Olivier Guyon's webpage

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Olivier Guyon
guyon@naoj.org

Main phone #:
(818) 293 8826

Subaru office phone #:
(808) 934 5901

Univ. of Arizona office phone #:
(520) 626 3705

JPL office phone #:
(818) 354 0675

Who am I ?

I am an astronomer, splitting my time between Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the University of Arizona. I have been interested in astronomy since I was a ~10 yrs old, and I started as an amateur astronomer, looking at the sky through my eyes, binoculars, and then increasingly larger home-built telescopes (which have completely taken over my garage !).

Is there life somewhere else in the Universe ? If yes, where ? and what is it like ?

OK, we don't know yet... but we, astronomers, are working hard on these questions.
To answer them, we need to build telescopes and cameras that are optimized to see faint planets next to bright nearby stars in the sky. I work with other astronomers and engineers to develop such instruments for both space and the ground. The main challenges are to block the light of the star without also blocking the planet (this is what coronagraphs are designed to do) and to control extremely well the optical quality of the telescope (adaptive optics).

Projects: Professional activities for which I get paid

PECO is a space mission concept to image planets around nearby stars

SCExAO (Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics) is a system optimized for high contrast imaging on the Subaru Telescope.

Amateur astronomy (things I do on weekends and nights)

I spend a good fraction of my time building and using telescopes as an amateur astronomer (doing astronomy just for fun, enjoying the night sky). I, like other amateur astronomers, am mysteriously driven to dark skies when the moon is not in the way.
(Olivier, Priscilla and the Galactic Center: Image taken by Josh Walawender)

Building telescopes: One of my goals in life is to build a high quality 1-m telescope weighting less than 50kg
Low cost robotic DSLR-based astronomical imaging system: Using low-cost mass-produced hardware to do fun science

Recent updates / projects / studies

[Oct 31, 2011] Some progress on the 0.6-m ultra-light primary mirror prototype - see this page
[Oct 2011] Robotic camera system has been working for 1 month with 2 cameras - see this webpage
[Jan 14, 2011] Updates on the robotic camera system recently installed on Mauna Loa- see this webpage
[July 1, 2010] High precision astrometry with a coronagraphic telescope: major update, with more detailed simulations and a preliminary error budget
[June 2010] all-sky survey: first light of camera+mount assembly in Australia.

Page content last updated: 2012-02-08 05:46:11.000000000 -1000