Observing

Tales from Waimea Part 4 – Observing Report

This is the second half of part 4 of my Keck NIRC2 observing log. (See Part 1 and Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4a). The night you’re...

A tour of the Keck control room

Astronomers at Keck have it easy – whereas I used to slog up to the summit of Mauna Kea*, dealing with the lack of oxygen up there in...

Tales From Waimea Part 4- Sunset approaches

Airmass plot of some of the targets I’m planning on observing tonight It’s a few minutes before sunset. I’ve gotten the “keys” to Keck 2,...

Tales from Waimea Part 3

This is part 3 of my Keck NIRC2 observing log. (See Part 1 and Part 2). So I can’t sleep, so I decided to go take some photos of where...

Tales from Waimea Part 2

Greetings from Hawaii. I’m here for observing on the Keck telescopes. It’s 5:45am in Hawaii, and the Sun has just risen. I’m sitting here...

Making Way for Q13 Data

The Kepler field will be high in the sky starting in the next month or so and continuing over the Summer months. Thanks to all of your...

Keck Observing Scheduled for Next June

Keck II telescope – Image Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory The Keck Observatory observing schedule was released online over the weekend....

Awarded Telescope Time on the Keck Telescope

Image Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory To study and follow-up planet candidates we find with Planet Hunters we need telescope time. Nights...

The Road to Characterizing PH1: Visual-band Imaging

Today we have a guest post from Bill Keel. Bill is a member of the science team for Galaxy Zoo, and is more accustomed to dealing with...

The Summer Triangle and Telescope Proposals

The Kepler field is located in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. You can find the Kepler field by looking for the Summer Triangle, the...

Proof is in the Pudding

Hi, I wanted to give a brief update on the short period planets paper that just recently got accepted to Astrophysical Journal. Once...

Adaptive Optics Follow-up Observations

Today’s blog post come’s from guest blogger Justin Crepp, co-author on our first Planet Hunters paper. Justin is an expert in adaptive...

A Very Unusual System?

Today’s blog post is brought to you by zookeeper extraordinaire Chris Lintott. Last week Meg visited me in Chicago for two days of number...

Keck Follow-up

Hello PlanetHunters! The Kepler field is finally visible and tonight, grad student John Brewer and I began observing a few of the...