Day 2 of my visit at Leiden University in the Netherlands and I am already learning lots about the novel all-sky camera system called bRINGS.
The bRINGS all-sky instrument is dedicated for Photometric monitoring of the host star Beta Pictoris and its circumstellar material in the close environment.
Today, I started to installed several cooling fans that will be used to regulated the temperature inside the enclosure of the all-sky camera system.
With so much still to do, the hope is to finish the bRING all-sky camera system in the next few weeks to start baseline photometry of the Beta Pictoris.
–So stay tuned for more updates…
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Blaine Lomberg
Blaine Lomberg studied Physics from 2005-2008 at the University of the Western Cape. In 2009, he completed an Honours Degree specializing in Nuclear Physics. In 2010, Blaine joined the Accelerator and Engineering Group at iThemba Labs, where he worked on ion source physics focusing on a diagnostic device for ion beam quality measurements. His Master’s thesis was titled, “Studies of an emittance measurement device for beam quality optimisation of ion sources”. From September 2012 -2015, Blaine joined oPAC (optimization of the performance of any Particle Accelerator - FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) scheme) an EU Consortium as a Marie Curie Fellow and was jointly based at the Cockcroft Institute for Accelerator Science in Daresbury and the University of Liverpool, UK. During his fellowship, Blaine developed advance R&D technology for novel optical instrumentation for particle accelerator diagnostic applications.
In July 2016, Blaine joined the SAAO as a PDP (Professional Development Program) fellow, with his research aimed on developing novel instrumentation for observational astronomy; specially focussing on studying exoplanets such as ringed system’s similar to Saturn. His interest includes adaptive optics and optimising imaging systems for overcoming the limitations of conventional telescopes used today. Within the NRF-SAAO collaboration, Blaine is a PhD student with the University of Cape Town working with Dr. Steve Crawford and co-supervision by Prof. Patricia Whitelock.
In addition, Blaine enjoys blogging, being active in student outreach, disseminating science and his research to the public and local communities.
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