AnnuAl RepoRt2011

HeAdquARteRs locAtion: Kamuela, Hawai’i, USA

MAnAgeMent: California Association for Research in Astronomy

pARtneR institutions: California Institute of Technology (CIT/Caltech), University of California (UC), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

obseRvAtoRy diRectoR: Taft E. Armandroff

deputy diRectoR: Hilton A. Lewis

contents

visionA world in which all humankind is inspired and united by the pursuit of knowledge of the infinite variety and richness of the Universe.

MissionTo advance the frontiers of astronomy and share our discoveries, inspiring the imagination of all.

Observatory Groundbreaking: 1985First light Keck I telescope: 1992First light Keck II telescope: 1996

Director’s Report . . . . . . . 3

Cosmic Visionaries . . . . . . 6

Science Highlights . . . . . . 8

Finances . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Philanthropic Support . . . .18

Reflections . . . . . . . . . . .20

Education & Outreach. . . .22

Honors & Recognition . . . .26

Science Bibliography . . . .28

on tHe coveR:Ace summit operations team members, from left: Arnold Matsuda, John Baldwin and Mike Dahler, focus their attention to removing a single segment from the Keck Telescope primary mirror in the first major step in the segment recoating process.

below:The newly commissioned Keck I Laser penetrates the night sky from the majestic landscape of Mauna Kea. The laser is part of Keck’s world leading adaptive optics systems, a technology used to remove the effects of turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere and provides unprecedented image clarity of cosmic targets near and distant.

Fy2011

Number of Full Time Employees: 115

Number of Observing Astronomers FY2011: 464

Number of Keck Science Investigations: 400

Number of Refereed Articles FY2011: 278

Fiscal Year begins October 1

Federal Identification Number: 95-3972799

diRectoR’s RepoRttaft e. Armandroff

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the W. M. Keck Observatory Annual Report for 2011. Keck Observatory (WMKO) operates twin 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes nightly on the excellent site of Mauna Kea, renowned for its extremely dark skies and superb image quality. The two telescopes feature a highly capable suite of advanced instrumentation. For the past 19 years, Keck Observatory has played a leading role in astronomy and astrophysics worldwide.

Four objective metrics demonstrate Keck Observatory’s scientific success:

1) In independent studies of observatory scientific productivity, we consistently rank highest in the number of papers per telescope per year of ground-based observatories. For example in fiscal year 2011, the two Keck telescopes produced 278 papers, or 139 papers per telescope. This dramatically exceeds all other U.S. facilities and also exceeds all other observatories worldwide.

2) In independent studies, we generate the highest total impact per telescope of ground-based observatories, taking into account not only the number of publications but also how often each publication is cited in subsequent research.

3) WMKO dominates the emerging field of laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) science. Three-quarters of all LGS AO papers worldwide from 2004 through 2011 are based on Keck data.

4) The large impact of the Keck telescopes on astronomy education is well illustrated by the 240 PhD theses produced using our data from 1994 to 2011.

diRectoR’s RepoRt

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A key component of our organization’s success has been the highly effective partnership between private and federal institutions that provide financial support, as well as the robust scientific collaboration between Keck Observatory and our partner universities (Caltech, the University of California, and the University of Hawaii) and the community of observers that participate through NASA and the National Science Foundation.

The theme for this year’s Annual Report is “The Year of the Supernovae.” The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess for their pioneering studies of supernovae at cosmological distances that demonstrated that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Keck Observatory played an essential role in this transformative research. A Nobel Prize recognizing research in astronomy and astrophysics is a very rare honor. In addition, the closest Type Ia supernova in forty years exploded in 2011 and was studied using the Keck II Telescope and our powerful adaptive optics system. Armed with this unique Keck dataset, astronomers have constrained theories for the physical mechanism that produces these cosmic lighthouses, so vital to probing the distant universe. Inside this report, we will reveal more about supernovae, the tools we use at Keck Observatory to probe them, and the driving spirit of our professional staff that makes this exciting research possible.

Keck Observatory made strong progress on technical achievements in 2011, particularly regarding two of our multi-year projects to develop new observing capabilities. The Multi Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration (MOSFIRE) and the next generation Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGS AO) system for the Keck I telescope neared full functionality. Both MOSFIRE and the new LGS AO system are scheduled for scientific use by the summer of 2012. Our observer community relishes the opportunity to apply these new tools to address major open questions in astronomy today.

There remains much important astronomy research to be done. Our Scientific Strategic Plan and a recent national decadal assessment of research priorities have highlighted the following key questions to be addressed in the coming decade, using both existing and planned instrumentation:

• How diverse are planetary systems?

• Do habitable worlds exist around other stars and can we identify the telltale signs of life on an exoplanet?

• What were the first objects to light up the universe and when did they do it?

• How do black holes grow, radiate and influence their surroundings?

• What is the fossil record of galaxy assembly and evolution from the first stars to the present?

Here Dr. Brian Schmidt delivers his Nobel lecture in Stockholm, Sweden in late 2011. Schmidt, along with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess, was honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for describing the accelerating expansion rate of the universe. Their pioneering research was based fundamentally on observations made with the Keck Observatory.

This graph reflects the science productivity of Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGS AO) and the dominance of Keck Observatory in this breakthrough field of astronomy research. Three quarters of all LGS AO papers worldwide from 2004 through 2011 are based on Keck data.

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• How does normal matter cycle in and out of galaxies and what does it do while it is there?

It is our intention to sustain Keck Observatory as one of the crown jewels of U.S. astronomy for the next ten years and well beyond. I strongly believe that we will maintain the Keck Observatory’s leadership in developing and deploying new instrumentation and adaptive optics systems to address new scientific challenges and to remain important discovery tools for the U.S. astronomy community. However, there is a shortage of funding to develop new instrumentation and AO systems. I am grateful for our philanthropic individuals and foundations, and federal agencies, for their support in initiatives that are on the leading edge and that meaningfully advance the priority research questions in astronomy today.

In closing, astronomy is tremendously rich with opportunities for discoveries which bring a deeper understanding of the mechanisms, history and future of the universe. I, the Keck Observatory staff, our Board of Directors, and our Science Steering Committee remain steadfast in our commitment to develop and operate the best tools on Earth to study the cosmos.

Keck Observatory staff, comprised of capable and committed scientists, engineers, technicians, and administrators, captured together in this photograph for the Annual Report taken at Waimea headquarters.

The community of Observatories on Mauna Kea, taken from Pu’u Poliahu. Mauna Kea, renowned for its extremely dark skies and dry and stable conditions, is considered the best site on Earth for viewing the faintest and most distant objects in the universe.

