davecl - Slashdot User

Submission + - Herschel Space Telescope releases First Light Data (wordpress.com)

Submitted by

davecl

on Friday July 10, 2009 @06:02AM

davecl writes: "First light images and spetctra have now been released for all three of the instruments on Herschel. The news is covered on the BBC, on the ESA website on the Herschel mission blog and elsewhere. The data all looks fantastic, and is especially impressive since the satellite was only launched about 7 weeks ago. I work on the SPIRE instrument and help maintain the blog but even I'm astounded by the amount of information in the SPIRE images!"

Comment Planck hath a blog and a twitter! (Score 3, Informative) 196

by davecl on Sunday July 05, 2009 @04:13AM (#28585093) Attached to: Planck Telescope Is Coolest Spacecraft Ever

For more information you can catch up with Planck on the mission blog on Planck's twitter, and on the Planck outreach website.

I help maintain the blog and work on both the Planck and Herschel missions.

Comment Re:Tuning (Score 1) 35

by davecl on Monday June 22, 2009 @10:28AM (#28421821) Attached to: First Light Images From Herschel Satellite Released

Bias settings for the detectors, calibration, temperatures for the various cooling elements... There's a whole lot of things that need to be sorted out in the commissioning and 'performance verification' phases, and this is what we're spending the time between now and the first full-scale science observations in mid-October.

Submission + - First Light Images from Herschel Satellite Release (wordpress.com)

Submitted by

davecl

on Friday June 19, 2009 @07:31AM

davecl writes: "The first images from the Herschel satellite have been released by ESA. The images are of the galaxy M51 and show a lot of structure and other features never seen before. Coverage of these results can be found on the ESA website and on the Herschel mission blog. There's a lot of work still to be done on tuning the satellite and instruments for optimum performance, but these very early results already show the promise of this mission. I work on this project and can say that these results are really impressive at this early stage!"

Submission + - Herschel space telescope opens for the first time (wordpress.com)

Submitted by

davecl

on Monday June 15, 2009 @12:55PM

davecl writes: "The Herschel space telescope, the largest ever launched into space, has opened its instrument cover allowing its three instruments to observe for the first time. BBC news has a story here while there is more coverage on the SPIRE instrument team website here and on the mission blog here. I'm part of the SPIRE instrument team and the excitement as we move towards our first observations is building fast. The PACS and SPIRE instruments will see first light in the next few days."

Submission + - ESA Selects Next Generation Space Missions (esa.int)

Submitted by

davecl

on Friday October 19, 2007 @12:11PM

davecl writes: "The European Space Agency has announced the results of its Cosmic Visions 2015-2025 call for proposals. Fifty space science missions for the next decade were proposed, with just seven selected. They range from X-ray and far-infrared observatories to planet finders and a near-earth asteroid sample return mission. These seven, together with the LISA gravitational wave observatory, will go ahead for further study in the next few years, and then two will be chosen for launch in 2015-2017."

Submission + - Enormous cosmic hole... (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25, 2007 @03:53PM

An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers have found an enormous void in space that measures nearly a billion light-years across.

Submission + - Microsoft Users Paralyzed by DRM Server Error (microsoft.com)

Submitted by

DECS

on Saturday August 25, 2007 @02:58PM

DECS writes: "One disadvantage to Microsoft's "Windows Genuine Advantage" DRM program — which forces Windows users to verify their software as "not-stolen" in order to receive certain patches and updates, including Internet Explorer 7 — is that Microsoft's WGA server is not as "highly reliable" as Microsoft likes to advertise.

When it goes down, as it has this weekend, users attempting to verify their copy of Windows are automatically branded as counterfeiters and their Windows software goes into a "reduced functionality mode."

Microsoft has posted a message asking users to try agin in four days, hoping that by Tuesday, the company will have the server back up. Until then, Windows users will be held under house arrest as suspected thieves.

"I'm sorry to inform you that the Windows Genuine server might be down for few days. I have escalate the issue to our Genuine team, kindly try to validate again on Tuesday 28 Aug 2007.""

Submission + - Interview: Mozilla talks cell phones and Safari

Submitted by Mathboss on Saturday August 25, 2007 @02:27PM

Mathboss writes: In a very interesting Podcast interview with CNet, Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, discusses how a mobile version of Firefox is unlikely to be made but there is a mobile project in the works codenamed 'joy', that lets you transfer information from your PC to your phone. He also hits back at Steve Jobs' claims that Safari will overtake Firefox, saying that Jobs' 'distortion field was operating at full power' when he made those claims. The interview is about 23 minutes into Podcast 47.

Submission + - Microsoft's WGA servers dead, fix days away

Submitted by Downgrade on Saturday August 25, 2007 @02:21PM

Downgrade writes: Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage system is offline, so users who are attempting to validate their installs are getting notices that their copies of Windows are not legit. The company is now saying that it is working to have a fix not later today, not tomorrow, but on Tuesday! Ars says that users who are hit by the outage should avoid rebooting their computers, because WGA failures will result in Aero being disabled. Way to punish your customers, Microsoft!

Submission + - John McCain is Too Old to be President (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Mike Kuykendall

on Saturday August 25, 2007 @11:36AM

Mike Kuykendall writes: "What would be the consequences of electing the oldest president in American history?"

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