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Highlights from February 20, 2007 Address by Dr. Taft Armandroff
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| Photo: At a recent lecture at Observatory
headquarters, Taft Armandroff describes adaptive optics
and laser guide star systems as the newest revolution
in astronomical research. Photo by Sarah Anderson. |
I want to take this opportunity to update you on the work of
the entire Observatory staff, so that you can understand the
progress we have made together over this past year.
I know that earthquake recovery has been paramount in all of
our minds. All of you have contributed in one way or another
to get us back online and doing science. I want to communicate
to you how much the Observatory leadership appreciates the
efforts you have invested. Your selflessness, dedication, and
talent have revitalized Keck Observatory and strengthened the
realization in all our minds that we can recover from a challenge.
We have the teamwork, the knowledge, and the systems in place
to rebound. Today, we are extremely close to operating at full
capacity.
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| Photo: Damage at Keck Observatory Headquarters
as a result of the October 15, 2006 earthquake. Photos
by Sarah Anderson. |
Moving forward, Keck continues to expand our observing capabilities.
We are staying in front of the competition. The productivity
and excitement which have resulted from our Adaptive
Optics (AO) system are incredible. Keck Observatory’s AO
system has enabled the sharpest images ever taken of the environs of the black
hole at our Galactic center. Such black holes are now thought
to be the seeds around which galaxies form, and this advance
in our understanding can be attributed to research made possible
by Keck’s AO system. It has taken years of hard work by many
groups within the Observatory to achieve these science payoffs.
We are pursuing a number of bold initiatives to upgrade the
equipment at the Observatory. We are planning to replace aging
and obsolete equipment and to improve our performance and capabilities
through new instrumentation. The upgrades we are proposing
will improve the power, reliability, and efficiency of our
instruments and will bring extraordinary new capabilities within
our grasp. These new tools will enhance our ability to study
galaxies at the edge of the universe, our ability to detect
planets around extra-solar stars, and our ability to understand
the processes whereby new stars and galaxies form. Our software,
electronics, mechanical, optics, and various other teams have
all worked together to make these upgrades possible.
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| Photo: Two images of the black hole at
our galactic center, Sgr A*. |
One tremendously exciting and technically challenging project
is our Next Generation Adaptive Optics (NGAO) system. NGAO
will, for the first time, exploit the full resolving power
of the Observatory’s ten-meter mirrors. With NGAO’s multiple
lasers, the Observatory will have “a constellation of man-made
stars” at our disposal. NGAO will work both in the infrared
and the visible wavelengths, something which is not currently
possible from the ground. Astronomers are hungering for these
new capabilities. NGAO will enable the Observatory to go beyond
planet detection and make possible planet imaging. If NGAO
can do this, it will be an amazing milestone in astronomy.
Nothing like this has ever been built before.
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| Image: The Next Frontier: A Constellation
of Man-Made "Stars." |
We will need additional effort from our staff in order to integrate
these new instruments into our operations and to support end
users seeking to employ these new instruments. Naturally, the
huge investment involved in procuring new instruments creates
a huge impetus to use these instruments.
We are systematically evaluating the possibility of retiring
older, less productive instruments. Our Science Steering Committee
(SSC), representing our patron institutions and the science
community, is currently surveying the community on the scientific
impacts if Keck were to retire one of our oldest instruments.
If the community favors the proposed retirement, then the SSC
will forward this request to our Board. We are taking on this
issue in a sensible way, with metrics to formally evaluate
our instruments. As far as I know, no other observatory is
doing this in a systematic fashion the way Keck is.
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| Image: A simulated illustration of a solar
system debris disk with a planet (the planet is located
at the gap in the outer white circle). This computer-generated
image illustrates the difference in image corrections
between NGAO (left) and current AO technology (right)
at Keck Observatory. |
Government grants provide some, but not all, of the funding
necessary to implement Keck Observatory’s very ambitious instrumentation
program. For the balance of funding, we are looking to the
activities of our Advancement Office to engage private philanthropic
support. We are hoping to engage potential donors through our
ongoing “Evenings with Astronomers” lecture series, through
the Cosmic Matters e-magazine (which now boasts 1,025 subscribers),
and through proposals to foundations. We are pleased to announce
that we recently received a $204,000 donation for new instrumentation
from the Change Happens
Foundation to support critical upgrades to the Observatory’s
most productive and popular instrument, LRIS (Low Resolution
Imaging Spectrograph).
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| Photo: The number of Keck Observatory refereed
science papers is on the rise. This research is having
a demonstrable impact on the study of the expanding universe,
supernova cosmology, gamma ray bursts, and many other
areas of astronomy. |
In 2006, Keck Observatory produced 232 refereed science papers,
which is more than twice the number of papers produced by our
competitors. All of your hard work, your creativity, and your
efficiency translate into tangible scientific productivity.
We can all be extraordinarily proud of the science we are producing — which
is manifested through fundamental advances in the way we understand
the universe. Keck Observatory’s impact is growing over time,
and I anticipate that our strongest impacts may be yet to come.
Read Keck
Observatory’s 2006 Annual Report. 
Click here to return to the main page. |
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