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cosMic visionARiescosMic visionARies

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w. M. Keck observatory board of directorsGeorge Blumenthal, ChairEdward Stolper, Vice-ChairMichael BolteTheodore J. Keck, liaisonShrinivas KulkarniMario Perez, liaisonThomas SoiferPeter Taylor

Keck observatory Advancement Advisory councilSanford Robertson, Chair, and Jeanne RobertsonClive Davies, Vice-Chair, and Carol DaviesTaft Armandroff, ex-officioMarc and Lynne BenioffMichael Bolte, ex-officioC. Wallace and Bobbie Jean HooserGary and Pam JaffeShrinivas Kulkarni, ex-officioArthur and Rita LevinsonGordon MooreJohn Cutler and Anne Barasch RyanRob and Terry RyanDoug and Deborah Troxel

Keck observatory science steering committeeChristopher Martin, Co-ChairJason X. Prochaska, Co-ChairCharles BeichmanMichael Bolte, ex-officioJudith CohenDale CruikshankRichard EllisAndrea GhezShrinivas Kulkarni, ex-officioMichael LiuGeoffrey MarcyMichael Murphy, non-voting memberJerry Nelson, ex-officioPieter van Dokkum, non-voting member

The governing Board of Keck Observatory consists of representatives from our founding partners, the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. In addition, NASA and the Keck Foundation each have liaisons to the Board. The Board and the Keck Observatory Director are advised by a Science Steering Committee, consisting of leading astronomers from our partner communities. Our Advancement program receives counsel from a volunteer leadership council whose members are committed supporters with considerable philanthropic expertise.

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science HigHligHts 2011The science of Keck Observatory spanned the cosmos yet again in 2011. From cold, dim nearby stars to baby exoplanets to vast pools of gas untouched since the Big Bang, the Keck Telescopes remain one of humanity’s foremost vehicles for venturing into the unknown frontiers of space. What follows is a sampling of some of the wonders revealed last year.

year of the supernovae

One of the closest supernovae in decades erupted on August 24, 2011 in the Pinwheel galaxy, a.k.a. M101. The study of supernova PTF11kly, as it was dubbed, took excellent advantage of the unique capabilities of Keck Observatory.

First on Earth to detect the exploding star was the automated Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey in California, on August 24, 2011. Next, the brightening point of light was observed by the Grand Canary Telescope in the Atlantic and the star’s light was split into the first information-rich spectrum.

Then, as the Earth turned and presented different telescopes to that part of the sky, the Lick Observatory in California got another spectrum of the exploding star, followed soon by a very high quality spectrum from the HIRES instrument on the Keck I Telescope in Hawai’i. Both Lick and Keck astronomers confirmed that the explosion was a Type Ia supernova.

“Nearby Type Ia’s are very rare,” said Brad Cenko of the University of California at Berkeley, who was among the astronomers scrambling to study the event.

Astronomers have long adored Type Ia supernovae because they seem to behave in a very predictable manner: brightening and reaching a well calibrated maximum luminosity before fading away. As a result, when they happen in very distant galaxies they are recognizable and can be used as “standard candles” to measure cosmic distances.

The importance of this kind of measuring stick was underscored in October 2011, when the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Keck astronomers who used supernovae as cosmic mile markers to discover that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate due to some kind of unknown force that is now known as “dark energy.”

“Type Ia supernovae underlie one of the most important astronomical discoveries in the last few decades,” Cenko said. “But we still don’t know what their progenitor systems are.”

Images of the Pinwheel Galaxy before the supernova began, and then for three nights after the explosion began, showing how it is brightening. The dates of the images are, left to right, Aug. 23, 24, 25 and 26, Universal Time.Credit: Palomar Transient Factory

science HigHligHts 2011

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It is generally believed that there are at least two stars involved in creating a Type Ia supernova. One star is most likely a white dwarf, a kind of dead star that was once a normal star like the Sun, but has since exhausted its nuclear fuel and is compressed under its own weight. The second star could be another white dwarf, a main sequence star (like the Sun), or a red giant star.

One way to find out which scenario is behind the Pinwheel galaxy supernova is to look at high-resolution images of the Pinwheel Galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope before the August 24 explosion and see if there was a star in the same location.

“Keck adaptive optics and Hubble are pretty well matched in terms of spatial resolution,” said Keck support astronomer Jim Lyke. “So we can do a direct comparison.”

So in addition to gathering spectra of the supernova, astronomers started on the night of August 25 to take pictures of the supernova with the NIRC2 instrument on the Keck II Telescope adaptive optics system. They also followed up with observations with the Keck I Telescope’s LRIS instrument.

As it turned out, studying Hubble images with Keck’s very precise sky coordinates turned up no visible progenitor star. But that’s still useful, Cenko said, because it puts important limits on how large the stars can be to create a Type Ia supernova. A big, bright red giant star has been ruled out, implying that either a pair of white dwarfs or a white dwarf and a modest main-sequence star are the source of these special supernovae.

degenerate dwarfs

A small section of the Subaru Deep Field image showing some of the galaxies and supernovae used in the study.Credit: NAOJ

Another important, but very different, piece of Keck Observatory science is also closing in on the origins of the universe’s standard candles. A survey of very distant Type Ia supernovae suggests that many, if not most, of these explosions result from two white dwarf stars merging and annihilating each other in a catastrophic thermonuclear blast.

Evidence of what is called the double-degenerate theory has been accumulating over the past few years. Previously, astronomers favored the single-degenerate model: the idea that Type Ia’s result from the explosion of a white dwarf grown too fat by feeding on its normal stellar companion.

“The main goal of this survey was to measure the statistics of a large population of supernovae at a very early time, to get a look at the possible star systems,” said Dovi Poznanski, one of the main authors of the paper and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We need two white dwarfs merging to explain what we are seeing.”

The new supernovae survey involved both Keck telescopes and the Subaru Telescope and was conducted by a team of American, Israeli and Japanese astronomers. It is the largest such survey to date, having accumulated a sample of 150 distant supernovae that exploded between 5 and 10 billion years ago.

The double white dwarf result, when combined with previous surveys of closer Type Ia supernovae, suggests that supernovae researchers may be seeing a mixture of single and double-degenerates.

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“The tide is definitely turning, and these are the best data yet to support the double-degenerate theory,” said coauthor Alex Filippenko, UC Berkeley professor of astronomy. “But as long as Type Ia’s explode in the same way, no matter what their origin, their intrinsic brightness should be the same and the distance calibrations would remain unchanged.”

In other words, this discovery does not alter the conclusion that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, Filippenko said.

Poznanski, Tel-Aviv University graduate student Or Graur, Filippenko and their colleagues reported their findings in the October 2011 issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The work involved both Keck’s LRIS and DEIMOS instruments.

darkest galaxy

In May 2011 astronomers announced they had confirmed that a troupe of about 1,000 small, dim stars just outside the Milky Way are, in fact, the darkest known galaxy.

By “dark” astronomers are not referring to how much light the galaxy, called Segue 1, emits. Instead, they are referring to the fact that the dwarf galaxy appears to have 3,400 times more mass than can be accounted for by its visible stars. In other words, Segue 1 is an enormous cloud of dark matter decorated with a sprinkling of stars.

The initial discovery of the “Darkest Galaxy” was made in 2009 by Marla Geha, a Yale University astronomer, Joshua Simon from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and their colleagues. This original claim was based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Keck II Telescope. Those observations indicated the stars were all moving together and were a diverse group, rather than simply a cluster of similar stars that had been ripped out of the nearby and more star-rich Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. A competing group of astronomers at Cambridge University were, however, not convinced.

