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Bid Your Way into the Keck Control Room
mopuxak writes "There's an article featured over at space.com about an ongoing EBay auction to spend a night in Hawaii's Keck Observatory with Astronomer Geoff Marcy. The money is set to go to the non-profit Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP). Looks like they're billing this as Astronomy's version of Lance Bass and the Space Station. How much would YOU pay?"
You don't have to pay me to spend the night :(
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...would depend on what research I had going. I'd pay a heck of a lot if I needed Keck's 'Big Eye' to collect some data that would be critical to a thesis, dissertation, or if the research I was doing were a big fat hairy deal in terms of my career advancement; or cutting edge, exciting (astronomically speaking), etc.. On the other hand if I were just wanting to 'stargaze' I'd not be willing to spend much of anything.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Hey all you Trekkies, Berman and Braga have finally killed your precious franchise! So far it has only grossed $41.6 million!! So it's not even close to breaking even! Ha ha ha! This is going to be the end of Star Trek! Maybe some of you will 'Get a Life' and try to persue something meaningful!
There's an article featured over at space.com about an ongoing EBay auction to spend a night in Hawaii's Keck Observatory with Astronomer Geoff Marcy.
You know, if those guys were really smart they would have purposely goofed up the astronmer's name as 'Marcy Geoff' in the promotion. Then when some horny geek has spent big bucks in the hopes that he's gonna bed some astrobabe they can claim that it was a typo and reveal that the astronomer is really Geoff Marcy.
Well, that's what I would have done at least...
GMD
watch this
But what would I do in the control room at Keck? Sit and stare at the monitors and nod my head knowingly a lot?
I would say...
About $3.50...
No I didnt spell check this post...
Keck is a very important observatory, and one of the many observatories up there. Since it placed adaptive optics into it's facility a couple years ago they have been producing stunning photographs and research.
However, how much would I pay to sit in their control room? Not much. Anyone can go up to the top of Mauna Kea for free, and hang around. Free tours of Keck are offered daily. You wouldn't be able to do/see much since the telescope time is so highly booked (e.g., you would see what was going on currently).
Another down side is that your at 13,800 ft. The air is very thin and altitude sickness is very very common. Not to mention that it is extremely cold up there.
There are better ways to enjoy Hawaii :)
not Marcy Geoff. I wouldn't be too interested "spending the night" with Geoff Marcy.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Geoff Marcy can pet my Keck any time.
the Keck Control Room bids its way back into YOU.
Because overrated/underrated mods don't get metamoderated - so the moderator doesn't need to worry about getting slapped with an 'unfair' metamod by people who disagree.
1- I am an astronomer so I wouldn't pay at all, I'd just apply for time through CalTech which is where I work for SIRTF 2- While whomever pays for this will get a spiffy tour of the telescopes will probably wind up in the control room at Waimea which is not on the mountain. Why? Because generally astronomers are out of shape or get loopy at altitude. The way to minimize stupid mistakes is to only let the operators move the telescope and tweak the instruments and keep the astronomers down near sea level. That said I've done a few dumb things at telescopes myself when it was 3 am and I just wanted to go to bed at telescopes at only 7000 ft altitude. . .
...someone that gets a lot of pr0n off've ebay, I guess. rlcsljo, the current high bidder at $13,050 has made quite a few interesting purchases recently!
I guess it's just a bit odd. His buying record is going to be: pr0n, pr0n, pr0n, $13k on a night at Keck, pr0n, pr0n...
Exocet Industries - Taking over the world, one computer at a
if the auctioneer had positive feedback!
...I wouldn't pay anything.
I'd rather spend time with Steven Hawking at the local high school's observatory than to hang out at Keck with any lesser scientist.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
They're not getting their grubby hands on a single dime with no feedback...
sudo eat my shorts
Why would I pay to go to Hawaii when I can eavesdrop on every image from my living room? Or I could head over to the office and use the video link to converse and smile with him from California. I'm one of the engineering team who built the instrument (HIRES) that Marcy will be using.
Did anyone notice that the current leader, rlcsljo, is REALLY into dirty movies? Not that we all aren't, but it was just kinda funny for some stupid stupid reason.