Daniel Harbeck, Ph.D.

Currently Head of Instrumentation at the Las Cumbres Observatory.

Herding a bunch of CCD controllers, commissioning the NRES fleet of high-resolution spectrographs, integrating the future 2-meter telescope instrument (MuSCAT 3, 4), renewing the 0.4m telescope fleet, and helping everywhere in the observatory as needed.

Professional activities:

Main Interests: Astronomical instrumentation, observatory operations, data management software. Stellar populations as a tool to understand galaxy formation and evolution. More recently: solar system asteroids, in particular active asteroids and near-earth objects.

Publications:

Dissertation (2003): Chemical Inhomogeneities in the Old Stellar Populations of the Local Group
Papers: Instead of meticulously maintaining a parallel and ever-updating list here, let me link to the astrophysics data system which does a better job than I can.

Prior Positions:

Associate Scientist at the WIYN Observatory, in Tucson, AZ (USA)
From 2005 to 2017, as Project and Instrument Scientist, I took care of the development and operations of the WIYN One Degree Imager System, first as project scientist, and later as project lead managing hardware upgrades, and overseeing software development for the instrument and its data handling infrastructure.
Postdoctoral Towns Fellow at the UC Berkeley Space Science Laboratory.
Postdoctoral McKinney Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Outside work

I enjoy photography, running, sailing, and other things.

Contact:

If you want to leave a message, I can receive pgp encrypted messages. Feel free to fetch my pgp public key.

I also exist on Mastodon

What is that bridge on the top of the site?

The header image on this web page shows the Conde McCullough Memorial Bridge in Coos Bay, Oregon. I simply like that picture, as I have very fond memories of my visits to Coos Bay. Read more about that bridge on Wikipedia.

Where does “Cowjumping” come from?

cowjumping mural When I was at a meeting at Ringberg Castle in Bavaria, I saw this mural of a man jumping over a cow. It inspired me to claim the domain cowjumping. Shortly after that meeting I moved to Wisconsin and learned about cow tipping. There are many things you can do with cows other than just eat them.