I'm a science writer and editor. I work with clients in the observatory and planetarium community, as well as my own book, web, planetarium, and other projects.
Need a writer/editor? Visit my services page for my projects and availability.
Note: The ads you see below and at the bottom of this page are screened for content and many fine companies do appear here. Occasionally ads I don't want DO slip through, particularly for pseudo-science, st*r-naming, ID, and other questionable sites. Please understand that I cannot be held responsible for their content. Do visit them if you wish, but as with all advertising, be logical and use common sense.
So, all this astronomy I write about costs money to do. That isn't a surprise to anybody, I hope. Everything in life has some cost to it, whether in money, karma, time, personal involvement, or ethical reward. While it is true that you can walk outside, look up, and do astronomy at the very basic level, to do anything beyond that requires equipment and person-hours. And those cost money.
Amateur astronomy equipment can cost as little as the price of a book of star maps and a pair of 10x50 binoculars or run to many thousands of dollars or Euros or whatever units of money you use for a top-of-the-line home observatory. I always tell people to start small and let the love of astronomy guide them to whatever seems appropriate to spend.
Professional astronomy is a whole different ball game. No one person "owns" a big observatory like Yerkes or Anglo-Australian or Mt. Wilson or Gemini or Hubble Space Telescope or the Very Large Array. They're operated by consortiums of institutions based in a number of countries. It's about the only way that the enormous costs of running state-of-the-art astrophysical research facilities can be afforded. And the costs can be ... well... astronomical, running into multiple millions of dollars/Euros/etc. each year. The consortiums (and their countries) help pay the bills, and in return, each member of the consortium gets time on the instrument(s).
Recently the Gemini partnership was shaken when the United Kingdom announced it was pulling out to save money. I don't know all the politics that led to this decision, but it took UK astronomers by surprise. The result of that pullout would have denied UK astronomers access to a major Northern Hemisphere observatory, starting nearly immediately.
It made little sense, but in times of tightening budgets, I suppose that the science and technology committee in the UK that made this decision didn't see astronomy as being as important as other physics expenditures it wanted to make, or perhaps much less important than life sciences, for example. Nonetheless, it was a surprise to the partnership and a shock to the world's astronomy community.
Today the Royal Astronomical Society announced that the UK is in "constructive discussions" to continue UK involvement in the Gemini Partnership. President of the RAS, Dr. Michael Rowan-Robinson commented, "The UK has invested about 35 million pounds in the capital phase of the Gemini Observatories, in which we have a 23% stake. To pull out precipitately, as seemed to be happening, would have written this off to make a saving of 4 million pounds a year, at the expense of inflicting great damage to the UK's international reputation."
That is a lot of money to invest, and UK astronomers had every right to feel betrayed by their government's actions in the attempted pullout. Astronomy IS worth the money and the effort, and I suspect that UK scientists will need to make sure their collective voice is heard the next time somebody suggests "cost-saving" measures such as this one.
Well, another little travel break took me out to Gemini Observatory in Hawai'i for a few days of meetings. Then, back to California, where I finally had a chance to show my folks around the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
I like to work with observatories; have been doing it now for a few years. Most of the work I do is in public outreach, helping the astronomers get the message out about the work they do in their domes. Gemini has been a steady client since 2004, and Griffith hired me to write their exhibits in 2005-2006.
The work is endlessly fascinating. Just as an example, there's a press release out from Gemini Observatory about an odd little star that has a surprisingly active magnetic field. You can read more about it here. I started working on that press release in early autumn this year. The first step was to interview the scientist who headed the research team studying the star. We talked by phone a couple of times, and I did some background reading so that I could weave in some ideas about how stellar magnetic fields are generated. That way, we could make the case for why this star is so unusual.
The next step was to send the first draft of the press release to the folks at Gemini for their review, as well as to the scientist. It went through the review process, and the folks at Gemini then commissioned some space art to illustrate the star.
When I was in Hawai'i, I finished my part of the work, and from there it went to final review before today's publication date. That's a pretty typical creation/review process, and while I don't always write the press releases, I do get in on the review and editing process at some point. Along the way, I get to add to my store of astronomy knowledge, which is a constantly changing treasury.
