Graduate Students: Deno Stelter

Deno Stelter defines himself as a Colorado boy from the Western Slope. He doesn’t remember when he started to like astronomy, probably because he liked it even before he could remember. According to his parents his first word was “light” and as a child he used to read sci-fi books and later every general-level astronomy book he could get his hands on.

Astrophysics seemed a natural choice for him so he went to University of Colorado at Boulder, for college. He spent one year abroad, in Germany. He picked Germany because his dad has German ancestry. “I went to Bavaria, in southern Germany, which is the fun part of the country. I speak some German, but with southern accent, so other Germans make fun of me.”

At the beginning of his last college year, he told his professors that he wanted to go to grad school. One of them looked at him and answered: “Ok, but let me tell you, every year we graduate ten people in astrophysics, of those half apply to grad school and of those half get in. From those who get in and finish their programs half will get a job in the industry and the other half won’t find any jobs, and from those who get the jobs, only half of them will become professors.” It’s a pessimistic point of view but somewhat right, says Deno, but he decided to pursue it anyway.

While facing the regular trials and tribulations, like taking the GRE and figuring out which schools to apply to, Deno talked to his undergrad advisor who told him to check the UF instrumentation program. “I did, and I found that there were a lot of cool things going on. I also applied to University of Arizona, California Santa Cruz and Hawaii. UF was the first school I heard back from so it made the choice very easy.”

Deno, working along with Prof Stephen Eikenberry, has inherited a project previously developed by former graduate student, Mark Keremedjiev. The second-generation of an instrument called SPIFS which stands for SPeckle stabilized Integral Field Spectrometer. Its successor has been named Speckle Stabilized Science Demonstrator, “that’s S^3D, or Scubed D, which sounds like Scooby Doo. I’m so proud of that name” Deno says.

The purpose of the instrument is to nullify the effects of the atmosphere in ground based telescopes and to do it cheaply. “If we get the funding, we are planning some major changes. The heart of the system is a fast steering mirror, which basically moves following the movement of atmosphere, so the light from the object we are observing always hit the same point of the detector or CCD. We are getting a faster one and also, buying a better guiding camera and a new science camera. I’ll also be doing lab experiments redefining the algorithm that moves the mirror. I’ve been talking to a Russian professor in physics; he worked on mis misssile guidance systems back in the Soviet Union. He explained how, when guiding a rocket, they compensate the time it took for the computer to calculate the orders by considering where the rocket will be instead of where it was and meanwhile everything else was moving and getting ready. As a result the system worked much faster. I thought this could be useful to speed things up with our instrument. So let’s see how things work out. I have to play around with that.”

This is only part of the work for a 2^nd year student. Deno has also to attend his classes and he teaches two groups of students as a teaching assistant. “I don’t have much time to enjoy all the other things in Gainesville. Luckily my fiancé is here which keeps me sane. There is much to do here. Specially there is a great German bar called ‘Stubbies & Steins’ which makes me feel like I’m back in Germany.” 

But Deno and his officemates have other hobbies well known by the entire department. An arsenal of NERF weaponry fills the shelves of their office, number 401. If you enter there you might step into an open war at any time. Any provocation might pull the trigger to a nasty battle where foamy darts fly in every possible direction. According to Deno, it all started when graduate student Connor Mancone, brought “a simple 6 barrel NERF gun” and shot Robert (Morehead) with it. Robert said that wont do and got himself another gun, and that prompted Amanda (Townsend) to get one. That’s how the arms race begun. “When office 401 was cleared out to grad students it just accelerated. For his birthday Robert got a much bigger gun and things snowballed. ..  vdgdvIt got really big, and now we have almost enough to supply every member of the department with at least one weapon and ammo to spare. It’s disturbing, but also a great release of tension. Maybe at some point we will organize a major battle”

UFAstro partners USA Science and Engineering Festival

If you check the UF Astronomy website, under affiliations and partners, you’ll find a new logo. It’s the one from the USA Science and Engineering Festival.

In its 2012 edition, UF astronomy, IFAS and Engineering will partner to set up a booth at the USA Science and Engineering Expo, to be held April 28^th & 29^th at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. 

This Expo is the nation’s largest celebration of all things science and engineering and features over 1500 hands-on activities and over 75 performances. You can learn more about the upcoming activities on their blog.

UF Astronomy and Engineering sponsored a booth during the October 2010 edition of the Expo, which was held on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The booth was a spectacular success attracting over 7,000 people during the two days of the 2010 Expo.

Don't miss the largest celebration of science in the US!

Check out some pictures of 2011 edition:

From Telescopes to Satellites!

Engineering graduate student Katie Cason showing
a replica of one of small satellites.

