This is actually one of the most interesting videos on this channel. Most of the others contain knowledge you could get from other sources, e.g. reading through papers about a certain objects. This, however, is stuff you can only hear about by talking to an actual astronomer, and most viewers will never have the chance to do this.
I feel compelled to make a comment on how much I appreciate your videos. They really are well done. A near perfect balance of amateurish enthusiasm and camera work/POV with wonderful interviews and explanations done just at the right technical level. You really are to be congratulated on this fine work as it matches if not surpases the likes of professional production work of either PBS or the BBC.
This was a truly awesome behind the scenes look. Nobody other than professional astronomers would ever know about the queue system or the struggles of an astronomer. The Discover and Science channels are crap nowadays, your channels are where the real learning is at!
I agree. Not just because it is interesting, but because it would be really informative for the viewers to see how professional astronomy gets done. I suppose the next part could be when the observations actually get done, followed by Dr. Grey explaining how the raw data gets turned into something useful.
I should have been a scientist. My family knew my whole youth, and tried to make me realize it. I have what it takes. Yet, beers and girls intervened at a crucial time, and I never completed the educations needed. I ended up working with something I like, the computer gaming industry. Something which makes sense. But when I watch your videos, Brady, I see my real family. The family I never got to know. I thank you(!) for giving me the ability to watch over their shoulders! :) Great work you do.
@DeepSkyVideos oh I see :) Then again mate a standing ovation^2 for all your hard work!!!! It is highly appreciated! And if you ever happen to come to Athens,Gr. drinks are on me! Again thank you for all your hard work man!
@Maasusthefrozen That's called adaptive optics where they shoot laser in order to focus on the object. When laser is pointed at the object, the software makes telescope to adjust itself so that there will be as little distortion as possible by the turbulence.
@Maasusthefrozen To clarify one what Kwodibet said: The beam is part of a system called Adaptive Optics, it uses a laser beam to project an artificial star onto the sky whatever happens to the beam gets applied opposite to the telescope picture(sorta like if laser moves right, telescope image is corrected left), think of it as a really fancy pair of glasses that change prescription to give you the best sight all the time.
I've always been interested in astronomy's theories, various facts and the vastness of the universe. The actual practice though is a whole other set of profound and fascinating distractions.
@andro6806 Hubble's constant is around 70 km/s / Mpc, meaning that a galaxy 1 Mega Parsec away will retreat from us at 70 km/s. This value is known to be an increasing one because of "Dark Energy", so the universe is actually expanding faster each and every day. This will cause Hubble's constant to increase with time.
@azaas Stress is a choice. It is all about choosing to not become stressed, and the behaviors you choose to exhibit once you have allowed yourself to become stressed. It may not seem like it now, but it is all a choice. Once you realize that and honestly utilize your conscious ability to make the choice, one way or another, you will feel a huge weight lifted off of your shoulders. It is essentially the same thing as 'act as though you aren't afraid of failure.' It is the same concept.
Visiting professional observatories is great. On La Palma for instance there's a sky law which regulates light pollution and even air traffic over the ORM observatory, thus no aircraft vapor trails and it's a great place to do AstroPhotography. Other observatories have a staff of astronomers who perform all requested observations (e.g. CAHA in Southern Spain). Sadly the Southwest of the USA also has problems with light pollution and even Paranal in Chile sometimes gets coastal cities light!
1. Is there a time limit on executing the proposals? 2. Does all the unfinished work just get dumped? 3. Will you resubmitt your proposal if it does not get worked on?
@Maasusthefrozen Astronomers use lasers to monitor, measure and in the end compensate for atmospheric distortions during their observations. Imiges that every Earth-based telescope gets are slightly distorted by moving atmosphere. That is why stars "twinkle". However, since you know the strenght/britness of your laser you can use it as your imaginary "star" with known brightness and then by seeing how its brightness changes you can compensate for the "twinkle" of real stars.
@Maasusthefrozen ... second comment thats why such a laser is also called an "artificial star". At the VLT, i heared they are now moving towards 4 of these guiding lasers for each telescope, arranged around the current field of vision of the telescope. These lasers need to be very powerful and of just the right wavelength to produce a glowing dot in the upper atmosphere that the adaptive optics systems can watch to get data about distortions in our atmosphere.