So Geha, Simon and their group returned to Keck Observatory and went to work with the Keck II Telescope’s DEIMOS instrument to measure how the stars move not just in relation to the Milky Way, but also in relation to each other. If the 1,000 or so stars are the majority of Segue 1’s mass, with just a smidgeon of dark matter, the stars would all move at about the same speed, said Simon.

But the Keck data show they do not. Instead of moving at a steady 209 km/sec relative to the Sun, some of the Segue 1 stars are moving at rates as slow as 194 kilometers per second while others are going as fast as 224 kilometers per second.

“That tells you Segue 1 must have much more mass to accelerate the stars to those velocities,” Geha explained.

This is the portion of sky in which astronomers found the Segue 1 dwarf galaxy. Can you see it? Using the DEIMOS instrument on the Keck II telescope, astronomers could identify which stars were moving together as a group. They are circled here in green. By subtracting out all the other objects in the image and leaving the Segue I member stars, the “darkest galaxy” emerges.

Credit: Marla Geha

The mass required to cause the different star velocities seen in Segue 1 has been calculated at 600,000 solar masses. But there are only about 1,000 stars in Segue 1, and they are all stars close to the mass of our Sun, Simon said. Virtually all of the remainder of the mass must be dark matter. This discovery was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

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pristine gas

Perhaps the most subtle of all things discovered with the Keck Telescopes in 2011 were two clumps of primordial gas from the dawn of time, detected by the University of California Observatories’ Dr. Jason X. Prochaska and his team. Exactly how they found dark, cold, diffuse gas 12 billion light-years away from Earth is a story in itself.

“In this case we actually had to do a bit of a trick,” Prochaska explained. “We studied the gas in silhouette.” A more distant quasar provides the backlight for this. The quasar light shines through the gas and the elements in the gas absorb very specific wavelengths of light, which can only be found by splitting the light into very detailed spectra to reveal the dark lines of missing light.

In other words, “All of the analysis is on the light we didn’t get,” said astronomer Michele Fumagalli of U.C. Santa Cruz, a coauthor on the paper. The clouds absorb only a small fraction of the quasar light that makes it to Earth. “But the signatures of hydrogen absorption are obvious, so there’s no doubt there’s a lot of gas there.”

The gas clouds are too diffuse to form stars and show virtually no signs of containing any “metals,” which is astronomer-speak for all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium – the two simplest and lightest elements in the universe. In fact the only elements astronomers have detected in the clouds are hydrogen and its heavier isotope, deuterium.

The lack of metals strongly suggests that the gases are reservoirs of the pristine material left over from the Big Bang and have never been involved in any star making – which would lead to the creation of heavier elements. They are remnant gases unchanged since they were created in the first few minutes after the Big Bang.

“Despite decades of effort to find anything metal-free in the universe, Nature has previously set a limit to enrichment at no less than one-thousandth that found in the Sun,” said Prochaska. “These clouds are at least 10 times lower than that limit and are the most pristine gas discovered in our universe.”

“We’ve searched carefully for oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and silicon – the things that are found on Earth and the Sun in abundance,” Fumagalli said. “We don’t find a trace of anything other than hydrogen and deuterium.”

This research utilized the Keck HIRES instrument and earned a spot in the Physics World Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2011.

The two pristine gas clouds found by astronomers could sit in one of the filamentary regions visible around galaxies in these two images, which are from computer simulations.Credit: Simulation by Ceverino, Dekel & Primack

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Rain of exoplanets

Exoplanets are one of the most exciting and public areas of astronomical research today. In 2011 the hunt for exoplanets began to shift towards smaller and rockier worlds, with Earth-sized planets starting to come into view. The Kepler spacecraft and the Keck Telescopes have been running a relay race to find and confirm many of these new exoplanets.

Kepler was launched in March of 2009 as a NASA Discovery Mission designed to search for exoplanets. The spacecraft has an 84-megapixel camera which stares continuously at a field of 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. Kepler finds exoplanet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of stars caused by exoplanets crossing in front of, or “transiting” across the stars. Astronomers then turn to the Keck I Telescope’s powerful HIRES instrument to determine the mass of the exoplanet candidates.

This artist’s conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star’s habitable zone -- the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. The planet is 2.4 times the size of Earth, making it the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star like our sun. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

cuppa star

In March 2011, an entirely different kind of star was getting a lot of attention: a brown dwarf with about the same temperature as a fresh cup of coffee. It’s the coldest star ever found and begins crossing the blurry line between small cold stars and big hot planets.

Brown dwarfs are essentially failed stars: they lack the mass and gravity to trigger the nuclear reactions that make stars shine brightly.

The newly discovered brown dwarf, identified as CFBDSIR 1458+10B, is the smaller and dimmer member of a binary brown dwarf system located just 75 light-years from Earth. The pair was discovered by astronomers using Keck Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. The lesser dwarf has a temperature of 370 K, plus or minus 40 K. That translates into about 200 degrees F – close to the boiling point of water on Earth’s surface.

“At such temperatures, we expect the brown dwarf has properties that are unique from previously known brown dwarfs and much closer to cold exoplanets, such as the presence of water clouds in its atmosphere,” said Michael Liu of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. “In fact, once we start taking images of gas-giant planets around Sun-like stars in the near-future, I expect that many of them will look like CFBDSIR 1458+10B.”

The dwarf binary was resolved with Keck LGS Adaptive Optics imaging, and in fact can only be done with Keck LGS, given the difficulty of the measurement, Liu explained.

The dim glow of the binary brown dwarf system CFBDSIR 1458+10, as seen in the H-band (1.6 microns) by the Keck II Telescope’s powerful Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics system. Field of view is 1.5 x 1.1 arcseconds. CFBDSIR 1458+10B is the smaller, cooler partner of the pair.Credit: Michael Liu, et al. / W.M. Keck Observatory

The double dwarfs were confirmed as a linked pair by two measurements which showed the objects are moving together in orbit.

Liu and his colleagues are planning to continue observing CFBDSIR 1458+10B to better determine its properties and to begin mapping the binary’s orbit. For the latter, about a decade of monitoring should allow astronomers to even weigh the binary’s mass.

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In 2011, the Keck I HIRES instrument was used to establish the mass of a planet in the habitable zone around a star—that’s the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. The newly confirmed exoplanet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. About 2.4 times the radius of Earth, Kepler-22b and its parent star are located 600 light-years away.

“This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin,” said Kepler scientist Douglas Hudgins.

Scientists don’t yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like exoplanets.

exoplanet bounty

In late 2011, Caltech astronomers using the Keck II Telescope’s HIRES instrument and two other ground-based observatories announced the discovery and confirmation of a whopping 18 new, bona fide exoplanets.

“It’s the largest single announcement of planets in orbit around stars more massive than the Sun, aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler Mission,” says John Johnson, assistant professor of astronomy at Caltech and the first author on the team’s paper, which was published in the December 2011 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.

