only going to use snippets of your post to respond to otherwise things get too long and unreadable. I'm also not in the best of health right now so forgive for being brief:
"The project was done under contract for Bishop Museum, and at one point considered for publication by Sky and Telescope who were very encouraging though it never went to press for various reasons. If you really want to read the manuscript I still have it along with all the material that was intended for inclusion in the final product, just let me know."
I would be interested in reading it. I'm also currently involved in a couple of books about Mauna Kea and astronomy (one about UKIRT, one about astronomy in general) and would love to see how it compares. You should be able to email me via PW, if not, just reply here, we can find another way.
"Btw Tom, my point about your scope not being a direct competitor to the larger scopes still stands. Not to say, and I didn't say, yours is not viable. I just think it's like saying one could get the same results with a wide angle verses a telephoto lens, though maybe the analogy isn't spot on, I do sense the two, yours and TMT, would be used for different lines of enquiry. I also imagine viewing hours on yours would be much less expensive than on the TMT so a researcher wouldn't even consider the bigger scopes unless their interests required them. As such I imagine there's no direct competition. Am I missing something there?"
The point you make is not a bad one, it definitely has something to it, but some of the observations we used to do, especially follow-up observations with spectrometers after survey work can be done so much faster with the TMT (or the Kecks, Subaru and Gemini) that in that respect they will be a direct competitor. However, I suspect what might happen with the TMT, assuming it is actually built and UKIRT still exists then, is that UKIRT will act as a finder. This is sort of happening now with the other 8-10 meter telescopes, but in the past we used to do our own follow-ups, but in many cases we can do those observations it's just so much faster to do them elsewhere.
As for Subaru, Kecks and Gemini, TMT will be a direct competitor as it will have similar capabilities and but much larger and therefore much more sensitive. This is the problem the 4-meter class telescopes faced in the 8-meter era and the one faced by the 2.5 meter class telescopes when 4-meter telescopes were built. Most find a niche (like UKIRT has done in the last few years), but it is challenging. It's going to be a very interesting next decade in astronomy.
There's a lot more I could write but that's about it for tonight. I need to go back to bed...
Please excuse any typos, nonsense etc. No energy left to proof read.