@kurtilein3 The paper is a pdf file called "Astronomical Spectroscopy" by Philip Massey and Margaret Hanson. it is the first result when you google for "astronomical spectroscopy pdf" the particular reference is on page 20 it actually says 15 to 20 minutes (my mistake)
@InconsistentFlaw Yeah, it's more or less the same idea. The red shift only gives us velocity information, though. However, we know that the universe is expanding, so the farther away an object is, the faster it should expand away. The amount of red shift is then proportional to the distance from far away objects. Look up Hubble's Law if you want to know more.
@hla27b IMO, the problem with this is, say you need 100 seconds per galaxy. That's 166 minutes for 100 galaxies, which would be able to be imaged in 100 seconds with one large mask. I can envision, however, a large grid based device which has microactuators which are less than a mm thick. They could selectively open and they wouldn't take up much space in the view.
@Maasusthefrozen Those are lasers sent out from the telescope to make a fake star in the sky. They use that steady beam to measure the amount of wobble from the actual star they're observing. Then then know how much to wobble the telescope's adaptive optics need to wobble in the opposite direction, so their image can be stabilised.
@hla27b no, not really. They have several people working at the VLT. While one guy laser-cuts a tiny circular hole into the mask to observe exactly the point that she wants to observe, the telescope is not sitting idle. If you have single-use masks custom designed especially for the purpose, prepared beforehand, all you need to do to be efficient is to streamline replacement of the masks. So the automated system you need is not a mechanical mask, but a rapid mask replacement system.
@JackandDiet85 The answers to your questions are different from telescope to telescope. To run the telescope at full capacity, you want to always have more proposals than you have observing time. So you will always have to dump some. I guess if a proposal doesnt get worked on within a certain time period, it just gets dumped and you can re-submit it. Some time limit makes sense, because, 2 years later, can you still be sure that astronomer still badly wants that data?
@Maasusthefrozen A telescope has to track the apparant motion of the stars across the sky. It's a known rate and speed and the scopes are mounted on highly accurate mounts that can compensate for the motion of the earth and therefore keep the telescopes fixated on a point in the sky to prevent blurring/star streaks. To help, a guide scope watches for small changes by watching a guide star. To help compensate for atmospheric conditions a fake guide star is 'projected' by the laser :)
@Maasusthefrozen Powerful lasers, tuned to cause ions in the upper atmosphere to glow. This produces a point of reference for the adaptive optical systems. Normally you need to watch a bright star and how it changes and moves in order to get information about how the lower atmosphere is changing and moving. You then use that data to move the mirrors accordingly, to cancel out the effects of the lower atmosphere. The laser produces an artificial reference point for that purpose
@Maasusthefrozen Adaptive optics, look it up on wikipedia. Basically they fire a laser out to see how the light from it is distorted by the air. Then they can correct for that distortion.
@joshcryer it's easy really, imagine two diaphragms in front of each other, one has a vertical slit in it, the other has a horizontal slit. The light can only pass trough the one single point where both slits intersect each other. if you move the horizontal slit up and down your point will move up and down. If you move the vertical slit right and left you move the point right and left. By varying the slit widths the shape of the point can be varied. 100+ points /s can be scanned easy
@hla27b Yes I think a dynamic mask could be built, but I can't think of how to do it. Fascinating that they use laser cut masks, I would love to see a cabinet of those or where they store them or if the astronomers get to take them home when they're done.
@joshcryer As far as I understand, even with a mask the spectra are still taken one by one and not simultaneously. I may be mistaken of course but I'll keep reading on till I find out.
Brady, can you tell me which instrument Meghan is going to usa at Paranal ? and at which wavelengths she is going to observe... also, will the astronomers there make use of interferometry while observing or will they just use one of the four telescopes.. Thx !
@kurtilein3 According to a paper I am reading right now a single plate change takes 20 to 30 minutes!!!, a plate must be prepared at least a week before observation, there are the logistics of taking a laser cutter and consumables to a remote area, QC of produced masks etc. I am talking about eliminating all of these entirely. Not just changing the masks rapidly but dispensing with the need to ever change anything altogether. It is like getting from analog to digital photography.
