Posted by dorigo in astronomy, internet, science.
Browsing the internet aimlessly, I found the site of the large binocular telescope today. I had known about the project for a long time, but had never ventured to read about the details…
You can find the web page of the endeavour at http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/lbto/ .
The binocular telescope is an impressive structure, bearing two 8.4m mirrors (the largest single pieces of glass as far as I recall - larger telescopes such as the Kek are made by smaller chunks). I was surprised to read that the focal ratio of the mirrors is only f/1.1 … This allows for compactness, but of course requires a lot of correction to avoid optical aberrations. I am sure they worked out the details… 
The depth of viewing that can be achieved with an equivalent 11+ meters of clear aperture, and the angular resolution (once adaptive techinques are applied) makes me dizzy. About 2 million times the light gathering power of the human eye means seeing 20th magnitude stars as if they were bright objects.
The telescope got first light last fall. Here is a picture that was taken at a nice galaxy (I think it is in Andromeda, ngc891):
Posted by dorigo in astronomy, chess, games, personal, physics, social life, travel.
Today is a national holiday in Italy: on May 1st, it is called "festa del lavoro". Conveniently placed on a Monday this year, but I did not exploit for a weekend away. Instead, we ran some errands and wasted our time in Venice. A bit lazy…
Starting today, I have a busy week ahead however, and not just workwise. First of all, I need to finalize the talk Diego will give next week at the Top mass working group. He has spent a couple of months putting together an interface of a large ntuple format to an algorithm of my conception - the Hyperball algorithm - and now he needs to produce results: that is, show that by using the HB algorithm he can improve the jet energy resolution for top decays.
I will talk later about the Hyperball algorithm… For now, suffices to say that Diego will graduate with a thesis on the improvement of template fits to the top mass in the all-hadronic channel, using custom-made jet energy corrections. Next May 10th he will show his progress… Hopefully!
Apart from work, I have a dinner (to be followed by a poker) with old-time friends, set for next Thursday. And then on Saturday I will finally go and get the new telescope - it entails a trip to Colle Santa Lucia, where the thing is being built, and a trip back to Venice, where non-trivial transportation issues are to be solved.
Then next Monday I am leaving to Chicago for a week… Where, apart from the top mass talk and the usual stuff, I will have to play the playoffs of the Chicago Industrial Chess League. So I should prepare some new opening!! That, I think, will be what I will do on the plane, during those nine otherwise boring hours of flight.
