28 January The Honorable Janet Napolitano President The University of California. Dear Ms. Napolitano:

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1 28 January 2014 R. MICHAEL RICH DIVISION OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY 430 PORTOLA PLAZA LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA PHONE: (310) FAX: (310) The Honorable Janet Napolitano President The University of California Dear Ms. Napolitano: I am begging you to sustain the University of California s 125 year historic commitment to the operation of I am a Research Astronomer at UCLA and Ph.D. (Caltech) in astronomy. I also was the Ph.D. thesis advisor of the well-known popular astronomer Neil de grasse Tyson and have 375 refereed scientific publications, with over 800 scientific papers. It has been my honor to work at UCLA since 1998 and I have over 100 nights of observing time at the W.M. Keck Observatories, and over 50 nights at I am writing to request your support in saving the very successful scientific operation of Lick Observatory has had an important impact on my career and the careers of my collaborators. Sebastien Lepine began collaborating with me in 1999, a year after I began my research at UCLA. At the time, he was a postdoctoral scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. He approached me with a request: please help him to study some very interesting nearby stars that he had discovered. Using the powerful spectrograph at Lick Observatory, and later on, using our laser guide star adaptive optics system, we produced 20 publications and are still going. And Sebastien is now a professor of astronomy at Georgia State University. One of the exciting discoveries from the Galex satellite was the nova shell Z Camelopardis; observations at Lick yielded a publication in the prestigious journal Nature. Although I use Keck and look forward to the Thirty Meter Telescope, Lick Observatory continues to be scientifically important to me. And as a visionary astronomer with a keen sense of scientific excellent, Lick Observatory continues to be justified as a vital institution. Lick Observatory hosts the well known Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, used by National Academy member Alex Fillepenko and his group at UC Berkeley; this facility has discovered hundreds of supernovae, and fed its discoveries to Lick and Keck, playing a role in the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. Lick also hosts the Automatic Planet Finder telescope; National Academy member Geoff Marcy will use this new telescope to explore the thousands of planetary candidates discovered by the Kepler satellite. APF is unique in the Northern hemisphere (where the Kepler intense study field in Cygnus can be observed). The nearest comparable planet finder was built at cost of tens of millions of dollars by the European Souther Observatory. It s possible that the first earthlike planet beyond our Solar System will be discovered with this telescope. if Lick Observatory continues to operate. This telescope will also discover other solar systems that host a planet like Jupiter and perhaps other massive planets, that might

2 again be an analog to our own. However, if an analog of our Solar System is out there to be discovered, at least ten years of observations will be needed to determine the masses and orbits of its planets. Recall that it takes Jupiter 12 years to orbit our Sun. What folly to shutter the APF before it has begun to embark on its voyage of discovery. Lick is critical for the training of the next generation of astronomers. As Ph.D. students and visiting postdoctoral Fellows, Lick offers the opportunity for these outstanding young people to gain experience observing and to run their own scientific research programs. Lick is also a critical place for new instrumentation to be developed and for new instrument builders to test their first products. The renowned Director of the UCLA Infrared Laboratories, Prof. Ian Mclean, tested his first infrared camera on the Lick 3m. And again, Prof. Mclean would test the First Light camera of NASA s billion dollar SOFIA flying observatory at the Lick 3m. The Lick 3m is also the place where the most advanced laser adaptive optics systems are developed. Prof. Claire Max began her career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she developed the technology that enables groundbased telescopes to produce images almost as fine as those on the Hubble Space Telescope. By the end of the decade, the 3m telescope at Lick is likely to be producing images as good as those of the Hubble telescope- in blue and visible light wavelengths. This is not currently possible, but technologies under development make it extremely likely. Hubble will stop operating by 2020, and Lick has the potential to be the only facility capable of producing Hubble quality images in the blue and visual wavelengths (recall that the James Webb Space Telescope operates in infrared light). Further, many classes of interesting astronomical objects are rare. Consider the dramatic star HR8799, which hosts 4 planets that were imaged directly. Hundreds of candidate stars had to be vetted and inspected for this discovery to be made, a task that is sped up and realistic when one applies a 3m rather than 10 m telescope to the task. A similar program is being undertaken to survey stars discovered by the Galex satellite to be good places to look for recently formed planets. Lick will remain a place of vibrant scientific research if it continues to operate. Finally, the Lick Observatory is an outstanding venue for the University of California to bring its scientific discoveries to the people of California. We already do that in astronomy, but we could expand this effort to include a wider range of science, and even more outreach programs. Lick Observatory is also a National Register eligible historic site of the highest value that is best preserved not by a very expensive mothballing process, but as a continuously operating scientific enterprise. A place of beauty, Lick has been photographed by Ansel Adams and is a genuine icon of California. The Palomar 5m and Lick 3m telescopes are vital scientific observatories, but they are also engineering sculptures of America s midcentury, one of the great moments in our Nation s history. In closing this plea, I remind you to consider that the operations of Lick observatory are cost effective at just over $1M /yr, and that these operations also support the development of instruments that found their way to Keck Observatory. In considering the balance, ask yourself how UCOP would apply the funds if Lick Observatory is shuttered? Would those funds produce the same impact for science? For the people of California? The University of California has, arguably, the greatest Astronomy department in the world. I am respectfully asking that you allow this highly respected faculty to decide how best to allocate its precious