Brady I have a question that's not really related to the video.I imagine that you're either working as a professor or you're walking down the PhD path. What I wanted to ask is whether you ever panicked thinking on how many things you actually have to learn before you can even start thinking about working on a thesis or not ... I mean it may be just me but ever since I decided to follow the academic path I'm in a constant stress. Sometimes it feels like I'm still and undergrad student....
I want to say it's usually not not-for-nothing if time isn't allocated / proposal isn't accepted ☺️ There's isually a silver lining if only to use yhat experience in future proposals / help others tpepare proposals 😎👍
@hla27b 20-30 minutes??!? Damn, that should be 30 seconds. Taking different frames and putting them into focus in an optical device... Damn, pre-digital image projectors can do that in a quarter of a second, with smaller "masks", but still... WTF? Could you send me a link to that paper? If its really right now 20-30 minutes to change the plate, maybe we are missing something... Maybe they always use plates with several holes and the spectrometer can focus on an individual hole.
She said that there is different programs for different telescopes. Does that mean she has to learn new programs or a new programming language? Because I sometimes see clips of people entering code into some sort of terminal, so i was wondering weather she is sending directions to the queue in English or code.
Ah ok. I assumed that because light acted as a particle and a wave that interference was created. I didn't realise only a certain type of aperture would create the effect. Thanks.
Yeah for sure. Sometimes it's all for nothing. Got all setup last week. Then my lappy had an issue preventing me from polar aligning. The only clear night in weeks. RUINED!
Ell Maritime region of Canada. There is a unique cadence and accent used in that region. Plus she’s now lived many years in UK so that has also likely had an effect as well.
+Nabi - AFAIK "dark matter" is actually thought to be invisible (does not interfere with light or any EM radiation passing through it), and gravity may bend light, but not change its spectrum. There could be clouds of dust or gas of course, but overall space is rather empty.
Masks seem like a very inefficient way to me. Why not use a single slit with X - Y pan? This would make the telescope at least twice as fast/efficient. Brady is it possible to ask the crew about what to read about use of masks on large telescopes? I'd like to read and commit some time and effort to see whether or not an improvement can be made. I'm not an astronomer but if what I'm on turns out to be workable it could mean more observation time for all astronomers.
@Kurtlane Or you could be one of the guys who takes the leftover light down to the rubbish tip. After the telescopes get done collecting so much it there must be a lot left over. Big fluffy drifts of photons 'n shit. Probably lots of full time jobs hauling it away.
I still can't believe scientists are paid to do this. Most work at state funded universiries. They should be forced to do some kind of manual labor to offset their salaries. JS.
@Maasusthefrozen Its a death ray to kill all of the aliens coming to earth. No I'm just kidding. Its a very accurate way they track the stars. Amateurs use similar devices that are much smaller, obviously .
This is actually one of the most interesting videos on this channel. Most of the others contain knowledge you could get from other sources, e.g. reading through papers about a certain objects. This, however, is stuff you can only hear about by talking to an actual astronomer, and most viewers will never have the chance to do this.
I feel compelled to make a comment on how much I appreciate your videos. They really are well done. A near perfect balance of amateurish enthusiasm and camera work/POV with wonderful interviews and explanations done just at the right technical level. You really are to be congratulated on this fine work as it matches if not surpases the likes of professional production work of either PBS or the BBC.
semidemiurge thank you
This was a truly awesome behind the scenes look. Nobody other than professional astronomers would ever know about the queue system or the struggles of an astronomer. The Discover and Science channels are crap nowadays, your channels are where the real learning is at!
I agree. Not just because it is interesting, but because it would be really informative for the viewers to see how professional astronomy gets done. I suppose the next part could be when the observations actually get done, followed by Dr. Grey explaining how the raw data gets turned into something useful.
I should have been a scientist. My family knew my whole youth, and tried to make me realize it. I have what it takes.
Yet, beers and girls intervened at a crucial time, and I never completed the educations needed. I ended up working with something I like, the computer gaming industry. Something which makes sense. But when I watch your videos, Brady, I see my real family. The family I never got to know. I thank you(!) for giving me the ability to watch over their shoulders! :) Great work you do.
You need to go follow up on Dr. Grey's project. She makes it sound really interesting.
I learned something new. The queuing scheme sounds proper.
Brady, it's pretty impressive how you upload videos from Nottingham, then from Switzerland, then from Nottingham, all in 3 days.
