Welcome to our New Editor: Alice Sheppard
Alice Sheppard
We have recruited a new editor! Meet Alice Sheppard, she lives in the United Kingdom with her family and two Cats. She has had an interest in astronomy from a young age, and is a forum moderator for Galaxy Zoo and She is an Astronomer. As well as moderating, she also has her own blog, Alice in Galaxyland. From there she writes about astronomy, people, the skeptic movement and politics, and when she does she conveys her enthusiasm to the reader in an infectious manner. When she can she writes for other websites, blogs, magazines and has recently co-founded Skeptics in the Pub in Wales.
Tell us about yourself.
At the moment I hire out wheelchairs and build up a website to make a living, but I want to be a science journalist and book writer.
I have recently co-founded Cardiff Skeptics. Skepticism is not cynicism. It means always looking at the best evidence rather than people’s opinions when extraordinary stories or claims are made.
My special favourite astronomy topics are star birth and death, astrochemistry, galaxies, and the physics of the Universe (dark matter, etc).
What started you off with astronomy?
When I was a kid I was lucky enough that there was a basic astronomy book in the house that was one of the first things I read. Then my mum and a friend got me a few more, including the Uncle Albert series, and Heather Couper & Nigel Henbest’s Space Atlas (1992!).
When I was 24, just graduated, and bored and disappointed with environmental science, I decided to be a chemistry teacher – that got me interested in physics again. I bought BANG!, and got into e-mailing Chris Lintott. He actually answered me and taught me more than anyone else ever had, and also it got much easier to look things up because he pointed me to things I ought to!
What got you into science communication?
Well at university I realised I was far better at writing than at science. I nearly did a unit called “science communication in a public forum”, but then it turned out I’d have to buy my own video player and camera so I dropped out. And then I realised I loved teaching. (Actually at school people would say “oh Alice I wrote down everything you’ve been saying all year for my exams and I got an A!”). So I’ve always loved explaining things. Galaxy Zoo really got me started though, of course. The zookeepers gave me lots of encouragement to give lectures and write articles.
What do you do at Galaxy Zoo?
I moderate, organise the OOTD (Object of the Day) rota and most meet-ups, I act as the link between the zookeepers and the Zooites when messages need to get across from one to another, and I’m also usually the one to find people to be interviewed by journalists.
Tell us about your blog
It started off as meaning to be about astronomy, to practice for being a science journalist, but I soon found out I wanted to write about people and education and politics too. Then along came the skeptics, so I started also writing about that. What I’m rather enjoying is how similar Skeptics in the Pub is to Galaxy Zoo, in the sense of groups of people who dissect science together online, and meet up and have great fun at pubs etc. Both are ordinary people on a mission. I love writing about both, and feel it’s something anyone should be able to get involved in. In both cases you need the tools and skills to get involved, and that’s something I want to bring to anyone interested, not just those already privileged to know a lot about it.
You’re a freelance journalist, what do you write about for various magazines?
I wish I more of a freelance journalist. I’ve written two articles so far, both about the zoo, though I hope to write more! One for Young Stargazers (part of the Society for Popular Astronomy magazine) and one for Astronomy Now. I’ve also guest blogged for Pulse-Project and Chris Lintott’s Universe.
Why did you want to take part in YA?
You can find Alice’s blog here, and her twitter here.
What do Astronomers do: Bill Keel
Bill Keel; Credit: Jeff Hanson
Bill Keel is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Alabama and is also part of the team at Galaxy Zoo. He is the author of The Road to Galaxy Formation and The Sky at Einstein’s Feet ( a book that I thoroughly enjoy 
). Bill kindly let me interview him about what he does as an Astronomer, my questions are in bold.
How did you become an astronomer?
My family thinks it has to do with my grandfather continually pointing out the Moon as we sat on a porch swing. Beyond that, in the 1960s space was big news all the time, and new things were happening constantly. By the time I was about 14, astronomy had seized my brain. I mowed yards for a summer to buy a secondhand 6-inch telescope, whose bright and crisp views were a revelation to me. Then it was off to college and I’ve never looked back on the choice.
What are your areas of research?
Galaxies – anything involving galaxies, it seems I can’t get enough of. Active galactic nuclei, galaxy interactions, galaxy evolution, dust in galaxies, I dabble in the whole range.
How did you get involved with Galaxy Zoo and what do you do there?
I saw a notice (I think it was on the BAUT forum) and found the Zoo forum. Within a few days, I was seeing lots of interesting galaxies that Zooites were posting for discussion and couldn’t help noticing the research uses of some samples of these. So I asked for people to watch for overlapping galaxies and the rest is history. The next year I found myself part of the GZ team. As it’s worked out, I get involved in a lot of science generated by things posted on the Forum, rather than just the initial Zoo goals. This is also a great audience for education and public outreach, so I do posts answering various questions or explaining bits of astronomy. I recently realized that all of my current research grants involve projects spun off from the GZ forum!
What does observing with ground-based and space observatories involve?
Ground-based observing can be a very intense experience, since you may only have a few nights allocated to do a project. During that time, you need to make sure the instrument is performing to specifications, get a check all the necessary calibrations, and make (the mythical) optimum use of the time and conditions. On top of that, and helping make it worthwhile, is that some of us find observing, even with computers intervening in so many ways, to foster a strong sense of connection with the Universe (Sandy Faber also described this, possibly in the oldish “The Astronomers” TV series). These days, the better description of the process would be “taking data, where the goal is to get certain measurements of required quality (and those measurements may be fairly complicated derivatives of your original data). Every night at the telescope (or hour, if you’re a radio observer) may require many times that long in data processing. Scripts can be your friends. Working from the ground, it sometimes helps to take a philosophical view – weather may wipe you out unexpectedly no matter how long you’ve waited for an observing session. (For example, unexpected high winds have brought a stripe of clouds over Kitt Peak, which I’m looking at with disapproval). As my gradate adviser pointed out, it’s easier to be philosophical and wait for another night when you already have a permanent job!
For space facilities, things are of course hands-off. Typically, one proposes a project, which gets reviewed by a committee trying to figure out which 15% of proposals to accept that will actually fit in a given year’s calendar. Then you prepare a detailed description of the observations, and send it in. For all but a few special cases, the next you hear is when the observations are scheduled and your data are being processed to send to you. It’s a different way of working, and to make best use of these facilities you need working knowledge of some facets of orbital dynamics and the space environment (plus a large pile of PDF documents that the agencies think you should be familiar with – my favorite was the 120-page document on changes to Hubble operations with only two gyros that proposers were supposed to have read in its entirety.)
Learn more about Bill Keel at his personal website: http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/ or follow him on twitter at: @NGC3314