3 financial resources, and that the UC administration not take any unilateral action to force the closure of In closing, the reasons for keeping Lick open are compelling: Important ongoing science takes place using the KAIT and APS telescopes to discover supernovae and planets; these discoveries get followed up on the 3m. Large science programs of great importance that can run for years take place on the 3m, and could not be done on larger telescopes. These include painstaking searches for the critical needles in a haystack type objects. Our next generation of young astronomers are trained at Lick, and it remains a key venue for public outreach. Finally, Lick Observatory is a place of beauty and historic site. The best and least expensive preservation strategy is to continue to use it as a scientific preserve with public outreach as a secondary mission. With gratitude I thank you for your attention and consideration Sincerely yours, Dr. R. Michael Rich, Ph.D. Research Astronomer

4 28 January 2014 R. MICHAEL RICH DIVISION OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY 430 PORTOLA PLAZA LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA PHONE: (310) FAX: (310) The Honorable Regents of the University of California Dear Regents: I am begging you to sustain the University of California s 125 year historic commitment to the operation of I am a Research Astronomer at UCLA and Ph.D. (Caltech) in astronomy. I also was the Ph.D. thesis advisor of the well-known popular astronomer Neil de grasse Tyson and have 375 refereed scientific publications, with over 800 scientific papers. It has been my honor to work at UCLA since 1998 and I have over 100 nights of observing time at the W.M. Keck Observatories, and over 50 nights at I am writing to request your support in saving the very successful scientific operation of Lick Observatory has had an important impact on my career and the careers of my collaborators. Sebastien Lepine began collaborating with me in 1999, a year after I began my research at UCLA. At the time, he was a postdoctoral scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. He approached me with a request: please help him to study some very interesting nearby stars that he had discovered. Using the powerful spectrograph at Lick Observatory, and later on, using our laser guide star adaptive optics system, we produced 20 publications and are still going. And Sebastien is now a professor of astronomy at Georgia State University. One of the exciting discoveries from the Galex satellite was the nova shell Z Camelopardis; observations at Lick, led by Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History, yielded a publication in the prestigious journal Nature. Although I use Keck and look forward to the Thirty Meter Telescope, Lick Observatory continues to be scientifically important to me. And as a visionary astronomer with a keen sense of scientific excellent, Lick Observatory continues to be justified as a vital institution. Lick Observatory hosts the well known Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, used by National Academy member Alex Fillepenko and his group at UC Berkeley; this facility has discovered hundreds of supernovae, and fed its discoveries to Lick and Keck, playing a role in the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. KAIT is at this very moment contributing crucial data on the newly exploded supernova in the nearby galaxy M82; a once in a lifetime opportunity. Lick also hosts the Automatic Planet Finder telescope; National Academy member Geoff Marcy will use this new telescope to explore the thousands of planetary candidates discovered by the Kepler satellite. APF is unique in the Northern hemisphere (where the Kepler intense study field in Cygnus can be observed). The nearest comparable planet finder was built at cost of tens of millions of dollars by the European Southern Observatory; at its location in Chile, the Kepler field and its thousands of candidate exoplanets

