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High-Speed Links Connect 2 Telescopes 7,000
Miles Apart -- and the Astronomers Who Use Them
Chronicle of Higher Education, October 24, 2002
by Florence Olsen
article link:
http://chronicle.com/free/2002/10/2002102401t.htm
When astronomers travel to an observatory,
it's often "luck of the draw" whether they can accomplish what they signed up
months earlier to try, says Peter Michaud, public information and outreach
manager for the new Gemini Observatory.
Atmospheric conditions at observatories are not always optimal, Mr. Michaud
says, recalling the stories of astronomers who would come year after year to
an observatory and "things wouldn't match up."
But Gemini's managers and science
administrators now foresee a new era of scientific productivity resulting from
advances in global networking. The most recent of these has linked the second of
the Gemini Observatory's two 8-meter telescopes to the Internet2 backbone
network, known as Abilene. The observatory, built over the last decade, has twin
telescopes on different sides of the equator -- one in the Northern Hemisphere,
on top of Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, and the other in the Southern Hemisphere, on
Cerro Pachón, in the Chilean Andes.
The twin telescopes, separated by a distance of
some 7,000 miles, were conceived from the outset to be connected by a high-speed
network such as the Internet2 project's, so that the instruments could be used
in tandem for observations that require a view of the entire sky. And they were
designed so that astronomers would be able to use them from their campus
offices, communicating online with technicians at the two sites, instead of
having to travel to one site or the other.
"Those of us who like science think it's better
to do more of it and to do it faster," says Thomas J. Greene, senior director of
advanced-networking-infrastructure programs at the National Science Foundation.
Both of those objectives are now possible because of the new link.
A $2.4-million NSF grant paid for the Internet2
connection to the Gemini South telescope, in Chile, and for the link's costs for
the next three years. Two years ago, separate NSF grants of $600,000 and
$340,000 paid for connecting Gemini North, in Hawaii, to the Internet2 backbone.
The Internet2 connection between the two
telescopes was completed just in time, says James R. Kennedy, operations
director for the $184-million observatory project. The Chilean telescope just
became fully operational this year; the telescope in Hawaii has been in use for
about a year and a half.
The Gemini Observatory is the result of a
collaboration involving seven countries -- Argentina, Australia, Brazil,
Britain, Canada, Chile, and the United States -- and more than 4,000 scientists
from those countries. The observatory already receives six times as many
proposals to use the telescopes as it can accommodate in a year, Mr. Michaud
says.
With the Internet2 link complete, observatory
managers say they will be able to allocate time on the telescopes more
efficiently among astronomers -- and the astronomers can stay home and
participate remotely. Typically, observatories allot astronomers fixed viewing
times far in advance. But then poor weather conditions or equipment problems may
prevent the scientists -- after traveling great distances -- from collecting
data on the particular celestial objects that interest them.
The system enabled by Internet2, known as queue
observing, ensures more productive scheduling of the telescopes, says Mr.
Kennedy. Scientists whose proposals receive the highest ranking from independent
reviewers are guaranteed time on one or both of the Gemini telescopes during
optimal conditions for their proposed observation, no matter when those
conditions occur.
When the queue-scheduling system is fully
automated and debugged, astronomers will use a Web-based software tool to
simulate the observation that they want to make, and the simulation will tell
them whether the observation they are proposing is technically feasible.
Observation proposals, with information about
the weather conditions required for the observation, will then be put into
queues and linked to a meteorological modeling program that makes short-range
forecasts of conditions at the telescopes' mountaintop locations.
The new system will mean that, instead of
flying to Hawaii or Chile, scientists will receive a telephone call or an e-mail
message 24 or 48 hours in advance, inviting them to participate in the
observation remotely using high-speed videoconferencing over Internet2.
Rather than pacing back and forth in the
control room at the telescope base station, the astronomer can be in his or her
laboratory, interacting with the telescope operators, getting a quick look at
the celestial images as they appear on the control-room monitors, and asking for
on-the-spot adjustments. "These are all the things that you would do at the
telescope if you were physically there," Mr. Kennedy says.
And astronomers with Internet2 access in their
laboratories can use the network to retrieve observation data directly from the
telescopes.
Not all scientists are thrilled about the new
set-up, which Gemini officials have dubbed a "cyber observatory." Astronomers
often like to be at an observatory "to get their hands on things," says Mr.
Michaud. But with one night's use of the Gemini Observatory valued at $32,000,
he says, it is critical to have the most efficient system for scheduling its
use. Not all of the proposals that are accepted, for instance, require both
telescopes to be used simultaneously. Research that requires only one telescope
sometimes can be scheduled when bad weather is forecast for the other.
Few astronomers these days are actually
permitted to have their hands directly on the controls of a major research
telescope. The instruments have become so sophisticated that it takes
professionally trained technicians months to become proficient at operating
them.
And even the professional operators use
computer networks to control the telescopes remotely. Conditions at 14,000 feet
-- the height of Mauna Kea -- are not ideal for the clear-headed thinking that
is necessary to control and trouble-shoot such a complex instrument, Mr. Kennedy
says. "You have only 60 percent of normal oxygen levels in your blood. It's very
difficult, especially when you're in the dark and it's cold, to make good,
critical decisions at that elevation."
So operators control the Gemini telescopes from
remote base stations below Cerro Pachón and Mauna Kea. Realistically speaking,
says Mr. Michaud, "the days of the astronomer actually pushing the knobs and
buttons on an observatory telescope are pretty much over."
Making the connection between Gemini's
telescopes in Hawaii and Chile proved difficult and took more than two years'
effort, says Julio Ibarra, director of research networking at Florida
International University, in Miami. The university manages AmericasPath, or
AmPath, an Internet exchange point for research and education networks in South
and Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
The fiber-optic connection linking the two
telescopes is not a direct one across the Pacific Ocean. Instead, it takes a
roundabout, but not noticeably slower, underwater route along the eastern coast
of South America, to Miami. In Miami, the AmPath hub forwards data traffic from
the Chilean telescope onto Internet2 backbone circuits located in Atlanta. The
traffic crosses the United States over the Internet2 backbone to Seattle, and
then moves across the Pacific on a fiber-optic cable to reach Hawaii. The total
distance ends up at nearly 13,000 miles.
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