Using Keck Observatory—with follow-up observations using the McDonald and Fairborn observatories in Texas and Arizona, respectively—the researchers surveyed about 300 stars. They focused on those dubbed “retired” A-type stars, that are more than one-and-a-half times more massive than the Sun. These stars are just past the main stage of their life—hence, “retired”—and are now puffing up into what are called subgiant stars.

To look for planets, the astronomers searched for stars of this type that wobble and found 18 planets with masses similar to Jupiter’s.

An artist’s conception of Jupiter-like exoplanets orbiting close to their stars and detected by the Kepler telescope. The Keck telescopes are used to confirm the existence of these planets and gather more information about them. Credit: NASA

This new bounty marks a 50 percent increase in the number of known planets orbiting massive stars and, according to Johnson, provides an invaluable population of planetary systems for understanding how planets—and our own solar system—might form. The researchers say that the findings also lend further support to the theory that planets grow from seed particles that accumulate gas and dust in a disk surrounding a newborn star.

baby exoplanetPerhaps the most widely covered exoplanets discovery in 2011 was the first direct image of a planet in the process of forming around its star. This remarkable feat was accomplished by astronomers who combined the power of the 10-meter Keck Telescopes’ adaptive optics system and NIRC2 instrument with a bit of optical sleight of hand.

What astronomers are calling LkCa 15 b, looks like a hot “protoplanet” surrounded by a swath of cooler dust and gas, which is falling into the still-forming planet. Images have revealed that the planet sits inside a wide gap between the young parent star and an outer disk of dust.

“LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever found, about five times younger than the previous record holder,” said astronomer Adam Kraus of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. “This young gas giant is being built out of the dust and gas. In the past, you couldn’t measure this kind of phenomenon because it’s happening so close to the star. But, for the first time, we’ve been able to directly measure the planet itself as well as the dusty matter around it.”

Kraus presented the discovery in a research paper coauthored by Michael Ireland (of Macquarie University

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An expanded view of the central part of the cleared region around LkCa 15, showing a composite of two reconstructed images (blue: 2.1 microns; red: 3.7 microns) for LkCa 15. The location of the central star is also marked.Credit: Kraus & Ireland, 2011

Left: The transitional disk around the star LkCa 15. All of the light at this wavelength is emitted by cold dust in the disk. the hole in the center indicates an inner gap with radius of about 55 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Right: An expanded view of the central part of the cleared region, showing a composite of two reconstructed images (blue: 2.1 microns; red: 3.7 microns) for LkCa 15. The location of the central star is also marked. Credit: Kraus & Ireland 2011

Artist’s conception of the view near the planet LkCa 15 b. Credit: Karen L. Teramura, UH IfA

and the Australian Astronomical Observatory) in The Astrophysical Journal.

The optical sleight of hand used by the astronomers is to combine the power of Keck’s Adaptive Optics with a technique called aperture mask interferometry. The latter technique involves placing a small mask with several holes in the path of the light collected and concentrated by the giant telescopes. With that, the scientists can manipulate the light waves.

“It’s like we have an array of small mirrors,” said Kraus. “We can manipulate the light and cancel out distortions.” The technique allows the astronomers to cancel out the bright glare of stars and see the disks of dust around them. They can even see gaps in the dust where protoplanets may be hiding.

The discovery of LkCa 15 b began as a survey of 150 young dusty stars in star forming regions. That led to the more concentrated study of a dozen stars.

“LkCa 15 was only our second target, and we immediately knew we were seeing something new,” said Kraus. “We could see a faint point source near the star, so thinking it might be a Jupiter-like planet we went back a year later to get more data.”

In further investigations at varying wavelengths, the astronomers were intrigued to discover that the phenomenon was more complex than a single companion to the star.

“We realized we had uncovered a super Jupiter-sized gas planet, but that we could also measure the dust and gas surrounding it. We’d found a planet, perhaps even a future solar system at its very beginning” said Kraus.

Drs. Kraus and Ireland plan to continue their Keck Telescope observations of LkCa 15 and other nearby young stars in their efforts to construct a clearer picture of how planets and solar systems form.

Your workplace is truly a monument to the human spirit, to the depth of our desire to KNOW. That, more than anything else, distinguishes our species from all others. Maybe, someday, through efforts such as yours, we may know another. But whether or not we do, we might come to know the ancient beginning, and by this route, ourselves.

—Ivan Filippenko

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Keck Observatory was made possible by a generous grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation and today is a private, tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated to astronomical research and education. To keep its lead in research productivity and innovation, the Observatory ambitiously pursues federal funding opportunities and private philanthropy. Packaged together, these powerful public-private partnerships fund strategic advances in scientific instrumentation.

Through its original founding agreement between the academic partners, Caltech and the University of California, the Observatory is guaranteed a base of operating support annually through 2018. This operating support, which in 2011 was $12.6 million, covers day to day operations and modest maintenance costs for the summit and headquarters facilities. NASA, as a one-sixth partner in the Observatory since 1996, provided an additional $3.1 million for operations in 2011. New federal grants totaling $2.9 million were awarded in 2011 and private benefactors contributed $546,045 in charitable gifts and pledges to fuel discovery. The total budget for the Keck Observatory in 2012 is $22.2 million. Audited financial statements are available upon request or directly from the Observatory’s website.

the supernovae society of Keck observatory

A common bond that unites all of humanity is our fascination and awe of the night sky. Polynesian navigators looked to the stars for direction as they sailed the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Galileo sparked the tradition of using a telescope to observe the heavens for understanding the mechanisms of great things. Today’s astronomers continue this tradition of exploration to explain the nature of the cosmos, our ultimate origins and our fate.

Supernovae are giant stars that die by exploding in a massive outpouring of light. Launched in 2011, the Supernovae Society of Keck Observatory honors individuals who have chosen to support the frontiers of discovery by including the Keck Observatory in their estate plans. Society members have matched their vision of how they wish to better the world with the strategic ambitions of a great scientific organization, thus ensuring exceptional achievement will shine brightly long and far into the future.

For information on becoming a member of the Keck Observatory Supernovae Society please contact Debbie Goodwin at 808.881.3814.

FinAnces: KecK MAtteRsFinAnces: KecK MAtteRs

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top: Advisory Council member Gary Jaffe welcomes guests to his front row seats for a presentation by Keck astronomer and Cal Professor Geoffrey Marcy sharing the very latest in exoplanet research.

bottoM: Friends of Keck Observatory enjoy a star-filled evening, Exploring New Worlds, at Jaffe Estate Winery in St. Helena.

Epicurus stated that understanding the constitutive elements and universal laws of the ‘natural order’ is one of life’s deepest pleasures. Today to be found on the premier place on the planet for astronomy and associated with the most productive and sophisticated Observatory on Earth is to be mesmerized by its cutting edge technologies and rapid advances in knowledge. Oh such astonishment and joy is available to us all as Friends of Keck Observatory.

