In February/March 2013, May 2014 and September 2014, I travelled to Hawai'i to observe debris discs using the SCUBA-2 instrument on the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) as part of the SONS JCMT Legacy Survey (11 nights total). The telescope is situated on the mountain of Maunakea at a height of over 13,000 feet above sea level. At this elevation, the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is greatly reduced, allowing astronomers to achieve better quality observations at visible and infrared wavelengths and to access the (sub)millimetre portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
With the SCUBA-2 instrument of the JCMT, we were searching for the presence of thermal emission from dust around nearby stars. This dust exists in large ring-like structures akin to the asteroid belt or Kuiper belt in our own Solar System. These rings are known as debris disks and, as the name suggests, are understood to consist of the dusty debris from the collisions of comets and planetary-sized bodies. The paper summarising the results from our analysis of these observations can be accessed here.
I am indebted to the Science and Technology Facilities Council for their provision of funds to enable me to visit and conduct my research at this observatory. I also recognise and appreciate the very significant cultural role that the summit of Maunakea (on which the James Clark Maxwell Telescope sits) has. I acknowledge that I have been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain.
