It’s time. The 2024 SPIE (Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers) is holding its even-year telescope conference (this time, Yokohama, Japan): spie.org/conferences-and-exhibitions/astronomical-telescopes-and-instrumentation Did I say IAU GA was big? SPIE is bigger. The IAU is topical, covering astronomy. SPIE as a… Read More »SPIE Ast. Tel. Inst. 2024… whew
Not well shared: The Vera Rubin camera is in Chile, on-mountain. There was a fair amount of coverage of the LSSTCam’s completion, at Stanford’s SLAC lab, in April. But with little fanfare, the pre-ship review passed, the camera was packed… Read More »First Light in Sight…
In the May 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal (vol. 967 #1): S. Liu, W. M. Wood-Vasey, R. Armstrong et al. Testing the LSST Difference Image Analysis Pi… a10 ad3635Huang, Z. Toth, G. Gombosi, T. I. et al. Interaction between a… Read More »Note, Paper: bits and Bits
Our (consumer, off-the-shelf) telescopes are now made in China; what about the scientific-grade ones? The Chinese science program is no longer the world’s also-ran. You just need to look at author lists to see the obvious Chinese (including expat-Chinese) representation.… Read More »Note, Juan Zhu: CAA WA
Another quick update, this time on Vera Rubin. Real progress now made, the LSST Cam finished at Stanford. Final prep before shipping to Chile. Also (in Chile) the huge M1/M3 mirror is silvered- bare glass now a mirror. Can’t wait!
The European Geophysical Union held their annual meeting, in Vienna, At. You may ask what a “geophysical union” has to do with this site. Since Earth accreted from asteroids, geophysics has, oh… 99.99% to do with an asteroid site. Geochemistry… Read More »EGU24 Meeting
I spoke too soon on the April (vol. 167 #4) Astronomical Journal. It was in progress, still some more articles to come. Here are the rest: Proudfoot, B. C. N. Ragozzine, D. A. Thatcher, M. L. et al. Beyond Point… Read More »Note, Paper: A-Deeper Look
It’s not every day one spots a long-lost relation. After some tracking duration (called “observing arc” in our field), it appears we’ve found a new (…to us) Mars trojan asteroid. Object 2023 FW14 (provisional designation, sure to change ~2025-26) is… Read More »Big-Little News: 2023 FW14
The April issue of Astronomical Journal is not so Solar-System-centric as last month’s, but that’s publishing for you. Last month was a bounty, this one’s a breather: K. Tang, A. Pomazan, Maigurova, N. et al. Error Analysis for Rotating-drift-scan Charge-coupled… Read More »Note, Paper: April AJ, yay!
The March issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics (vol. 683, Mar. 24) is a little light. Two small-body articles are roughly typical of that journal. Galinier, M. Delbo, M. Avdellidou, C. et al. Discovery of the first olivine-dominated A-type… p. L3… Read More »Note, Paper: A & A assay