5 are below the horizon. It s possible that the first earthlike planet beyond our Solar System will be discovered with APF. if Lick Observatory continues to operate. This telescope will also discover other solar systems that host a planet like Jupiter and perhaps other massive planets, that might again be an analog to our own. However, if an analog of our Solar System is out there to be discovered, at least ten years of observations will be needed to determine the masses and orbits of its planets. Recall that it takes Jupiter 12 years to orbit our Sun. What folly to shutter the APF before it has begun to embark on its voyage of discovery. Lick is critical for the training of the next generation of astronomers. As Ph.D. students and visiting postdoctoral Fellows, Lick offers the opportunity for these outstanding young people to gain experience observing and to run their own scientific research programs. Lick is also a critical place for new instrumentation to be developed and for new instrument builders to test their first products. The renowned Director of the UCLA Infrared Laboratories, Prof. Ian Mclean, tested his first infrared camera on the Lick 3m. And again, Prof. Mclean would test the First Light camera of NASA s billion dollar SOFIA flying observatory at the Lick 3m. The Lick 3m is also the place where the most advanced laser adaptive optics systems are developed. Prof. Claire Max began her career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she developed the technology that enables groundbased telescopes to produce images almost as fine as those from the Hubble Space Telescope. By the end of the decade, the 3m telescope at Lick is likely to be producing images as good as those of the Hubble telescope- in blue and visible light wavelengths. This is not currently possible, but technologies under development make it extremely likely. Hubble will stop operating by 2020, and Lick has the potential to be the only facility capable of producing Hubble quality images in the blue and visual wavelengths (recall that the James Webb Space Telescope operates in infrared light). Further, many classes of interesting astronomical objects are rare. Consider the dramatic star HR8799, which hosts 4 planets that were imaged directly. Hundreds of candidate stars had to be vetted and inspected for such a discovery to be made. Exciting discoveries often germinate as needles in a haystack, but you cannot use the largest telescopes in the world to search for those needles. It is the 3m at Lick that does such a search, with the discoveries fed into the precious observing time available on the world s largest telescopes. A similar huge program is being undertaken to survey stars discovered by the Galex satellite to be good places to look for recently formed planets. Professor Emeritus Ben Zuckerman and his students and colleagues are employing the 3m and its Kast spectrograph to search through this sample to find those few stars that are the snapshots in time when we can actually take images of a planet like Jupiter as it cools from its heat of formation. Lick will remain a place of vibrant scientific research if it continues to operate. Finally, the Lick Observatory is an outstanding venue for the University of California to bring its scientific discoveries to the people of California. We already do that in astronomy, but we could expand this effort to include a wider range of science, and even more outreach programs. Lick Observatory is also a National Register eligible historic site of the highest value that is best preserved not by a very expensive mothballing process, but as a continuously operating scientific enterprise. A place of beauty, Lick has been photographed by Ansel Adams and is a genuine icon of California. The Palomar 5m and Lick 3m telescopes are vital scientific observatories, but they are also engineering sculptures of America s midcentury, one of the great moments in our Nation s history. In closing this plea, I remind you to consider that the operations of Lick observatory are cost effective at just over $1M /yr, and that these operations also support the development of instruments that found their

6 way to Keck Observatory. In considering the balance, ask yourself how UCOP would apply the funds if Lick Observatory is shuttered? Would those funds produce the same impact for science? For the people of California? The University of California has, arguably, the greatest Astronomy department in the world. I am respectfully asking that you allow this highly respected faculty to decide how best to allocate its precious financial resources, and that the UC administration not take any unilateral action to force the closure of In closing, the reasons for keeping Lick open are compelling: Important ongoing science takes place using the KAIT and APS telescopes to discover supernovae and planets; these discoveries get followed up on the 3m. Large science programs of great importance that can run for years take place on the 3m, and could not be done on larger telescopes. These include painstaking searches for the critical needles in a haystack type objects. Our next generation of young astronomers are trained at Lick, and it remains a key venue for public outreach. Finally, Lick Observatory is a place of beauty and historic site. The best and least expensive preservation strategy is to continue to use it as a scientific preserve with public outreach as a secondary mission. With gratitude I thank you for your attention and consideration Sincerely yours, Dr. R. Michael Rich, Ph.D. Research Astronomer