WISE is Go

Its the year of infra-red astronomy … UKIRT is still going strong (for now…), but now we have Herschel, VISTA, and … WISE.

WISE launched successfully yesterday from Vandenberg. The PV phase is expected to be very short – an amazing one month – followed by a seven month sky survey. My IPAC chums tell me they intend to get the data within a year, so you ain’t got to wait long.

Just thought I’d cheer you up before tomorrow’s doom and gloom.

VISTA is Go

VISTA, our shiny new IR survey telescope, is ready for rock and roll. Check out the ESO press release . There some lervely pictures, including a zoomable mosaic of the Galactic Centre.

I am excited (and relieved) both scientifically and in project terms. Data is being processed by a combined Cambridge-Edinburgh team. The data will be deposited in the ESO archive, but also of course will be available in a flexible queryable interface pretty similar to what we already do for UKIDSS at the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA). (The VSA is ready but I am not sure I am allowed to show it to you yet…) Enjoy.

Next up : WISE. This is a spacecraft that will survey the sky in the mid-IR, nicely complementing UKIDSS and VISTA. It is due for launch on Monday from Vandenberg. Gad, the IR is getting exciting.

Wise Vibrations in Purgatory

My sabbatical is nearly over. Midnight approaches and the shadow of teaching looms… Fair Nature’s eye, rise rise again and make perpetual day; or let this hour be but a year, a month, a week, a natural day, that Faustus may repent and save his soul ! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the Devil will come, and Faustus must be damned !

Err.. oh. Sorry. Got carried away. Luckily, before I am dragged down into the dark, I get to spend a few weeks in Aspen. I suppose this is a kind of inverse of Purgatory. Its achingly beautiful here in Colorado, but expensively chic in Aspen itself. Last night I walked past a building with smoked windows and no sign of anything to buy. The sign said “Franck Muller : Master of Complications”. I thought maybe this was some kind of spooky secret society, but Google later revealed unto me that in fact Franck Muller is a Swiss geezer wot makes fancy watches.

So here at the Center for Zen Physics I am attending a workshop on Wide Fast Deep Surveys of the Future. Like most Aspen workshops its rather loosely organised, but there have been one or two actual talks. One of these was by Roc Cutri, updating us on the status of WISE, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer. This is a MIDEX mission due for launch November this year, which will make a mid-IR survey of the sky. It recently passed its vibration tests. I have often heard about these, but never seen what happens…

Roc showed us a picture of the WISE spacecraft surrounded by a ring of 20 foot tall loudspeakers. He said that big trucks turned up and a gang of roadies set up this giant PA system, loaded up their favourite Led Zeppelin CD, and then ran for cover. Really. Nearly as good as Disaster Area.