Astronomy undergraduate Stefan O'Dougherty
 building a Galileoscope with one of the
 many visitors.

Assembling a Galileoscope kit was
a popular activity.

National Mall was a great location!

A group picture of the team just before the expo
 opened on Saturday morning.

Our friends at Channel 20 didn't miss the story!

Discovery by UF-led team refutes previous theory about galaxies

The world’s largest optical telescope has allowed University of Florida astronomers to see new details about deep space galaxies, finding new clues to explain the evolution of galaxies like our own.

Before these new observations, it was believed that galaxies in the young universe were much denser and compact than they are now, undergoing at some point a mysterious transformation growing in size and mass. Astronomers around the world struggled to find an explanation.

Now, a UF-led team has used the Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, to point out the solution to the mystery: The data gathered by lesser telescopes was not accurate enough, which led to misinterpretation.

The GTC in Spain’s Canary Islands has a primary mirror of 10.4 meters, or 27.6 feet, which allowed the team led by UF graduate student Jesus Martinez and professor Rafael Guzman, to observe four of these dense galaxies with a level of detail unachieved so far. They found that the four were six times less massive, on average, than previously believed, as described in the September issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

It takes time for light to travel through the universe. Considering the great distances the light must travel to get to Earth, looking through larger telescopes means not only being able to see farther in distance, but also back in time — in this case 9 billion years ago.

Martinez and teammates from Spanish research centers Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias and Universidad Complutense de Madrid, concluded that what had been thought of as super-dense galaxies actually were not so dense and had not undergone dramatic transformation — a discovery that shows how scientists must always question previously accepted principles.

Cutting-edge scientific tools such as the GTC help bolster this kind of healthy scepticism.

UF is a 5 percent partner in the $180 million GTC, which was inaugurated in 2009

Martinez’s work has been partially funded by a UF alumni fellowship and the government of Spain’s Consolider-Ingenio 2010 program.

Javier Barbuzano.

Graduate Students: Daniel Capellupo

Dan Capellupo is a native from New Jersey.

In junior high he felt inclined to be an astronaut and go to space. He was good with maths and science looked like a logical option for his future. His father used to have astronomy magazines at home and looking at the cool pictures on them, he figured out that he could stay in the ground and study those things from here.

After going to the University of Rochester in New York for undergraduate, he had no idea of what area of astronomy he was going to dive in. So, he applied to schools all over the country. He recalls “I mostly wanted to get out of the North East. I got accepted to several schools, but I found out that UF offered a lot of options, so I could decide what I wanted to study after I got there.”

After five years and about to finish his PhD he says: “It seems like I made a good choice, things have worked out here so far. The department is continually growing and improving and there is a lot of interesting research going on.”

Dan works with Prof Fred Hamann on a project studying quasars. Quasars are very bright objects in the center of some galaxies, mostly pretty far away. “The ones I study are around 10 billion light years away.” He explains.

In the early life of some galaxies there is a quasar phase that probably lasts up to 50 million years. The quasar has a super massive black hole in the center surrounded by a disk of accreting material. Studying the gas clouds that surround the Quasar it’s possible know more about its evolution and how it affects to the rest of the galaxy.

For his observation, Dan used two telescopes, the MDM 2.4 meters and the 2.1 Kitt Peak telescope, both at Kitt Peak observatory in Arizona. These are relatively small telescopes and don’t have an operator, like the bigger telescopes which have their own crews of technicians. “I had to operate the telescopes myself. A couple of times I've been alone there. It is a great experience, but kind of scary if something goes wrong. Even being small telescopes they may cost a couple of million dollars and if you break it people will be upset with you.”

 

After doing the research comes the time of publishing the results. “It’s a long process. You have to write the paper, summit it, and it can go back and forth with the referee until it’s finally accepted. When my first paper was accepted for publication I felt like I was officially a scientist.” Dan says.

Besides doing his classes and research, Dan was on the board of the grad student association for 4 years. “The first year I was treasurer and then the next two years I was a student-faculty liaison. I had to meet with our graduate coordinator and with the chair of the department to explain any problems that the graduate students were having or to find out things that we, the graduate students, should be aware of. So we tried to keep the communication open between faculty and students.” He remembers. “The past year he was president which means he was in charge of the organization, making sure that meetings where held every month to discuss issues and things to be taken to the faculty. “In one hand you have to deal with problems and issues, but it also is a social position. It’s a big department with many students.”

Finally, he says “If you consider coming here, I would say that there are a lot of good things in the department. There are a lot of research opportunities and in almost all the fields of astronomy. Also, the people here form a nice, friendly community and if you seek help for something they are going to be there.”