geekyrocketguy's photostream Pro User

I was observing on JCMT (the telescope on the left), I told the telescope operator I would be gone for a while, and I definitely was. It was a long walk through the loose boulder fields and curtains of darkness to get to this location. I set up my camera, started it, walked halfway back, and realized it was programmed to only shoot one photo. That's what 13,700 ft and a fair amount of sleep deprivation does to you... I hiked back and re-started it.

This is stacked from 80 30-second exposures around moonset. Keck II was running their adaptive optics system, and the 12-watt (!!!) laser was just barely visible to my dark-adapted eyes. The small trail between JCMT and CSO is from my headlamp as I set up a second camera for timelapse later on in the night.

I set up a camera outside the front door of the JCMT, on which I'm the observer for the University of Hawaii. Gemini ran their adaptive optics laser for the first part of tonight, and this is a still frame from a timelapse sequence. The landscape is lit by a nearly-full moon.

On the left of Gemini is the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), and to the right of it is the University of Hawaii 88-inch telescope (UH88) and the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). The shiny dish in the foreground is the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO).

Tonight the summit of Mauna Kea was cloaked in clouds, and none of the telescopes could observe. There were intermittent snow showers, and the road was closed to the public. After sitting around and doing nothing for most of the night, however, the clouds finally cleared, and we were able to open the telescope and observe for a couple hours. I walked over to the Submillimeter Array and set up a camera to shoot timelapse--this is one of the resulting still frames. A meteor conveniently graced the skies between the dishes.

This is a stack of 90 40-second exposures. Subaru was running their adaptive optics laser. I've spent five nights (on three separate trips) trying to photograph a LGS AO system, and I FINALLY was successful.

I climbed a seemingly endless number of stairs to a catwalk on the roof of the JCMT dome to get this photo. Measuring 15 meters across, JCMT is the largest submillimeter dish in the world. It's also the only telescope to have been stolen by pirates, but that's a different story...

The dish is never exposed directly to the atmosphere--it has a Goretex tarp over it. The tarp is transparent to submillimeter wavelengths, so the telescope can see right through it. See here for a different view of the inside of the dome.