| I left the University of Central Lancashire in October last
year with feelings very similar to those expressed by Tom Geballe in the
last Top End. I spent eleven happy years in Preston, working partly for
the University and partly for the Starlink Project , and leaving was difficult.
I will miss both the UCLAN CFA and Starlink, and I take this opportunity
to wish them well once again.
The months since I arrived at the JAC have been something of a jolt
to one for so long accustomed to life within the UK University system.
Now that the dust is settling (sadly only figuratively; my worldly possessions
have only just reached Hilo after a three-month trip which included at
least a month sitting on the docks in London), I have taken time to look
around and take stock. I am encouraged by what I see. UKIRT is performing
better than ever before, with the prospect of further improvements when
the new secondary is installed in June. We have an infrared instrument
complement which remains second to none, and which has been significantly
enhanced by the arrival of the smaller pixel scale of UFTI. The introduction
of this instrument to the Science Minister at the ATC/UKIRT 20th celebrations
in October was a resounding success, with Antonio Chrysostomou and Chris
Davis really putting the camera through its paces - all live on the web
(one advantage of the 11-hour time difference between the UK and Hawaii).
The future holds many innovations. With the arrival of MICHELLE later
this year, UKIRT will have a state-of-the-art imager/spectrometer for the
10 and 20 µm windows; this will be a huge gain for the UKIRT user community.
Further down |
|
the line, the UIST near-infrared imager/spectrometer is progressing
well. In common with many other observatories aiming to capitalise on imaging
excellence, we are starting to address the flexure challenge posed for
the telescope by these new instruments. The wide-field camera (for which
we are settling toward the name WFCAM) is an ambitious project which will
provide the UK community with a sky-survey resource of immense power and
great longevity.
New instruments bring new challenges, and it is clear that we can extract
more science if we schedule the telescope more flexibly. As we showed on
the back of the last Newsletter, there are a significant number of nights
on which UKIRT is essentially diffraction-limited. We must take proper
advantage of those nights. Similarly we will make better use of MICHELLE
if we schedule it intelligently. We are beginning to consider ways in which
this significant new operational mode can be accommodated; input from our
JCMT collegues is proving valuable.
All of these projects, all of these new instruments, are exciting, all
of them are challenging, and I am greatly privileged to be involved. Despite
my initial (and I confess ongoing) trepidation at the thought of attempting
to replace Tom, moving from Preston to Hilo has been the right thing to
do. What I knew of the UKIRT staff was a major factor in the decision to
apply for this job. So I was well aware that I was leaving one group of
highly committed, professional people to join another. This has been confirmed
over and over in my short time here. I look forward to working with the
UKIRT and JAC staff in helping to realise the astronomical ambitions of
UKIRT observers, from the UK and elsewhere.
See you in Hilo ! |
