10-22-2015, 04:47 PM
Here we go again.
"Totally twisted Punatic view. It might be productive but at what cost?"
Compared to other major international telescopes, UKIRT is exceedingly inexpensive. The cost per science paper is lower than any other telescope by a very large margin yet the impact score is amongst the highest in the world.
"It was built and funded by the United Kingdom. They abandoned it. UHH took over stewardship, getting some external customers in Lockheed and University of Arizona. It's over 30 years old. It means a lot of archaic stuff needing upgrades. It took a lot of work on UHH to get these customers. If they had huge line of patrons, they wouldn't be decommissioning it."
UKIRT went through a major upgrade project in the 90s. New and unique instrumentation was built and installed in the last decade. UHH had absolutely nothing to do with finding new partners to operate UKIRT, that was done by the UK's STFC.
"IR astronomy is all about the sensor and the processing instrumentation, as well as the precision of mechanical orientation. Even the gimbal systems today are more precise and faster."
UKIRT doesn't use gimbals. IR astronomy is also about designing a telescope with low emisivity, which UKIRT has. That requires a lot of design features unique to IR telescopes. And as far precision is concerned, UKIRT's pointing accuracy is an order of magnitude better than, e.g., the Kecks.
"The cost to overhaul and upgrade an old observatory are...astronomical. During all this hoopla, people seem to have missed the astronomers that acknowledge observatories go obsolete. That is all that is happening, no conspiracies or incompetency transfer projections needed. "
Only problem there is UKIRT is not obsolete. It out-performs most other observatories. The decision to decommission UKIRT is a political decision and is not based on science.
"In a way, IR telescopes don't have the same limitations as optical and they are better space based."
They actually have more severe limitations than optical telescopes, which is why, e.g., the JWST is taking so long to build at a cost of billions of dollars.
"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/imag...enshot.jpg"
I have absolutely no idea why you posted this link. It's a cross-section of an optical/infrared spectrometer. What on earth does it have to do with anything?
"Totally twisted Punatic view. It might be productive but at what cost?"
Compared to other major international telescopes, UKIRT is exceedingly inexpensive. The cost per science paper is lower than any other telescope by a very large margin yet the impact score is amongst the highest in the world.
"It was built and funded by the United Kingdom. They abandoned it. UHH took over stewardship, getting some external customers in Lockheed and University of Arizona. It's over 30 years old. It means a lot of archaic stuff needing upgrades. It took a lot of work on UHH to get these customers. If they had huge line of patrons, they wouldn't be decommissioning it."
UKIRT went through a major upgrade project in the 90s. New and unique instrumentation was built and installed in the last decade. UHH had absolutely nothing to do with finding new partners to operate UKIRT, that was done by the UK's STFC.
"IR astronomy is all about the sensor and the processing instrumentation, as well as the precision of mechanical orientation. Even the gimbal systems today are more precise and faster."
UKIRT doesn't use gimbals. IR astronomy is also about designing a telescope with low emisivity, which UKIRT has. That requires a lot of design features unique to IR telescopes. And as far precision is concerned, UKIRT's pointing accuracy is an order of magnitude better than, e.g., the Kecks.
"The cost to overhaul and upgrade an old observatory are...astronomical. During all this hoopla, people seem to have missed the astronomers that acknowledge observatories go obsolete. That is all that is happening, no conspiracies or incompetency transfer projections needed. "
Only problem there is UKIRT is not obsolete. It out-performs most other observatories. The decision to decommission UKIRT is a political decision and is not based on science.
"In a way, IR telescopes don't have the same limitations as optical and they are better space based."
They actually have more severe limitations than optical telescopes, which is why, e.g., the JWST is taking so long to build at a cost of billions of dollars.
"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/imag...enshot.jpg"
I have absolutely no idea why you posted this link. It's a cross-section of an optical/infrared spectrometer. What on earth does it have to do with anything?