Science and politics never mix

Science and politics never mix…however science transcends political boundaries and ultimately prevails…but not without some intrigue. Alas, even the eclipse in 1991 had a bit of intrigue. As I designed the experiment which will image the corona in white light during the 2017 eclipse, I am reminded of a similar collection of data I took at the 1991 eclipse. My Russian colleagues were very interested in my CCD data. I offered them a disk with the images on it at our ‘after the eclipse going away party’. As we laughed and enjoyed great company amount new found friends and colleagues, one of the Russian scientists became very quiet and pensive. He was concerned about the data on the computer disk and how he would get it back to Russia. Because Russia was a communist country and all the science equipment had to be carefully accounted for and the fact that it had to go from Russia to Cuba then to Mexico for the eclipse…the data disk was not on the manifest. Going through three layers of security from Mexico to Cuba then back to Russia posed a potential security problem. If found the disk might be construed as some nefarious international spy plot. What to do? After about 3 seconds of thought the scientist said the equivalent of “the hell with it” and hid the disk deep in his duffle bag! The data and scientist did make it back to Russia and a paper was published using my data. Here’s the intro from that paper:

The full paper can be found at

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1995AN....316...23K&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES

Test 3 Complete Solar Video Systems

The solar video system equipment has been completed and tested. The system is robust and works fine. Here is a short video describing the system. Included is the live stream recording during the test. It is available to view on the  http://www.ustream.tv/search?q=2017LiveSolarEclipse page. Inverted video will be corrected by rotating camera 180 degrees. A test will be conducted for those interested and notification will be given prior to the test.

Test 2

It is raining in Tucson today so the test of the solar telescope optical system was conducted inside and the target was a distant mountain. The video was taken through the window...not the best practice but the test wasn't about getting the best image. You might wonder why so many tests. It is one thing to have a great plan designing a system and another to actually implement it. My goal is to have a robust, reliable system in place for the eclipse. The only way to get that result is test, reconfigure and test again...until it's right. So starting the process in November for an eclipse happening in August is just about right. Remember this is only one of several systems that will be used during the eclipse. I post these tests to give you an idea of what is involved in doing science using equipment to collect data. This is the practical "nuts and bolts" part of science that eludes the public.

For those interested in testing

the live stream system for live solar images step one is to go to the following link and let me know if you can see the channel as 2017LiveSolarEclipse. There is a 10 second saved video called "Test video confirmed playback" click on it an see if it plays back and what the quality is like. The next step is to broadcast live solar video from the telescope. I'll let you know when that will happen. Thanks

http://www.ustream.tv/search?q=2017LiveSolarEclipse

 

Testing of the optical systems

  to be used during the eclipse is  now underway. Several systems will be tested in the coming months. This test was of the system to be used to upload images of the eclipse in real-time to the internet for public distribution.

Completed worst case scenario test of a cellular signal booster. System works fine and will actually improve cellular reliability for connectivity during the eclipse.

Just arrived...the official eclipse banner!!!