Writing exhibits is quite a bit different; they reach out to a hugely wider audience than a press release, and each panel in an exhibit tells a story of its own. I was quite happy to show my folks and mother-in-law around Griffith, and was curious to see what they'd take away from what they saw. To my great delight, they got exactly what I'd hoped they'd get out of the visit, asking the questions we'd hoped to spur with our work. Plus, it was hugely satisfying to show off what amounts to the equivalent of a giant book spread out across tens of thousands of square feet of exhibit space!
TheSpacewriter, her folks, and Albert Einstein, at Griffith Observatory.
A Little Spring Break But Back in time for Astronomy Day
I took some time away from writing here to work on the next issue of GeminiFocus, the twice-a-year publication from Gemini Observatory. It's due at the printer in a week or two, and I've spent the past few weeks working on articles for it.
I've worked with Gemini Observatory for several years now, doing writing and editing in support of the public information office. Before that, the only contact I really had with the observatory was when I needed images for publications. One of my favorite Gemini images is a shot of the superbubble complex N44 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (some 160,000 light-years away).
This thing looks so cool; three-dimensional, spacey, colorful—all the things that make it aesthetically pleasing (to me, anyway). And, as always, I think I'm pretty lucky to be doing what I'm doing, all courtesy of astronomers who are out there checking out the universe and sharing it with the rest of us through beautiful telescope views like this one.
So, in honor of Astronomy Day, I'm going to go out Saturday night and check out the sky with my binoculars to see what I can find. It may not look as pretty or high-resolution as this image,but that's not the point of Astronomy Day. The point is to (as the cruise line commercials here in the U.S. say) get out there!!
That's what Astronomy Day is all about; getting out there and checking the sky out for yourself.
For those of you (family AND friends) who wonder what I do sometimes, this picture is where I spent some of my time the past few days. It's an image of wakes created by supersonic-speed "bullets" of gas boring through a starbirth region in the Orion Nebula. It was taken at Gemini Observatory North on Mauna Kea in Hawai'i, using a laser guide star-equipped adaptive optics system to help remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence. (You can read more about this sytem here.)
I do a lot of work with Gemini Observatory as a writer, and I am the associate editor for their twice-a-year GeminiFocus magazine. When their public affairs office sent me this image last week, I started immediately working on some language for a press release, along with Peter Michaud (their Public Affairs Officer). It was a whirlwind of activity, involving the two of us, several scientists interested in the Orion Nebula region, and Travis Rector (of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks), who did the major work on the image. We all went back and forth on the language over the weekend, and over the past two days, we went through several iterations of the language. Finally the directors of the observatory gave their blessing on the version you can see here.
For me, the project entailed doing a little bit of a literature search to see just when these "bullets" were first discovered (1983, defined in 1992), and then figuring out how much of the science background was relevant to put in the story. Peter and I swapped several versions via email and chat, then sent the story on to one of the scientists (Tom Geballe) for a sanity check. Another scientist, Michael Burton of the University of New South Wales in Australia, had done some work on the bullets a few years back, and his advice was also thrown into the mix. In addition, we had Gemini astronomer Scott Fisher and Jean-Rene Roy, Deputy Director and Head of Science, look it over as well. (It's always best to have as many eyes as possible look these things over before they go out.) By late yesterday (Wednesday, March 21), we had a version we could all live with. It went to the webmaster in Hilo, who posted the final version late last night.
It's a lot of fun to work with these stories "behind the scenes" and talk with the people who are doing the research in the areas the Gemini images cover. Hope you enjoy the image and story!
The sites below belong to space and astronomy enthusiasts. I make every effort to check them and make sure they are still appropriate. However, I am not responsible for their content, nor do I endorse any of it by simply linking to them. As with all Web surfing, please exercise caution.
Adot's Notblog A fellow traveler blogger and astronomy enthusiast!
Astronomy Blog An astronomy blog pondering the big questions
