Archive for July, 2023

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NAM Plenarius

Posted in Biographical, Cardiff, Harassment Bullying etc with tags , , , on July 5, 2023 by telescoper
Picture by Renée Hložek

Today I contributed to a Plenary session at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Cardiff, in the form of a a joint presentation by myself and the wonderful Dr Tana Joseph. It isn’t the first time that there’s been a talk about Equality Diversity and Inclusion at a NAM – there was one in 2017 – but it’s definitely the first one I have done. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but in the end I think it went pretty well.

The word “Plenary”, by the way, is derived from the Latin adjective plenarius (meaning complete) which is in turn derived from plenus (meaning full). I wasn’t sure ahead of the event how full the room would be, as I worried that some people wouldn’t attend this and might leave after the previous plenary talk. Some people did leave at the start, actually, but fortunately they were replaced by a a larger number of new arrivals.

There have been parallel sessions yesterday and the day before on EDI issues, but there’s a tendency for the people attending such sessions to those who are already engaged in related work, while it is important in my opinion for everyone to pay attention. That’s a point I tried to make during the session.

Tana and I agreed beforehand that we would try to stimulate a discussion and I did worry that we might not succeed in provoking questions, but in fact there were many. That, and the nice comments we got after the talk, convinced me that the session had gone well. I was, however, quite nervous as I haven’t given any kind of conference talk for some years now.

One problem was that a meeting of RAS Council was timetabled in such a way as to clash with this morning’s Plenary, so nobody on Council could attend. That was regrettable.

Anyway, that job done, I’m now back at my hotel getting myself ready for the conference dinner. That reminds me that last night I attended the out-of-town dinner of the RAS Club which is usually held at National Astronomy Meetings. This time it was at the Ivy Restaurant in Cardiff. I took my chequebook to pay for the dinner (which is practically the only thing I pay for by cheque) only to discover that they now accept card payments. Looking at the stubs, though, I realized that the last Club Dinner I attended at the Athenaeum in London was on 14th February 2020. The dinner after that was cancelled due to the pandemic, and I haven’t been able to attend any since then.

Update: dinner (in the Principality Stadium) was really excellent, and congratulations to all the award winners. And so to bed.

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Calling out Entitlement

Posted in Harassment Bullying etc, Science Politics with tags , , , on July 4, 2023 by telescoper

Looking around for topical material beyond Euclid to include in tomorrow’s plenary presentation at the National Astronomy Meeting in Cardiff in the session on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Astronomy and Geophysics I came across a story about Nobel Laureate Kurt Wüthrich.

Professor Kurt Wüthrich gave a talk at the Lindau Meeting last week during which he claimed there was anti-male discrimination in modern science. I have uncovered further relevant evidence. Here is a picture of four old white men from the same meeting being discriminated against by being forced to participate in a panel consisting entirely of old white men:

72nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Agora Talk „The Future of Structural Biology“

Setting aside Kurt Wüthrich’s ridiculously elevated sense of entitlement, the really serious issue is that it was a (female) early career researcher that called him out. One point that I want to make tomorrow is that those of us who are old white men have a vitally important role to play in calling out this sort of nonsense. More generally, whatever your scientific status it is important for you to ask yourself “what can I do to make the research environment as good as possible for people who are not like me?”.

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Opening the National Astronomy Meeting

Posted in Cardiff, Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on July 3, 2023 by telescoper

My first impressions of Cardiff after arriving yesterday is that a lot of things have changed. That sadly includes the fact that a number of my favourite places in the city centre have closed. On the other hand, some thing have improved. The Centre for Student Life, for example, is completely new since my days here and is a definite improvement on the previous dingy premises. It also just happens to be where the plenary sessions of the 2023 National Astronomy Meeting are being held:

Centre for Student Life
Mark Drakeford addresses the opening Plenary

The first plenary session of the week was opened by the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, who gave very a nice speech, in which he spoke very knowledgeably of the inspirational nature of astronomy as well as the history of the subject in Wales. It was a very impressive start to the week!

The Vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, Colin Riordan, was also there.

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To Cardiff

Posted in Biographical, Cardiff, The Universe and Stuff on July 2, 2023 by telescoper
Cardiff Castle

So I’m here in sunny Cardiff for the UK National Astronomy Meeting which is taking place here from tomorrow 3rd July until Friday 7th July. I’m here all week!

On my way here this morning, in Dublin Airport, I picked up a copy of the Sunday Times Ireland edition to find this:

Sunday Times Ireland 2/7/2023.

It’s not a bad piece except I’m uncomfortable about being in the same subheading as Elon Musk! More amusingly still, my piece is next to a story about how your sex life needn’t stop when you reach 50. I wish someone had told me that 10 years ago!

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Countdown to the Euclid Launch

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on July 1, 2023 by telescoper

Today’s the day! Weather permitting, of course, all eyes will be on Cape Canaveral for the launch of the Euclid satellite later this afternoon (as reckoned in Ireland). You can watch the launch on YouTube via the following stream (but it won’t start until 15.30 Irish Time; 16.30 CEST):

The Key Events to look for in local time are:

16:12 Euclid launch on SpaceX Falcon 9
16:53 Separation of Euclid from Falcon 9
16:57 Earliest expected time to establish communication with Euclid

After that, the mission is handed over to the ESA Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany as it sets out for the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. Approximately four weeks after launch, Euclid will enter in orbit around this point, which is located at 1.5 million km from Earth, in the opposite direction from the Sun. Once in orbit, mission operators will start verifying all the functions of the telescope. During this, residual water is outgassed, after which Euclid’s instruments will be turned on. Between one and three months after launch, Euclid will go through several calibrations and scientific performance tests and get ready for science. The telescope begins its early phase of the survey of the Universe three months after launch. There will be a preliminary release of a small amount of data in December 2024, but the first full data release – DR1 – will take about two years.

UPDATE: All critical stages of the launch passed satisfactorily, and contact has been established with the ground control. Euclid is now on its way to L2. Bon Voyage, Euclid!

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