See all the activites that made Keck’s
Open House a success.
Credit: Terry Warner.
Keck’s Open House welcomed more than 1,800 people to
the telescopes’ headquarters in Waimea.
Supported in part by a grant from the Hawaii Tourism Authority
along with contributions from many local businesses, the free
event featured 37 hands-on activities and displays about science,
technology and astronomy. Professional staff developed the
exhibits within their own departments and, with the assistance
of area high school student volunteers, staffed the event.
Each activity station was busy, many with lines or waiting
lists.
Flashing Pins and the Electric Circuit
A particularly popular activity for young participants was “Flasher
Pin Fabrication,” which Keck Observatory’s electronic engineering department
organized. Electronics engineer Jason Chin and other staff
members constantly questioned participants allowing them to
discover how a basic electrical circuit works. Once they understood
how it worked to make a light bulb shine, the students then
moved to another station. There they could decorate their pins,
which would flash when the metal latch on the pin was closed
to complete the circuit.
Rich Matsuda, the Observatory's operations and infrastructure senior manager, shows a young Open House participant how
to put together a circuit to make his flasher pin. Credit:
Deborah Cooper.
At the station, eight-year-old Kieran Gibson, a student at Waimea Country
School, enjoyed his first attempt
at soldering together two metals. He did so under the watchful
eye of 16-year-old Teahi Ah Quin, one of several student volunteers
from Kanu o ka Aina, a charter school in Waimea. Additional volunteers
came from Parker School, Honoka’a High School, Hawaii Preparatory
Academy and Kealakehe High School.
While the engineering department was at full capacity introducing
youngsters to soldering and electric circuitry, Keck support
astronomers Jim Lyke and Greg Wirth manned exhibits in the
courtyard that introduced their guests to solar spots, solar
flares and the size of planets relative to our Moon and Sun.
“Do you know how big the Sun is?” Lyke asked while
students and parents gathered around. “The Sun is huge.
You could fit one million Earths inside of it!”
Open House guests observe solar
flares through a specially filtered telescope. Credit:
Deborah Cooper.
Across the way, Wirth was handing out special cards through
which guests could look at the Sun. He also helped man the
two solar telescopes—one showing the solar flares and
the other showing a sunspot. “These spots don’t
last that long because the Sun rotates about once per month,
but we’re lucky today,” Wirth said, as he encouraged
visitors to observe one through
the telescope.
Screaming for More
Not all the exhibits and activities were exclusively hands-on,
however—some were designed to entice the senses.
Keck electronic technician Steve Doyle and support technician
David Lynn played a culinary duo as they hammered nails into
wood with a banana. The fruit, frozen by liquid nitrogen, served
as the precursor to the flavorful main event—making chocolate
ice cream on the observatory grounds. Kids clamored around
the exhibit all day to watch the two pseudo-chefs pour liquid
nitrogen into a mix of milk, sugar and cocoa to produce their
sweet treat.
“At Keck, our instruments must be kept cold to work properly,
so we use liquid nitrogen to cool them. We chill cameras down
to liquid nitrogen temperature so they don’t detect background
heat,” Lynn explained from inside the booth.
Electronic technician Steve Doyle and
support technician David Lynn dish up liquid nitrogen
ice cream to Keck Observatory’s Open House visitors.
Credit: Deborah Cooper.
As he and Doyle handed out the liquid nitrogen ice cream to eager customers, interferometer scientist Julien Woillez and
optics technician Tim Saloga ushered visitors into darkness
for the “3D Stereoscopic Projection” demonstration. Movie-goers
donned eyewear that polarized light and as a result the visitors “ooohed
and aaaahed” as they watched the Solar System and Milky
Way galaxy move to choreographed orchestral
music and burst into three dimensions.
“That was the best!” six-year-old Hawaii Preparatory
Academy student Mikela Parris said to her mother as the lights
came on after the show ended. “Can we see it again?”
Other visitors were extremely intrigued to see themselves in
a different light with “Infrared Picture ID.” At
this station, support astronomer Randy Campbell answered a
wide range of questions as people waited in line to have their portraits
taken. The images showed, through vibrant variations of color, the differing
temperatures of their skin, hair, clothes and surroundings.
Campbell explained that astronomers obtain information from
every part of the electromagnetic spectrum, including infrared wavelengths. Infrared light actually transmits through dust much more efficiently than
visible light. The technology to observe at these wavelengths
therefore helps astronomers see through the dust and take better
images of the center of the Milky Way. Sharper images enable astronomers to more accurately measure the properties of
stars and also measure how fast they are
moving. Based on the speed of the stars, astronomers have gathered
proof that a black hole sits at the center of the Milky Way. “That
discovery and others could not have been done without infrared
technology,” Campbell said.
“Kids couldn’t get enough of the infrared exhibit,” said
Taft Armandroff, Director of W. M. Keck Observatory. “There
and elsewhere, I saw our staff engaging young people one-on-one
and sparking their inquisitiveness.” He
said he hoped the event fostered young people to take
an interest in science and technology and encouraged all participants
to appreciate astronomy and the discoveries Keck has added
to the field.
Taft Armandroff, Director of W. M. Keck
Observatory, offered an overview of Keck’s contributions
to astronomy and the Observatory's technological achievements.
Photo credit: Richard Cohen.
Transforming our View of the Universe
“Thanks to our telescopes and astronomers, we now know
of more than 300 exoplanets, of black holes, of early galaxies
and much more. Our astronomers have made discoveries that have
forever changed our understanding of the Universe,” he
said during one of the 30-minute public talks he and other senior Keck Observatory staff members, Hilton Lewis and Robert Goodrich gave throughout
the day.
Curious about what goes on atop Mauna Kea, visitors in the
audience quizzed Armandroff about the research the Observatory's astronomers
were doing and what makes the dormant volcano such an excellent location for the Keck telescopes. He explained that Mauna Kea has
many advantages for observing compared to other telescope
sites around the world. At an elevation of 14,000 feet,
40 percent of the atmosphere sits below
the summit, so there is less turbulence in the atmosphere
and the sky is clear during most nights of the
year. Those strengths coupled with the ingenuity of the Keck employees make “Keck the most scientifically
productive observatory in history,” Armandroff said.
