QUEST Community Science Blog

Infrared image of a zebra from the London Zoo.
Credit: Steve Lowe

Right now I am very excited about the possibility of working on a new small telescope in southern Utah. This telescope was funded by a private donation and will be run by the University of Utah. We even found a mountain top in the middle of nowhere that this telescope will call home.

Why this particular mountain? There are essentially three reasons:

It’s dark
It’s clear
It doesn’t make the stars twinkle

The first two reasons are so obvious that I am almost embarrassed. The last reason is not quite so intuitive. What makes a star twinkle and why do we care? This goes back to a post I made a few months ago.

The basic idea here is that the churning atmosphere blurs your astronomical image. Local geography and weather patterns can either mitigate or exaggerate this effect. It is difficult to predict and many measurements need to be done to determine what is actually happening. Cameras were placed all around southern Utah on various mountain tops to observe the North Star over the course of the year. The mountain top that produced the highest resolution image of the star won the competition. That was Frisco Peak.

The telescope that will be placed on Frisco Peak was built by a very specialized company. This is quite rare–more typical are either large custom-made telescopes or small amateur telescopes. This telescope falls in the middle. It is bought off the shelf but is far superior to the commercially made amateur telescopes.

We are now discussing plans for this telescope, like the type of cameras that should be used. There is a strong interest in building an infrared camera. This allows us to see through large clouds of dust and allows us to see very distant galaxies.

Like most people, I am much more experienced with cameras in the visible spectrum. I work on CCDs in Berkeley and have barely used anything in the infrared. CCDs are made of silicon which is sensitive to light that can be seen with the naked eye (plus a little more red than what can be seen).

However, there is a lot of information in the sky that is too red to be seen with the naked eye and too red to be detected with a silicon detector. New materials are required for detectors in this wavelength range. One of the major new materials for infrared detectors is a blend of mercury, cadmium and telluride, usually called Mer-Cad-Tell in the astro community. The wavelength range of the detector can be tuned by changing the amount of mercury in the blend.

Clearly, a lot of the legwork has been done for this new telescope. We have the funding, we have a vendor, and we have a location. Now all that’s left is to prioritize our science goals and to figure out how to get our hands on some mer-cad-tell.

Kyle S. Dawson is engaged in post-doctorate studies of distant supernovae and development of a proposed space-based telescope at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Last week on QUEST, we took a look at the history of the San Francisco Bay’s most dangerous toxin: mercury. This week, now that the mercury is here in the bay, how is it affecting us? The obvious place to go was the Berkeley Marina, one of the bay’s most popular fishing spots. On the day I visited, halibut season had just begun and, even on a Monday morning, the pier was lined with anglers. Halibut contains high levels of mercury, just like other big SF Bay fish but – as you hear in the piece – you wouldn’t know it from talking to the fishermen out that day.

Of course mercury is a problem in many big fish we eat, not just the ones in the San Francisco Bay. Dr. Jane Hightower is one of the leading local doctors diagnosing various levels of mercury poisoning in her patients – many of whom, as she says, do their fishing at places like Whole Foods. We only had time to use a short piece of that interview in the actual story, but anyone who eats fish will want to hear more from Dr. Hightower. A longer version of that interview – including Dr. Hightower’s surprising views on kid staples like canned tuna fish – is right here.

You may listen to the “Mercury in the Bay - Part 2″ Radio report online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Amy Standen is a Reporter for QUEST and Radio News at KQED-FM.

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In honor of Earth Day, we wanted to take a big look at a chronic environmental issue in the Bay Area, tracing it from its origins to the contemporary strategies to solve it. Mercury was the obvious choice: It’s been flowing into the Bay since before California joined the union, and it continues to trickle in from not just the old culprits, like gold and mercury mines, but a modern crop of industries, like refineries and cement kilns. Even little things – like a broken mercury thermometer dumped into the sink – are part of the problem.

The key fact here is how incredibly potent mercury can be: Just one little globule from an old thermometer can poison all the fish in a 45-acre lake, making them unsafe for humans to eat. Mercury pollution is hardly unique to the Bay Area; what makes us interesting is that local officials are making real strides in trying to clean it up. Over the next 17 years or so, we’ll spend $2.6 billion dollars on the project. Even then, we won’t have a clean bay for 120 years.

For a lot of people, mercury pollution in the Bay is largely theoretical, since few stores sell fish caught in the Bay, and relatively few residents fish for their food. But some still do – including many recent immigrants from fishing-intensive cultures like Laos. We’ll look at how mercury affects the health of local fishermen next week.

This piece marks our first-ever audio slide show, and what a difference it makes! We also hope you’ll check out the mercury map above, where you can see how many pounds of mercury come from each of the Bay Area’s five refineries, plus other mercury sources and the bay’s popular fishing spots.

Watch the audio slide show of “Mercury in the Bay” online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Amy Standen is a Reporter for QUEST and Radio News at KQED-FM.

Thought California has consigned coal-burning to the scrap bin? Think again! California has 11 coal-fired power plants, all used to heat limestone into cement — making us one of the biggest cement-producing states in the country. In addition to cement, these kilns produce 95% of the state’s airborne mercury pollution and 2% of its greenhouse gas emissions. Mostly, they’ve slipped under the radar of regulators, but that is changing fast.

You may listen to the “Cement - A Dirty Business” Radio report online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also don’t miss our behind-the-scenes photos for this story.

Amy Standen is a Reporter for QUEST and Radio News at KQED-FM.