Personal note August 2, 2010
Posted by sarah in: me . Add a comment
As many of you know, I had a bit of an accident a couple of months back during and ended up with a limb out of action and a pair of crutches. Unexpected as these things are, things were pretty chaotic for a while. But somehow I managed to eat, sleep, get to work most days, even enjoy a few foreign trips, and generally not go insane. I attended several interesting and enjoyable conferences, hobbled around Venice on crutches, fell over in Venice on crutches, and had a super holiday exploring California.
I don’t usually get personal on here, but I thought a quick note of thanks was in order for everyone who helped me out these past months, kept me well fed, hydrated, mobile and reasonably sane – old friends, new friends, colleagues, acquaintances, some really entertaining taxi drivers, weirdos in Texas, and of course family and extra-special friend. I hope you never need me to return the favour, but if you do ever find yourself face down on a basketball court, give me a call. Big thanks to all of you.
Image: C. Odman
Blogging holiday July 5, 2010
Posted by sarah in: new astronomy . Add a comment
Bit of a holiday, back in a few weeks. Meanwhile, enjoy the first all-sky map released from cosmic microwave background satellite Planck!
Making my software open April 6, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, me . 5comments
After thinking about software development in astronomy and talking about it with friends at work and on this blog, I thought it was about time I put my money where my mouth is. I too write software – in fact, the bulk of my work here in Leiden has been based around code I’ve written over the past 2 years for the METIS project (in IDL). The code basically calculates the sensitivity of METIS on the E-ELT, or the minimum flux it will be able to detect at a particular signal to noise (S/N) in a given exposure time over its wavelength range, in various modes of observation. You can find the full package with background info on my brand-new github page, and a paper is in preparation (to be presented at SPIE 2010) for your referencing pleasure.
Ada Lovelace Day 2010 March 24, 2010
Posted by sarah in: science, women . 4commentsToday is Ada Lovelace Day, commemorating the 19th century British Countess who became one of the pioneers of computing. The first Ada Lovelace Day was held last year, as an international day of blogging about inspirational women in science and technology. I read some really great pieces last year, so decided I’d make a bit more of an effort too this time round.
When I started my PhD at University College London, I joined the astronomy department’s instrumentation lab. Not many astronomers knew where to find us, we were way down in a dark windowless basement. At the time the group was in the final throes of building an instrument for the 8-m Gemini South telescope. Behind my tiny little desk in our large office was a much larger cubicle with a desk, and on, under and all around it was truly the largest amount of paper I have ever seen. Somewhere buried beneath was a computer, and judging by the muffled but incessant ringing, a telephone. That was the desk of the scientist who was managing the project, and that person was Maggie Aderin-Pocock.
MIRI crosses the pond (Thoughts on PR) March 19, 2010
Posted by sarah in: science, space . 4comments
Gift-wrapping MIRI for our NASA colleagues
NASA issued a press release yesterday to announce that the engineering test model of the mid-infrared instrument for its next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, has arrived at Goddard. A picture is featured in the BBC’s Science & Technology news section today. As a member of the team that is in charge of testing MIRI prior to its integration with the telescope and launch, I’m glad to see the little one has arrived safely on US soil.