Jack Toigo

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universal benefactors$100,000+Mt. Cuba Astronomical FoundationRob and Terry Ryan FoundationTerry and Rob Ryan

cosmic contributors $10,000 - $99,999Lynne and Marc BenioffPolly and Thomas BredtLynn A. BoothCarol and Clive DaviesHeidi Hopper and Jeff DeanSusan and Michael DellThe Fairmont Orchid HawaiiHopper-Dean FoundationHualalai Investors LLCHualalai ResortJaffe Estate WinesPam and Gary JaffeCarlton A. LaneRita and Arthur LevinsonJeanne and Sanford RobertsonAnne Barasch and John Cutler RyanGail and Michael Yanney

stellar Associates $3,000 - $9,999William BloomfieldNathalie and David CowanSharlee and Peter EisingCarl FeinbergAmy and Morton FriedkinLaurie and Jack GoldsteinCarmen and John GottschalkPam and David HakmanSylvia and Karl HessMarybee and James JohnstonW. M. Keck FoundationT.J. KeckBarbara and James LagoYen Yee and Paul LocklinThe Merck Company FoundationMr. and Mrs. Mark J. RobinsonAkemi and Henk RogersJanet and Stephen RogersMichael Sack and John SaulCharles Simonyi Fund for Arts and SciencesLisa Persdotter and Charles SimonyiLois and Bob SteeleLon UsseryChester Woodruff Foundation

planetary Associates$1,500 - $2,999Liz and Taft ArmandroffPatricia and Richard BaderDoris and Earl BakkenThomas BlackburnRosalind and Stephen ButterfieldEve Bernstein and Alex GersznowiczNaomi Kahumoku-AhunaLinda and Doug LantermanSuzanne Hill and Mike LuceSandee and Dale Sebring

public Funding sources in 2011Association of Universities for Research in AstronomyJet Propulsion Laboratory

National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNational Science Foundation

University of California

The W. M. Keck Observatory gratefully acknowledges these 2011 patrons for their generosity and commitment to advancing humanity’s understanding of the universe.

pHilAntHRopic suppoRtFrom October 1, 2010 – September 30, 2011

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More Friends of Keck observatoryAmeriprise FinancialAlbert BeemanMaribeth BenhamPatt E. Solorzano and Robbie P. BlairDiana and Andrew BonniciElizabeth W. BoursAnn and John BroadbentMarjorie Helme-Brother and James BrotherPeggy and Bill CameronDiana and Fred ChaffeeZora and Les CharlesCheeryble FoundationLinda and James CliffordGinny and Hal CoggerCon Amor FoundationLinda Copman and FamilyDiane and James CowlesSue and Richard DekanyMustafa DiriltenPaul A. DolinskyMarilyn and John DougeryLaurie and Christopher DowneyBrad ElliottSusan and Robert FischellDebbie Goodwin and James FritzPeggy and Peter GeorgasBernard S. GoffeMary Ann and David GrafftJoanne and Jon HarmelinConnie and Kenneth HessJames W. HigginsonSue and Dick HumphriesSusan and Peter JobsValerie Gordon Johnson and Doug JohnsonCynthia Roher and Thomas KappCarolyn KauffmanMarsha and Tom KerleyCheryl and Mike KesslerAnn and Paul KoehlerGregory A. KoesteringThe Kohala CenterElizabeth and Ron LaubPhoebe Kwan and Ralph LeightonTomoe and Ira LeitelSue and Dick LevySharon and Joe LevyNatalie Young and Richard LiebmannClifford P. LivermoreEliot LongMarlene and Sandy LouchheimUdayan MallikDr. Geoffrey MarcyJanet Marott

Jane Sherwood and Robert K. MasudaCalli and Robert McCawSamuel McClung, Sr.Samuel and Mary Ann McClungPatricia Dilworth and Bruce MillerElizabeth MoffittMichael MolitorisJan and Frank MorganMilly and Mac MorrisPatricia and David MrazekLilian and D.B. MurrayJocelyn and Jerry NelsonNeurological Society of AmericaEugene NickelDona and Gary NovackLee and William OtisHannah and Lyle PackardPackard Research FoundationMary and Carl PannutiKatherine and Dennis ParsonsNancy and Riley PleasRiley & Nancy Pleas Family FoundationQuevin, LLCMarc RafelskiKatherine Loo and Jim RaughtonR. Michael RichGretchen and Richard ScheumannJoan and Richard SchleicherBarbara and Thomas SchmidtVicki SerianniJanet and Dennis ShannonShannon Family TrustMary and Jas SinghPatricia A. SmallSoftub Inc.Mary Anna and Tom SoiferSolar Enterprises LLCAlice and Edward StonePriscilla StudholmeMargie and Dennis SullivanSwallows Inn Foundation Taube Family FoundationCoralyn and Peter TaylorAngie and Tom ThornburyEllen and Jack ToigoJudi and Joe WagnerParry and Chad WalterJanice and Steve WebbValerie Kim and Gerald WeldonDeborah and John WinterBarbara and Ron WintersDr. Marcia Wishnick and Mr. Stanley WishnickAngela and Mark Wolfenberger

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ReFlections

I joined the Keck Observatory in 1986 as a young telescope engineer, in the days when it was all just paper – an incomplete set of ideas, designs and prototypes. In the intervening years I have been privileged to work as part of a small team of extraordinarily creative scientists and engineers as we turned those ideas into this marvelous facility. And I have been fortunate indeed to work with and lead some of the most skilled and dedicated people anywhere, as they breathed life into the machine and nurtured it into reality.

When I look back at over 25 years at the Keck Observatory, I am struck by how simple the fundamental ideas are that led to its prominence and yet how challenging it was to turn those ideas into the remarkable organization that is this great observatory today.

Keck started out with two very simple notions: make the world’s largest aperture telescope using a hexagonally tiled primary mirror, and build it fast. Almost everything about Keck today flows from these two decisions. The segmented primary mirror is well known now and is the basis for the largest proposed telescopes on the ground and in space. At the time however, it represented a huge gamble, crucially dependent on new techniques for figuring the mirrors, measuring their relative positions and controlling them – something only made possible by the advent of low-cost computing in the 1980s.

The other innovation: build it fast and get it into the hands of astronomers quickly.

Hilton lewis, deputy director

ReFlections

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on 25 years at Keck observatory

This principle required a razor sharp focus on what was truly essential, the resolve to get things done and the determination to keep costs under control. We had the funds, we had the ideas, we moved forward. Keck was designed and built in 7 years by a very small staff – and groundbreaking science immediately and continuously followed. Recognizing this success, the Keck Foundation immediately granted funds for the second telescope – a far-sighted move based on their faith in the team to deliver the goods.

Of course, this approach had its downside: systems were designed to meet the essentials of what they must do and no more; nice-to-have features were discarded along the way (for example, we have no mirror cover, long a standard on telescopes), and some systems were fully completed only after they were already in service. It may surprise you to learn that Keck is decidedly not a gold-plated machine, though we do use gold on our segment sensors!

The determination to build something of lasting value, quickly, with a small staff and to get a robust capability into the hands of the users defines the Keck Way. You won’t see it written down anywhere, but our unofficial mission statement is “Get There First.” We are impatient to get things done, and we strive to stay focused on what really matters. Our staff has a tremendous can-do attitude, and will go to extraordinary lengths whether to build some revolutionary new capability or to save a night’s observing.

