Cosmic Diary Logo

Meet the astronomers. See where they work. Know what they know.


The Project:

The Cosmic Diary is not just about astronomy. It's more about what it is like to be an astronomer.

The Cosmic Diary aims to put a human face on astronomy: professional scientists will blog in text and images about their lives, families, friends, hobbies and interests, as well as their work, their latest research findings and the challenges that face them. The bloggers represent a vibrant cross-section of female and male working astronomers from around the world, coming from five different continents. Outside the observatories, labs and offices they are musicians, mothers, photographers, athletes, amateur astronomers. At work, they are managers, observers, graduate students, grant proposers, instrument builders and data analysts.

Throughout this project, all the bloggers will be asked to explain one particular aspect of their work to the public. In a true exercise of science communication, these scientists will use easy-to-understand language to translate the nuts and bolts of their scientific research into a popular science article. This will be their challenge.

Task Group:

Mariana Barrosa (Portugal, ESO ePOD)
Nuno Marques (Portugal, Web Developer)
Lee Pullen (UK, Freelance Science Communicator)
André Roquette (Portugal, ESO ePOD)

Jack Oughton (UK, Freelance Science Communicator)
Alice Enevoldsen (USA, Pacific Science Center)
Alberto Krone Martins (Brazil, Uni. S. Paulo / Uni. Bordeaux)
Kevin Govender (South Africa, S. A. A. O.)
Avivah Yamani (Indonesia, Rigel Kentaurus)
Henri Boffin (Belgium, ESO ePOD)

HST Gözlem Önerisi

Merhaba! Buraya yazmayalı o kadar uzun zaman geçti ki herhangi bir özrün bu yazmayışı açıklamaya yeterli gelmeyeceğini düşünüyorum. Dolayısıyla açıklamaya kalkışmayıp kaldığım yerden yazmaya devam ediyorum:)

Hubble Uzay Teleskobu

Hubble Uzay Teleskobu

Şu aralar bir Hubble Uzay Teleskobu (HST) gözlem önerisi yazmakla meşgulum.

February 23rd, 2010 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in Bilim, Teknik, Türkçe

A wonderful but short holiday

Yes, we did it (now almost a month ago); we managed to go on a holiday with three of my dearest friends who are also collegue astronomers;) As I wrote already, this was a looong dreamed holiday. In the end, we could only find 3.5 days, but we had great time in Antalya, Turkey. We visited a few places with taxi -of course we agreed upon a fixed price beforehand. And we swam everyday. Here are some photos for your judgement;)

June 29th, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in English posts, Personal

A survey for the world’s biggest telescope!

This is a call for professional astronomers (especially those working at ESO member countries): if you want to have an impact on the world biggest telescope (namely, the E-ELT), please fill in the DRSP survey! You can help us on the selection of the instruments to be put on telescope for the first 5-10 years, the site to put the telescope and wavelength optimisation of the telescope and on many more points!

May 18th, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in Uncategorized

A birthday trip

with the bigger family

with the bigger family

I have an excuse for the week I was not blogging; I was in Ankara. I celebrated my birthday with a small re-union of family.

April 29th, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in English posts, Personal

I’m faster than ESO;)

Here is the ESO Press Release about the redshift 8 GRB I wrote about yesterday: The Most Distant Object Yet Discovered in the Universe!

April 28th, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in English posts, science

The farthest object ever observed in the Universe

Yes, I know it’s an ambitious title, but true: on 23 April, there was a Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) at a redshift of z=8.1. What does that mean? It is the farthest object observed so far! It means that it is 2.5 times 10 to the power 24 km away from us: that is a trillion times 2.5 trillion km! The light that we observed was actually emitted more than 13 billion years ago.  It is the farthest and hence oldest star known so far!

April 27th, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in English posts, Technical, Uncategorized, science

100 saat etkinliklerinin ardından

Merhaba! 100 saat astronomi etkinlikleri maalesef sona erdi. İnek bir insanmış gibi gözükmek istemem ama ben ‘Dünyanın Etrafındaki 80 Teleskopta’ canlı yayınını çok beğendim va açıkçası izlerken eğlendim de. Canlı yayını kaçırdıysanız bile yayınları hala webden izleme şansınız var, hem de gözlemevlerini adlarıyla seçebilirsiniz: tıklayın! Sunuculardan Joe Liske ve Markus Kissler-Patig benimle aynı E-ELT ekibindeler. Markus proje bilim adamı, yani aslında patronum ve canlı yayında

April 7th, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in Teknik, Türkçe, Uncategorized

Gözlemevlerinden canlı yayın

Yarın, yani 3 Nisan Cuma günü Türkiye saatiyle öğlen 12.00′den itibaren 24 saat boyunca dünyanın dört bir yanındaki gözlemevleri ve teleskoplardan canlı yayınlar yapılacak. Programa ESO evsahipliği yapacak yani programın ana sunucuları benim buradaki meslektaşlarımdan bazıları. Program İngilizce olacak ama İngilizceniz çok iyi olmasa bile dünyadaki gözlemevlerinin nasıl yerler olduklarını görmek ve gösterecekleri uzay görüntülerini izlemek için dahi bir gözatmaya değer! Yayını internet aracılığıyla buradan izleyebilirsiniz:

April 2nd, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in Teknik, Türkçe

Yoğun bir hafta

Merhaba! Her zamanki gibi daha sık yazmak istiyordum ama geçtiğimiz bir hafta epey yoğundu. Önce ALMA-ELTler çalıştayı vardı, ya da tam adını Türkçeye çevirecek olursam ‘ALMA ve ELTler: Evrenin daha derin ve daha iyi görüntüsü’. E-ELT üzerine daha önce biraz yazmıştım. Burada çoğul olarak sözü geçen ELTlerden en büyüğü. Dünyadaki üç ELT projesinin diğer ikisi ise ABD tabanlı büyük teleskop projeleri: TMT ve GMT.

April 1st, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in Kişisel, Teknik, Türkçe

Busy week

Hey! I wanted to write more often, but it’s been a busy week. First, there was the ALMA-ELTs workshop (or with its full fancy name “ALMA and ELTs: A Deeper, Finer View of the Universe”) during most of the last week. I already wrote a bit about E-ELT which is biggest of the three extremly large telescope projects ongoing in the world. The other two ELTs are mainly US based projects; TMT and GMT. Atacama Large Millimeter Aray (ALMA) is on the other-hand of the wavelength regime, a large array of sub-mm/mm telescopes.

March 31st, 2009 | posted by Aybüke Yoldaş in English posts, Personal, Technical