Beautiful images and great teaching. Very informative for a 63 year amateur astronomer since I was 4.
Love these videos!
Wow! What an interesting video. Thank you for sharing what your research actually consists on, and how the telescopes are used. Fascinating!
@laconicsax and we'll be covering more on adaptive optics soon!!!
@DeepSkyVideos oh I see :) Then again mate a standing ovation^2 for all your hard work!!!! It is highly appreciated! And if you ever happen to come to Athens,Gr. drinks are on me! Again thank you for all your hard work man!
@Maasusthefrozen That's called adaptive optics where they shoot laser in order to focus on the object. When laser is pointed at the object, the software makes telescope to adjust itself so that there will be as little distortion as possible by the turbulence.
@Maasusthefrozen To clarify one what Kwodibet said: The beam is part of a system called Adaptive Optics, it uses a laser beam to project an artificial star onto the sky whatever happens to the beam gets applied opposite to the telescope picture(sorta like if laser moves right, telescope image is corrected left), think of it as a really fancy pair of glasses that change prescription to give you the best sight all the time.
Brady, you deserve an Oscar for your work.
I've always been interested in astronomy's theories, various facts and the vastness of the universe. The actual practice though is a whole other set of profound and fascinating distractions.
This was seriously interesting and informative. Very well done, thank you for the video!
I'm enjoying this channel so much!
@andro6806 Hubble's constant is around 70 km/s / Mpc, meaning that a galaxy 1 Mega Parsec away will retreat from us at 70 km/s. This value is known to be an increasing one because of "Dark Energy", so the universe is actually expanding faster each and every day. This will cause Hubble's constant to increase with time.
This was fascinating to learn about how they allocate telescope time, thanks!
Fascinating! "How science is done" is such an interesting (and under-reported) topic.
@azaas Stress is a choice. It is all about choosing to not become stressed, and the behaviors you choose to exhibit once you have allowed yourself to become stressed. It may not seem like it now, but it is all a choice. Once you realize that and honestly utilize your conscious ability to make the choice, one way or another, you will feel a huge weight lifted off of your shoulders. It is essentially the same thing as 'act as though you aren't afraid of failure.' It is the same concept.
It's a shame for human mankind you get "so few" views. millions of people should watch these videos!
So what happened -- can we get a follow up?
+Alec Clews - yeah I would be interested too what happened to that queued observation job.
Visiting professional observatories is great. On La Palma for instance there's a sky law which regulates light pollution and even air traffic over the ORM observatory, thus no aircraft vapor trails and it's a great place to do AstroPhotography.
Other observatories have a staff of astronomers who perform all requested observations (e.g. CAHA in Southern Spain). Sadly the Southwest of the USA also has problems with light pollution and even Paranal in Chile sometimes gets coastal cities light!
1. Is there a time limit on executing the proposals? 2. Does all the unfinished work just get dumped? 3. Will you resubmitt your proposal if it does not get worked on?
@Maasusthefrozen Astronomers use lasers to monitor, measure and in the end compensate for atmospheric distortions during their observations. Imiges that every Earth-based telescope gets are slightly distorted by moving atmosphere. That is why stars "twinkle". However, since you know the strenght/britness of your laser you can use it as your imaginary "star" with known brightness and then by seeing how its brightness changes you can compensate for the "twinkle" of real stars.
@Maasusthefrozen
... second comment
thats why such a laser is also called an "artificial star". At the VLT, i heared they are now moving towards 4 of these guiding lasers for each telescope, arranged around the current field of vision of the telescope. These lasers need to be very powerful and of just the right wavelength to produce a glowing dot in the upper atmosphere that the adaptive optics systems can watch to get data about distortions in our atmosphere.
@kurtilein3 The paper is a pdf file called "Astronomical Spectroscopy" by Philip Massey and Margaret Hanson.
it is the first result when you google for "astronomical spectroscopy pdf"
the particular reference is on page 20
it actually says 15 to 20 minutes (my mistake)
@InconsistentFlaw Yeah, it's more or less the same idea. The red shift only gives us velocity information, though. However, we know that the universe is expanding, so the farther away an object is, the faster it should expand away. The amount of red shift is then proportional to the distance from far away objects. Look up Hubble's Law if you want to know more.