Delivering systems at Keck is all about smart engineering, and knowing when to say “enough.” As one saying goes, “an engineer is someone who can do with a dollar what any damn fool can do with ten.” In a world driven by rapid technological innovation, the perfectly engineered machine is obsolete before it is finished. On the flip side, delivering a lab experiment to the observatory would be a disaster: astronomers need to be able to do science with the telescope and its instruments – and doing science means being able to focus on astronomy, not debugging hardware and software. This balance between performance, reliability, usability and cost is incredibly fine tuned in a successful observatory. Get it wrong and you waste millions of dollars and years of effort. But get it right, and you will have built something transcendent, something that can unlock the

secrets of the cosmos. Sometimes we fail – that’s the risk of pioneering - but more often we get it right.

There is one more facet to the Keck Way and that is the spirit of the people who work here. Building the machine is only one of the two vital parts; the other is to provide unsurpassed service to our astronomers in operating it. We treat every night as a priceless commodity. For although the stars will shine again tomorrow, tonight’s astronomer may only get this one shot, and to her it is the most precious research instrument in the world. As an engineer I have had the opportunity and tremendous satisfaction of working on the hardest problems, side by side with the smartest people. But as a leader of the observatory, what I have valued most has been the chance to shape our entire team to foster this spirit and realize the vision that is Keck Observatory.

As I look forward to the next 25 years, I see a very different set of circumstances than those that confronted us at the start. Funding for science is under huge pressure now, and there are other new and exciting facilities planned for the next decade. But I am confident that Keck will continue to play a leading role in astronomy. Today we are the largest and most powerful set of telescopes; in a decade we will be the platform for innovation in adaptive optics and instrumentation, continuing our tradition of groundbreaking science. For the processes and people that make up the Keck Observatory will continue to provide something of lasting value to our community and to the world far into the future.

FAcing pAge: The reflection of Optical Systems Scientist Olivier Martin is shown in the close up of the Keck I center launch telescope assembly he is working on to complete commissioning of this next generation LGS AO system.

Above: Deputy Director Hilton Lewis celebrated multiple milestones in 2011. Not only did he reach his 25th anniversary as an employee of the Keck Observatory, he also completed his MBA at the Shidler College of Business, which recognized him as Outstanding MBA in Technology. At Keck, Lewis was the first to make the 25th year staff milestone.

below: Keck Observatory’s ace operations team take all the necessary precautions to safely handle transport of the Keck II secondary mirror, a vital component of the largest and most powerful set of telescopes on Earth.

on 25 years at Keck observatory

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educAtion & outReAcH

inspiring young Minds Sharing the wonders of the universe near and far took a giant step forward in 2011. On the island of Hawai’i, hundreds of school children visited Keck Observatory headquarters, dozens of college students and high school seniors visited the telescopes themselves, and thousands participated in online webcast events and social media.

The largest group of young people to visit was the entire student population of Pa’auilo Elementary School. Teacher Bob Barretto organized the field trip that included 150 students from kindergarten to fifth grade. Each student was able to participate in three age-appropriate science activities including Play-Dough Planets, Kinesthetic Solar System, Phases of the Moon and Seeing Spectrums.

“Our students at Pa’auilo Elementary School had a transformative educational experience at Keck Observatory,” Barretto said. “They were truly fascinated to video-conference with astronomers and engineers inside the buildings on top of the mountain, and they were happy to get to know the other astronomers at Keck as real people. It’s important for our young learners to know that if they continue to shoot for the stars in math and science, that someday they, too, can view the universe from atop Mauna Kea.”

The next largest group of visitors wasn’t a single group at all, but some 200 people who came in the form of scores of local families to take part in the 3rd Annual Waimea Solar System Walk. Keck Observatory had the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter and Saturn all lined up, to scale, within its property. The rest of the solar system, stretched all the way to the headquarters of Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, about one kilometer away.

Another first was a visit by 24 students from a school in Tokyo, Japan. The 10th and 11th graders took part in a Black Box activity, which was facilitated by Keck Student Interns Christina Balkaran and Mariko Thorbecke.

There were also school visits from, and astronomer visits to, the following schools: Hawaii Community College, Hawaii Montessori, Hawaii Preparatory Academy, Parker School, Hualalai Academy, Laupahoehoe High School, Haaheo

Above & below: Students of Pa’auilo Elementary School express their enthusiasm and gratitude for their special day of learning at Keck Observatory headquarters in Waimea.

educAtion & outReAcH

FAcing pAge: Keck Observatory Support Astronomer Marc Kassis introduces the Sun to scores of local families who took part in the 3rd Annual Waimea Solar System Walk.

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Elementary, Kohala Mission School, Jefferson County Schools (Colorado), Kealakehe High School, University of Hawaii, Waimea Elementary, and Waimea Country School.

Many Keck Observatory engineers are also passionate about education and give generously of their expertise to help inspire young minds.

“Keck engineers have been involved in youth engineering competitions since 2001 including: FIRST robotics, Botball, underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles, and the HELCO electric car competition,” said Keck software engineer Al Honey, who has been involved in all aspects of Keck outreach for many years. The robotics season of 2011 was no different, with more than two dozen Keck engineers involved in Big Island Regional Robotics, according to Honey.

Keck Observatory continued its successful partnership with the Akamai Internship Program hosting Sean Jones, an engineering student from the University of Hawaii. In 2011 an Akamai alumni survey reported that 19 out of 24 students who had participated as Keck interns since 2003 in the summer college program had continued on a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEP) career pathway.

Keck staff also participated in the annual AstroDay fair with a booth at the Prince Kuhio Mall in Hilo. Children were encouraged to compose a space haiku and enter it into a contest to win subscriptions to age-appropriate science magazines. Here are some winning entries:

A connect-the-dots

Activity far away

In the midnight sky

—Leo Tanaka-Lee, age 14,(Winner of a subscription to Astronomy magazine)

The Moon is so bright

The stars are twinkling

Makes me smile so much

—Micah Timbresa, age 6 (winner of Click magazine subscription)

Stars shine bright at night.

They show me directions too.

I can follow it.

—Kameanani Miyasaki, age 8 (winner of Ask magazine subscription)

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in the communityThe Keck Observatory visitor center volunteer Guidestar program had its best year yet in 2011. Guidestars are volunteer docents who staff the visitor center from 10 am to 2 pm on weekdays. They do a wonderful job explaining the observatory to visitors, answering questions, and selling Keck Wear merchandise. In 2011 Guidestars served as the face of Keck Observatory for 2,245 visitors and sold more than $37,000 in merchandise – the profits from which are used to support the development of new science instruments for the Keck telescopes.

In addition to our scientific mission, Keck Observatory’s work culture embraces community service. All staff members are encouraged to give two percent of their time to support other non-profits. A wide variety of organizations, including the American Cancer Society and Hawaii Island United Way, benefit from the time and talents of Keck employees.

Many Keck Observatory employees give back through the Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life fundraiser. In 2011, we joined forces with Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope’s volunteers to create the new “Astro Paniolo” Relay for Life team. The combined effort raised $7,700 and pushed the team to achieve the Platinum category. The entire Waimea area Relay for Life raised over $36,000.

