Chris Lintott’s Universe

Just got back to the UK – got very little from the observing run (more on which soon) – but Andy’s reporting that the UK is at least temporarily back in Gemini. The release from the board, here says negotiations are underway, but the important thing is that those astronomers who’d put so much effort into getting time for the next few months will get the results from their efforts. Writing observing proposals takes a huge amount of time and effort, and for people to be successful only to see their time whisked away from them was heartbreaking. Obviously, a lot will depend on the outcome of the talks, but this is a good start.

Just a thought, though – the UK flag had been removed from in front of the Gemini HQ in Hawaii. I hope they didn’t burn it…

Andy has an interesting take on the Gemini crisis. It’s essentially a salient reminder that it’s the government and not the STFC that’s responsible for the loss of funding. That’s true, but the thing that scares me about the Gemini decision is that the apparent lack of consultation. Instead of asking the astronomical community to save £4 million, they’re just planning to shut of access to one of our major facilities. That isn’t how these decisions are supposed to be made.

There’s a response from Gemini themselves, which is best summarized as ‘putting a brave face on it’. It’s so depressing to be writing about such things instead of results like these.

I spent yesterday trying to travel from California to Washington, where we’re visiting NASA HQ and the Goddard Space Flight Centre, so I’ve only just heard about some really shocking news. The STFC, which funds UK astronomy, has announced it’s planning to pull the UK out of the international Gemini observatory. As theseimportant people say, this is seriously worrying. Gemini North provides UK astronomers with their only state of the art visible light telescope in the Northern hemisphere; it is literally irreplaceable. The RAS have more details about why STFC’s plan is a bad one, but it essentially boils down to this. We’ve already spent £23 million to get the telescopes working well. They are now working well, as the flood of press releases from Gemini shows, and now we’re writing off all that investment in an attempt to save £4 million a year. We know that money is tight, but as the RAS point out the worrying thing is that this decision has been made without any attempt to consult astronomers, who will now be left without any access to half the sky.

The sad thing is I’d much rather be writing about results like this.