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A comment on Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst.

Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by jpdlla on Sunday May 18, 2014 @08:25AM (#7762846)
Pretty cool seeing this here. I recently met someone who works at the observatory here in the island in a Python user group meeting. I was intrigued by the kind of work he did over there with Python. But was instantly bummed out when he told me how their budget has been so dramatically cut during the past few years. There's some interesting things regarding budget, and one of the latest repairs that had to be done after an earthquake north from Puerto Rico damaged one of the suspension cables that support a 900 ton telescope platform here http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/0409-arecibo...
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by frik on Sunday May 18, 2014 @09:59AM (#7763077)
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

Btw. she put many awesome photos of the observatory on her flickr stream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/

some are categorized in albums:

* Flying over Arecibo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157642216845184/

* Sunday Platform Tour: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157633399446014/

* Arecibo Observatory: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157631700960474/

* The Platform After Dark: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157631824663769/

* Sunset from the Lidar Lab: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/sets/72157632834643572/

an old Sun Sparc workstation: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/8111297074/in/set-721576... and https://www.flickr.com/photos/sondy/13952717471/in/set-72157...

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by frik on Monday May 19, 2014 @01:01PM (#7768474)
I computed a 3D model of the Arecibo Observatory:

3D: http://s15.postimg.org/5czp6yi6j/are_04.jpg

point cloud: http://s21.postimg.org/3nvdz80vb/are_03.jpg

3D: http://s15.postimg.org/4lk04gwwb/are_06.jpg

point cloud: http://s23.postimg.org/4mrgn0daz/are_05.jpg

3D top: http://s30.postimg.org/6jfoha3fl/are_08.jpg

3D side: http://s30.postimg.org/3n6fm81r5/are_10.jpg

(based on Flying over Arecibo photos, see above)

a close-up 3D model: http://s2.postimg.org/4rblqbnwp/are_12.jpg

related point cloud: http://s2.postimg.org/pqdgt84i1/are_11.jpg

..based on 500 public photos, taken between 2000-2014 by tourists - sadly that means the receiver moved around. So if you can capture hundreds of photos please go and upload the photos on flickr.com

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by mturmon on Sunday May 18, 2014 @05:55PM (#7764576)
The NSF has supported Arecibo for decades now, along with a bunch of other observatories (http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/nato...). NSF has re-evaluated its commitment to these observatories and decided to pull out of several of them so they can pursue new observing opportunities, such as LSST (sky survey for transients) and ATST (solar telescope).

Some scientists are unhappy. The complaints I have heard are that these less-centralized telescopes allowed small investigations to get off the ground, and the new ones are large consortia.

For more: http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/08/major-u.s.-telescopes-fac...

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by peter_l_downs on Sunday May 18, 2014 @10:44PM (#7765401)
The LSST is an incredible project. I toured their lab at Brookhaven and one of the lead scientists offhand commented "Yeah, the only problem so far is we're going to have to make something flatter than anyone has ever really made something flat" (referring to the CCD array).
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by omegaworks on Sunday May 18, 2014 @12:18PM (#7763432)
> As the National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns Arecibo Observatory, cannot legally carry insurance on its facilities, there is no clear source of funding to carry out such a massive repair.

This seems so absurd. Why cant NSF facilities be insured?

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by lutorm on Sunday May 18, 2014 @12:24PM (#7763441)
AFAIK, doesn't the entire federal government self-insure?
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by maaku on Sunday May 18, 2014 @06:38PM (#7764695)
What does that mean? The government pays... itself? How is that different than no insurance?
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by prawn on Sunday May 18, 2014 @09:16PM (#7765186)
Presumably they set aside an amount of money based on risk factors and so on. No insurance would mean not having any preparation in place at all.
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by 3rd3 on Sunday May 18, 2014 @10:13AM (#7763113)
I cannot understand why these kind of projects lack funding. Is there no super rich person on this planet who is obsessed with the thought of extraterrestrial life?
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by melling on Sunday May 18, 2014 @10:52AM (#7763221)
I cannot understand why people keep turning to the super rich to solve problems.

There are 7 billion people on the planet. Isn't it time that the 1 billion of us who appear super rich to the other 6 billion, do little more?

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by 3rd3 on Sunday May 18, 2014 @12:10PM (#7763415)
I think you misunderstood what I said. I only facetiously pointed out that given these projects lack funding one could conclude that there is no super rich person on this planet which cares about extraterrestrial life (e.g. as a hobby).
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by melling on Sunday May 18, 2014 @02:05PM (#7763750)
I was simply trying to point out that "the rest of us" could try and contribute a little more to various goals rather than rely on the super rich. Most readers here are much better off than most other people on the planet.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a better way to contribute to "citizen science", for example?

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by ZenPro on Sunday May 18, 2014 @12:23PM (#7763440)
What else could they do with super-riches? shrug

Ultimately, as evidenced by history, most super-rich reach a stage of life where they realise the riches in themselves were just a way to keep score and large philanthropic contributions ensue.

It's a serious philosophical question; once [1] family financial security and [2]a high quality of life has been secured there is very little left to spend money on other than initiatives that benefit mankind or the natural world.

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by PavlovsCat on Sunday May 18, 2014 @01:58PM (#7763730)
Funnily enough, greed seems to occur more often in those who don't really need it anymore.

> once [1] family financial security and [2]a high quality of life has been secured

.. you stop focusing on accumulating more wealth - unless those aren't the real goals, and the driving force is something less wholesome. There are natural limits on the wealth a sane person can achieve, unless they inherit or get incredibly (un?)lucky, but numbers can keep rising long after they lost any connection to anything "real", and just like in gaming, people can get and stay stuck to that. And as long as they keep "winning", only the very best get a chance to pause and reflect.

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by deciplex on Monday May 19, 2014 @12:08AM (#7765661)
"Most"? Certainly "some" - most is debatable. I'd like to see some numbers. There is certainly no shortage of super-rich who hit that point and... just keep going, because for those types it was never about the money - it was about the power. And while more wealth might give diminishing returns, power really doesn't, yet remains directly proportional to wealth.

(For me, this is the best reason to tax the rich - it's not about revenues per se, rather it is about avoiding extremely dense accumulations of political power.)

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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by gtirloni on Sunday May 18, 2014 @12:55PM (#7763535)
While I totally agree with the call for more responsibility from the rest of us, the effort require to convince, coordinate and collect such money from 1 billion people would be extraordinary. Better to convince a few people that have already done the "cash aggregation" throughout their lives :)
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by thom on Sunday May 18, 2014 @04:07PM (#7764199)
Isn't this called 'tax'?
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Re:Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio B... by frik on Sunday May 18, 2014 @10:20AM (#7763132)
Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) is interested in SETI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array

  Overall Paul Allen has contributed more than $30 million to the project.
He may not know yet that Arecibo Observatory needs help though :/

Triva: he is also looking for a wife http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IM0SvIiMI4

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