In 2011, Keck employee donations to Hawaii Island United Way (HIUW) reached $8,695, making it the leading astronomy institution on the island for contributions. The mission of HIUW is to unite people, organizations and resources to build a healthier community. In 2011 HIUW funded 45 programs on the island for 38 different health and human service agencies. Keck Observatory has been participating for a decade in the HIUW payroll deduction program, making it easy for Keck employees to give a little out of each paycheck.

top: In 2011, the Kahilu Theatre became the permanent venue for the Keck Observatory’s Public Astronomy Talks, all of which were webcast and are now archived on www.keckobservatory.org. Above: Keck Observatory’s docents, known as Guidestars, present visitors with a personal connection to astronomy in Hawai’i and offer multiple ways to support the frontiers of discovery. bottoM: Hawaii Preparatory Academy students Phong Hoang and Mariko Thorbecke get hands-on experience in internet communications tools by helping webcast Keck astronomer presentations to the world.

Astronomy talks go global In 2011 the Keck Observatory Public Astronomy Talks moved a quarter mile, but broke through into entirely new and larger audience. Since their inception, the talks have been given in the 120-seat Hualalai Learning Theatre at Keck Observatory headquarters. But in early 2011 it became clear that the venue was not keeping up with the growing audience. So on September 15, 2011, Keck offered an astronomer at the 490-seat Kahilu Theatre as part of the theater’s free Makana Series. The inaugural lecture was given by Caltech Professor of Planetary Astronomy Mike Brown. It was entitled “How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming.” The capacity crowd for Brown’s talk was joined by scores of live online viewers. A video of the lecture was soon made available via the Keck Observatory website that has since been viewed more than 500 times.

Whereas in 2010 a Keck Astronomy Lecture might have reached 120 people, plus a few dozen via an online recorded audio podcast, Brown’s single lecture has been viewed by approximately 1,000 people in all. In other words, the new venue and webcasting has made it possible for more people to watch a single lecture than the cumulative lecture audiences of the entire 2010 season. All Keck Astronomy talks are archived on the Observatory’s website for learners down the street and around the world.

Helping to grow our webcast audience are Keck Observatory’s new outreach partners, The Planetary Society and The

The 2011 Solar System Walk featured displays and educational activities for the Sun and its cosmic family, all located at distances to scale along a one kilometer path between Keck Observatory and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope headquarters in Waimea.

Astronomical League. Both of these organizations alert their members of Keck webcasts and then stream the content live via their own websites.

By far the most successful online event of the year which tapped these partners was a webcast of asteroid YU55 as it was departing its close flyby of Earth the night of Nov. 8, 2011. The observing run of the event was streamed live over the Internet from the Keck II Telescope Remote Operations room. The live audience for the five-hour event was 6,600 people. At the helm of the 10-meter telescope and using Keck’s pioneering adaptive optics to view YU55 were asteroid investigators William Merline and Peter Tamblyn of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder; and Chris Neyman of Keck Observatory. Providing a live play-by-play of the flyby were Keck Electronics Engineer Andrew Cooper and Communications Officer Larry O’Hanlon.

Webcasts aren’t the only way Keck Observatory is reaching thousands of people at once. The Keck Nation virtual community has continued growing steadily. At the end of 2011 it had reached over 6,500 individual addresses. The Keck Observatory Facebook page reached nearly 2,300 “likes” and the observatory embraced a Twitter following of almost 1,500 (between two Keck-related Twitter accounts: @KeckObservatory and @Earth2larryo). Most of these different online venues have unique audiences from around the world, with minimal overlap. Together they make up a Keck Observatory online community of more than 10,000 people.

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HonoRs & RecognitionHonoRs & RecognitionAlma Mater Honors blumenthalKeck Observatory Board of Directors Chair and U.C. Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in astrophysics and leadership in higher education from his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). Blumenthal, who earned a B.S. in physics from UWM in 1966, was also the keynote speaker during UWM's morning commencement ceremony in May, 2011.

Blumenthal is a distinguished theoretical astrophysicist and seasoned academic administrator. He is the co-author of one of the leading astronomy textbooks, 21st Century Astronomy. His work led the way in developing the “cold dark matter theory” of galaxy formation, which has over the last 20 years become the standard paradigm for how structure forms in the universe.

stolper inducted in great britain’s Royal societyEdward Stolper, Provost of Caltech, Vice-Chair of the Observatory Board of Directors, and William E. Leonard Professor of Geology, was named a Foreign Member of Great Britain's Royal Society in 2011. The Society cited Stolper for his "experimental and theoretical work on melting and igneous processes on the Earth, Mars, and asteroids."

Membership in the Royal Society is bestowed each year on a small number of the world's scientists. The Royal Society was established in 1660 under the patronage of King Charles II for the purpose of "improving natural knowledge." Today, the Society seeks to promote science leaders who champion innovation for the benefit of humanity and the planet.

A member of Caltech’s faculty since 1979, Stolper served as Chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences from 1994-2004. He was interim Provost in 2004, and in 2007 he was named Provost, the chief academic officer of the prestigious research Institute and founding partner of the Keck Observatory.

decade since First Fringes for Keck interferometer

On March 12, 2011, the Keck Observatory Interferometer celebrated 10 years in operation. Considered by many to be one of the most complicated instruments in the world, the Interferometer has been used for a range important science programs. Peer-reviewed science results include observations of disks around young stars which may be in the process of forming planets, and measurements of the massive disks of gas and dust surrounding the black holes at the center of several nearby galaxies.

In 2011, the Keck Interferometer Nuller Team and collaborators published observational results from a group of key projects to study emissions from faint dust clouds around other stars. These dust clouds reflect light and give off heat, and so interfere with the search for planets. The Interferometer observations are several times more sensitive than previous searches.

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laub two for 22On August 1, 2011, Ron Laub celebrated a unique milestone. He reached the 22-year mark for his service at Keck Observatory, matching his previous 22-year tenure at Lick Observatory in California. At the Mt. Hamilton facility he was in charge of telescope operations and later became its superintendent. At Keck Observatory, Laub was Facility Manager from 1989 to 2003 and played an important role in the building of the summit facility. He served as Safety Officer from 2003 until he retired in 2004. Since then he has continued to work part-time as host for VIPs and film crews visiting the Keck telescopes, playing an important role in the Observatory’s public and media relations.

Keck observatory class of 2011

Keck Observatory welcomed a talented and enthusiastic number of professionals to its team during its 2011 fiscal year. Pictured standing (left to right) Lawrence (Larry) O’Hanlon, Shawn Callahan, Damon (Paul) Blaicher, seated (left to right) Gregory Doppmann, Noelani Nitz, Luca Rizzi, John (Sky) Hudek, and Deborah (Deb) Stednick.

Not pictured: Rodney Eisenhour, William (Bill) Healy, Joseph Mastromarino, Steven Milner, James (Pete) Tucker, and Keith Wages.

A tribute to the MountainBarbara Schaefer’s exquisite photography exhibit “Honoring Mauna Kea” in the Keck Observatory Hualalai Learning Theater is the fruit of a 32-year relationship with Mauna Kea. Schaefer is Keck’s observing support coordinator and has been involved with the telescopes almost since their conception as a revolutionary scientific undertaking.