@hla27b IMO, the problem with this is, say you need 100 seconds per galaxy. That's 166 minutes for 100 galaxies, which would be able to be imaged in 100 seconds with one large mask. I can envision, however, a large grid based device which has microactuators which are less than a mm thick. They could selectively open and they wouldn't take up much space in the view.
@Maasusthefrozen Those are lasers sent out from the telescope to make a fake star in the sky. They use that steady beam to measure the amount of wobble from the actual star they're observing. Then then know how much to wobble the telescope's adaptive optics need to wobble in the opposite direction, so their image can be stabilised.
@hla27b
no, not really. They have several people working at the VLT. While one guy laser-cuts a tiny circular hole into the mask to observe exactly the point that she wants to observe, the telescope is not sitting idle. If you have single-use masks custom designed especially for the purpose, prepared beforehand, all you need to do to be efficient is to streamline replacement of the masks. So the automated system you need is not a mechanical mask, but a rapid mask replacement system.
@JackandDiet85
The answers to your questions are different from telescope to telescope.
To run the telescope at full capacity, you want to always have more proposals than you have observing time. So you will always have to dump some. I guess if a proposal doesnt get worked on within a certain time period, it just gets dumped and you can re-submit it. Some time limit makes sense, because, 2 years later, can you still be sure that astronomer still badly wants that data?
@Maasusthefrozen A telescope has to track the apparant motion of the stars across the sky. It's a known rate and speed and the scopes are mounted on highly accurate mounts that can compensate for the motion of the earth and therefore keep the telescopes fixated on a point in the sky to prevent blurring/star streaks. To help, a guide scope watches for small changes by watching a guide star. To help compensate for atmospheric conditions a fake guide star is 'projected' by the laser :)
THANKS BRADY!!!
@azaas I'm a journalist, not an academic...
I just love telling all these stories without having to specialise! ;)
@Maasusthefrozen
Powerful lasers, tuned to cause ions in the upper atmosphere to glow. This produces a point of reference for the adaptive optical systems. Normally you need to watch a bright star and how it changes and moves in order to get information about how the lower atmosphere is changing and moving. You then use that data to move the mirrors accordingly, to cancel out the effects of the lower atmosphere. The laser produces an artificial reference point for that purpose
@Maasusthefrozen Adaptive optics, look it up on wikipedia. Basically they fire a laser out to see how the light from it is distorted by the air. Then they can correct for that distortion.
@joshcryer it's easy really, imagine two diaphragms in front of each other, one has a vertical slit in it, the other has a horizontal slit. The light can only pass trough the one single point where both slits intersect each other. if you move the horizontal slit up and down your point will move up and down. If you move the vertical slit right and left you move the point right and left. By varying the slit widths the shape of the point can be varied. 100+ points /s can be scanned easy
'BUT, it could all be for nothing.'.. Ever the optimist Brady.
Awesome!
@Maasusthefrozen They're lasers for the adaptive optics.
Fascinating subject.
@hla27b Yes I think a dynamic mask could be built, but I can't think of how to do it. Fascinating that they use laser cut masks, I would love to see a cabinet of those or where they store them or if the astronomers get to take them home when they're done.
@joshcryer As far as I understand, even with a mask the spectra are still taken one by one and not simultaneously. I may be mistaken of course but I'll keep reading on till I find out.
This lady reminds me of The Boss from MGS3. Both of them transpire awesomeness.
Love it!
".....yes, it could all be for nothing".........This brings to mind the Fukushima catastrophe.....Everything could be for nothing.....forever.
Brady, can you tell me which instrument Meghan is going to usa at Paranal ? and at which wavelengths she is going to observe... also, will the astronomers there make use of interferometry while observing or will they just use one of the four telescopes..
Thx !
@kurtilein3 According to a paper I am reading right now a single plate change takes 20 to 30 minutes!!!, a plate must be prepared at least a week before observation, there are the logistics of taking a laser cutter and consumables to a remote area, QC of produced masks etc.
I am talking about eliminating all of these entirely. Not just changing the masks rapidly but dispensing with the need to ever change anything altogether. It is like getting from analog to digital photography.
A great insight. Thank you!
