The LBNL Remote Keck Observing Facility
The giant twin telescopes of the Keck observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, are the most
powerful ground-based observing facilities in the world. Berkeley Lab, jointly with
the UC Berkeley physics and astronomy departments, is the home of a large number
of world-class researchers in astrophysics and cosmology, many of whom rely heavily
on access to Keck to conduct their research. Currently, Berkeley scientists need to
fly to Hawaii for each of their frequent nights on the telescope. With the help of
personnel at Keck and UC Santa Cruz, we have set up a remote
observing control room facility for UC Berkeley and LBL at LBL that will provide
scientists the same access to the instruments (e.g. spectrographs, cameras, etc.)
and telescope control as they would have on-site at the observatory. This remote facility,
the first in Berkeley, will greatly enhance Berkeley's utilization of this marvelous
facility and allow for greater access by scientists, including graduate students,
who are often hampered by limited travel funds. At Berkeley lab, the Supernova
Cosmology Project is a large research group whose studies of distant supernovae
with the use of the Keck telescope led to the recent discovery of the accelerating
universe and dark energy, which has revolutionized cosmology.