In the program guide for the exhibit she writes, “I have indeed been fortunate to experience special times, places and sights on the mountain, to know people willing to share their knowledge and stories of this sacred place. With this collection of images I honor Mauna Kea and the spirits who abide there.”

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science bibliogRApHyscience bibliogRApHy

A&A: Astronomy and Astrophysics

AJ: Astronomical Journal

ApJ: Astrophysical Journal

ApJl: Astrophysical Journal Letters

ApJs: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

Ap&ss: Astrophysics and Space Science

icarus

JgRe: Journal of Geophysical Research

MnRAs: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

nature

pAsJ: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

pAsp: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

science

Key to Publications:

REFEREED PUBLICATIONS FY2011

Akeson, R.; Millan-Gabet, R.; Ciardi, D.; et al. Radial Structure in the TW Hya Circumstellar Disk ApJ 728 96 2011 February

Albrecht, S.; Winn, J.; Johnson, J.; et al. Two Upper Limits on the Rossiter-Mclaughlin Effect, with Differing Implications: WASP-1 has a High Obliquity and WASP-2 is Indeterminate ApJ 738 50 2011 September

Arnold, J.; Romanowsky, A.; Brodie, J.; et al. The Fossil Record of Two-phase Galaxy Assembly: Kinematics and Metallicities in the Nearest S0 Galaxy ApJ 736 L26 2011 August

Artigau, É.; Lafrenière, D.; Doyon, R.; et al. Discovery of Two L and T Binaries with Wide Separations and Peculiar Photometric Properties ApJ 739 48 2011 September

Auger, M.; Treu, T.; Brewer, B.; Marshall, P. A compact early-type galaxy at z= 0.6 under a magnifying lens: evidence for inside-out growth MNRAS 411 L6 2011 February

Bailes, M.; Bates, S.; Bhalerao, V.; et al. Transformation of a Star into a Planet in a Millisecond Pulsar Binary Science 333 1717 2011 September

Barman, T.; Macintosh, B.; Konopacky, Q.; Marois, C. Clouds and Chemistry in the Atmosphere of Extrasolar Planet HR8799b ApJ 733 65 2011 May

Batalha, N.; Borucki, W.; Bryson, S.; et al. Kepler’s First Rocky Planet: Kepler-10b ApJ 729 27 2011 March

Becker, G.; Bolton, J.; Haehnelt, M.; Sargent, W. Detection of Extended He II Reionization in the Temperature Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium MNRAS 410 1096 2011 January

Becker, G.; Sargent, W.; Rauch, M.; Calverley, A. High-redshift Metals. II. Probing Reionization Galaxies with Low-ionization Absorption Lines at Redshift Six ApJ 735 93 2011 July

Béky, B.; Bakos, G.; Hartman, J.; et al. HAT-P-27b: A hot Jupiter transiting a G star on a 3 day orbit ApJ 734 109 2011 June

Bennert, V.; Auger, M.; Treu, T.; et al. A Local Baseline of the Black Hole Mass Scaling Relations for Active Galaxies. I. Methodology and Results of Pilot Study ApJ 726 59 2011 January

Bensby, T.; Adén, D.; Meléndez, J.; et al. Chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge as traced by microlensed dwarf and subgiant stars. IV. Two bulge populations A&A 533 A134 2011 September

Bhalerao, V.; Kulkarni, S. The White Dwarf Companion of a 2 Msun Neutron Star ApJ 737 L1 2011 August

Bielby, R.; Shanks, T.; Weilbacher, P.; et al. The VLT LBG Redshift Survey - I. Clustering and dynamics of ~1000 galaxies at z~3 MNRAS 414 2 2011 June

Biller, B.; Allers, K.; Liu, M.; et al. A Keck LGS AO Search for Brown Dwarf and Planetary Mass Companions to Upper Scorpius Brown Dwarfs ApJ 730 39 2011 March

Blake, C.; Charbonneau, D.; White, R. The NIRSPEC Ultracool Dwarf Radial Velocity Survey ApJ 723 684 2010 November

Bluck, A.; Conselice, C.; Almaini, O.; et al. On the Co-evolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies Since z= 3 MNRAS 410 1174 2011 January

Boogert, A.; Huard, T.; Cook, A.; et al. Ice and Dust in the Quiescent Medium of Isolated Dense Cores ApJ 729 92 2011 March

Borges Fernandes, M.; Meilland, A.; Bendjoya, P.; et al. The Galactic Unclassified B[e] Star HD 50138. II. Interferometric Constraints on the Close Circumstellar Environment A&A 528 20 2011 April

Borucki, W.; Koch, D.; Basri, G.; Batalha, N.; et al. Characteristics of Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. II. Analysis of the First Four Months of Data ApJ 736 19 2011 July

Bouchy, F.; Deleuil, M.; Guillot, T.; et.al. Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. XV. CoRoT-15b: a brown dwarf transiting companion A&A 525 A68 2011 January

Bowler, B.; Liu, M.; Dupuy, T.; Cushing, M. Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Extrasolar Planet HR 8799 b ApJ 723 850 2010 November

Brodwin, M.; Stern, D.; Vikhlinin, A.; et al. X-ray Emission from Two Infrared-selected Galaxy Clusters at z > 1.4 in the IRAC Shallow Cluster Survey ApJ 732 33 2011 May

A neighbor on Mauna Kea, this Pu’eo, Hawaiian owl, stands watch.

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Keck Observatory Observing Assistants have a direct hand in connecting the tools of discovery to a creative and prolific observing community. Standing Top to Bottom: Jason McIlroy, Terry Stickel, Gary Puniwai, Cynthia Wilburn, Heather Hershley, Carolyn Parker, Julie Renaud-Kim, and Joel Aycock.

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editoR/wRiteRdebbie goodwin

AdditionAl wRiteRstaft Armandrofflarry o’HanlonHilton lewis

gRApHic designwaimea instant printing

pRintingservice printers Hawaii, inc.

pHoto cRedits (t = top, b = bottom, l = left, m = middle, r = right)

Michael bolte/uco: 17m, bAndrew cooper/wMKo: 2-3b, 16-17,

22m, 22bMark devenot/wMKo: Cover,

21b, 24mlaurie Hatch: 26bHubble space telescope

science institute: 16btom Kualii: 15, 28the nobel Foundation/orasis: 4larry o’Hanlon: 23, 25Ric noyle: 5t, 18-19bruce omori: Back coverRick peterson: 3, 5b, 6all, 7, 20, 21t,

24t, 24b, 26t, 26m, 27t, 27mr, 27b, 35b

barbara schaefer/wMKo: 27ml, 35t

For more information contact:Debbie GoodwinDirector of Advancement65-1120 Mamalahoa HighwayKamuela, Hawai‘i 96743808.881.3814www.keckobservatory.org

In early 2012, Bruce Omori captured a dramatic image of Jupiter and Venus (left to right) hanging above the Keck Telescopes just after twilight from the clear and calm of Mauna Kea.