Brady I have a question that's not really related to the video.I imagine that you're either working as a professor or you're walking down the PhD path. What I wanted to ask is whether you ever panicked thinking on how many things you actually have to learn before you can even start thinking about working on a thesis or not ... I mean it may be just me but ever since I decided to follow the academic path I'm in a constant stress. Sometimes it feels like I'm still and undergrad student....
Very interesting must be amazing to look at the sky's on those mountaintops. But anyone notice she has a slight English accent.
what are those beams (03:16) coming out of the telescopes?
@supergsx Canada,if i remember it correctly:)
I've never loved a person who keeps talking a lot except for this astronomer.... can you please be my pathology teacher?!
@Maasusthefrozen I think its laser guiding
I want to say it's usually not not-for-nothing if time isn't allocated / proposal isn't accepted ☺️
There's isually a silver lining if only to use yhat experience in future proposals / help others tpepare proposals 😎👍
@hla27b
20-30 minutes??!? Damn, that should be 30 seconds. Taking different frames and putting them into focus in an optical device... Damn, pre-digital image projectors can do that in a quarter of a second, with smaller "masks", but still... WTF? Could you send me a link to that paper?
If its really right now 20-30 minutes to change the plate, maybe we are missing something... Maybe they always use plates with several holes and the spectrometer can focus on an individual hole.
She said that there is different programs for different telescopes. Does that mean she has to learn new programs or a new programming language? Because I sometimes see clips of people entering code into some sort of terminal, so i was wondering weather she is sending directions to the queue in English or code.
Wouldn't the holes cut in the mask create a series of interference patterns?
Only if they were exceptionally small, because then quantum effects would take place, and those are responsible for the interference patterns.
Ah ok. I assumed that because light acted as a particle and a wave that interference was created. I didn't realise only a certain type of aperture would create the effect. Thanks.
It doesn't really matter so much with spectroscopy.
Yeah for sure. Sometimes it's all for nothing. Got all setup last week. Then my lappy had an issue preventing me from polar aligning. The only clear night in weeks. RUINED!
what happened to the audio?
Where is Dr. Gray from? She has a pretty unique way of talking...
Ell
Maritime region of Canada. There is a unique cadence and accent used in that region. Plus she’s now lived many years in UK so that has also likely had an effect as well.
i can conceive how spectrometry works on the sun but a galaxy ? gravity or dark matter or whatever on that insane distance doesnt distort the light???
+Nabi - AFAIK "dark matter" is actually thought to be invisible (does not interfere with light or any EM radiation passing through it), and gravity may bend light, but not change its spectrum. There could be clouds of dust or gas of course, but overall space is rather empty.
we need more telescopes
its not how mutch you know its who you know welcome to earth
I'd quit my day job at anytime just to be able to wait seven days for clear skies...
@Maasusthefrozen i was thinking the same thing.
Masks seem like a very inefficient way to me. Why not use a single slit with X - Y pan? This would make the telescope at least twice as fast/efficient.
Brady is it possible to ask the crew about what to read about use of masks on large telescopes? I'd like to read and commit some time and effort to see whether or not an improvement can be made. I'm not an astronomer but if what I'm on turns out to be workable it could mean more observation time for all astronomers.
@Maasusthefrozen lasers!!
@Kurtlane Or you could be one of the guys who takes the leftover light down to the rubbish tip. After the telescopes get done collecting so much it there must be a lot left over. Big fluffy drifts of photons 'n shit. Probably lots of full time jobs hauling it away.
I have a solution. For those who want to go around different places looking at fun telescopes, become a ...
TELESCOPE REPAIR MAN!!!
She looks like Miss Depesto from Moonlighting.
i was wondering why she looks so exhausted in this video.
such a downer to leave on, haha! It could all be for nothing.
Dr. Becky went solo.
I still can't believe scientists are paid to do this. Most work at state funded universiries. They should be forced to do some kind of manual labor to offset their salaries. JS.
ok.
@Maasusthefrozen Its a death ray to kill all of the aliens coming to earth. No I'm just kidding. Its a very accurate way they track the stars. Amateurs use similar devices that are much smaller, obviously .
:)
Is it just me?
Is anyone else 'distracted' by Miss Grey's "cute-ness"?
I am abolutely in love with her. My dream Partner smart sexy and with fantastic smile... too bad there are not many females like her around...
Childish.
ThomasRelaX
Don’t be so hard on yourself!
You might grow up some day.