4 ms·
I never used the Kuiper Airborn Observatory, but several people in my grad school group did. Nearly every flight seemed to be a fiasco. Sometimes instruments r
by PopePompus 4y ago
I never used the Kuiper Airborn Observatory, but several people in my grad school group did. Nearly every flight seemed to be a fiasco. Sometimes instruments rattled apart during takeoff. One postdoc was notified (months after the flight) that the telescope had a several degree pointing error during her observations.
- Multicomp 4y agoThanks for sharing this story, looks like today it's my turn to forget HN is the place where if you reference something famous or notable, someone in that sphere of influence often has a chance to weigh in! Me thinking it's cool you told this story aside, The C-141 itself has a bit of a temperamental reputation, I'm not surprised to hear even the one they tapped to play nice with their stratospheric observatory was still grumpy, though that may be my bias being part of the C-130 orbit.
- dylan604 4y ago>the telescope had a several degree pointing error during her observations. are they saying they discovered the issue based on her observations, or that something she did gave the scope this error?
- PopePompus 4y agoIt was not based on her observations, but I don't know how they actually figured out their error. I give them some credit for at least admitting the problem, rather than just letting her flail away at trying to make something out of worthless data. On the other hand, it was a pretty big disappointment for a postdoc, who of course must produce some publishable results within a pretty short time window.