LIGO Field Trip Follow Up

[Sam Knox]

Several club members have expressed interest in organizing a club field trip to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) near Richland, WA.

We want to know how many people are interested in going, so we can plan a field trip.

We have two possible options:

1. LIGO offers public tours on the 2nd Saturday of every month. The next such offering is on Saturday, July 12.
2. Groups of 15 or more can arrange a private tour on a weekday with at least two weeks advance notice. 

So if we can get at least 15 people interested, we can get a private tour of the facility. If not, we can still go and join a public tour, most likely on July 12th.

Please respond to this email and let us know if you'd like to join this outing. We need to know fairly soon, ideally by the end of this week.

Sam

[Daniel Sumerfield]

Sam,

 

I’m interested for myself and my 10yo. I might have more than one kid interested in going, but sign us up for 2.

 

But it may depend on the schedule. Our summer is already carved up with other commitments.

 

Thanks!

 

Daniel

 

 

DANIEL J. SUMERFIELD, PE, SE

PRINCIPAL

P: 509.225.7704  

F: 509.388.2445

C: 509.941.5344

www.leslieengineering.com

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[Larry Kirkpatrick]

I am definitely interested; especially with the potential government funding hack for this system. This could be our only opportunity. Tracy and I would like to attend.

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From: yakima-valley-...@googlegroups.com <yakima-valley-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Sam Knox <max...@gmail.com>

Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2025 12:19 PM
To: Yakima Valley Astronomy Club <yakima-valley-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [YVAC] LIGO Field Trip Follow Up

[Andrew Smigaj]

That would be fun.  Count me in. 

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[Steve Potter]

I'm interested and depending on what day it is, I can bring 2 teenagers that would be very excited to see this, we have talked about it in the past but they stopped touring that year for some reason.

[Sam Knox]

Ok, so we might have enough people for a private tour. Here’s the hard part - it has to be on a weekday, not weekend. 

Knowing that, is there a day of week that is more likely to work for you all? It means taking a day off of work, but Fridays are the best day for me.

Taking a shot in the dark, is Friday July 18th an option for you all?

Sam

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM Sam Knox <max...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Sam Knox]

Ok, so I’m going to inquire if the 18th is available. My only other option for the summer is the following Friday on the 25th, so I’ll put that down as an alternative. 

Sam

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM Sam Knox <max...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Sam Knox]

Request is made. The website says it can take up to two weeks to get a response. So we'll see what happens. 

If LIGO isn't available on our days, or we can't get enough people on the same day to satisfy the 15-person minimum, we can still go on a public tour day. At this point, that'll probably be the August date on the 9th. (Which is a Saturday).

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM Sam Knox <max...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Dawson]

Friday works for me,  but I can do any other day. 

Dawson

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[Andrew Smigaj]

Anyone open to carpooling?  I dont want to drive down myself, and would provide an awkward form of entertainment as I get caught up when I do share my interests.

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[Sam Knox]

Sounds good Daniel! We don't have a confirmed date yet, so I'll let you know when we do ☺️ n case you're available.

Have a happy 4th!

On Thu, Jul 3, 2025, 12:36 PM Daniel Sumerfield <dan...@leslieengineering.com> wrote:

Thanks for putting some energy into this Sam. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to go that particular day, taking a bunch of high-school kids out into the backcountry that weekend…wish me luck!

 

Maybe I’ll suffer the extra two pounds in the backpack and bring a nice set of binoculars, and think of colliding black holes in solidarity with you guys while I’m out there.

 

Daniel

 

 

DANIEL J. SUMERFIELD, PE, SE

PRINCIPAL

P: 509.225.7704  

F: 509.388.2445

C: 509.941.5344

www.leslieengineering.com

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/yakima-valley-astronomy-club/CAJg-AYacdUYKuZSq6MM_SNz3Zh1WEKvh3rWZbL0_zkmDNsiwLQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sam Knox]

I just heard back from the group organizer at LIGO, and unfortunately none of our July dates are open for them. Here's what they said:

"Thank you for reaching out about a LIGO tour. Unfortunately, our books for July are pretty full and we cannot accommodate your group on either of the days you have requested. Would August 6^th or 7^th work for your group? Due to heat, it would be best to have the tour earlier in the day, I recommend 9:00am - 11:00am. Please let me know if either of these dates work for you, and we will get your spot reserved on our calendar." 

August 6th and 7th are on Wednesday and Thursday. That makes it a bit more difficult for me to attend, but would that date work for the folks who are interested? If not, perhaps we should target a public tour day, or postpone until the fall sometime.

Sam

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM Sam Knox <max...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Sam Knox]

Ok - so the organizer at LIGO says that they can reserve a bunch of tickets for us for the next public tour slot, which is Saturday, August 9th. Several folks have told me they can't make a mid-week option, and really I can't either.

So, I need to know who is in for the August 9th trip. They suggested we start early because part of the tour is outside and it's August and probably will be really hot. So the start time will be 9:30am.

Please respond to this email if you'd like to go. 

Thanks for your patience while I get our plans solidified.

Sam

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM Sam Knox <max...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Dawson]

I'm up for the tour.  Should be hot,  but ce la vie

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[Sam Knox]

Ok, I have heard back from 10 of you so far. Pretty good crowd. Please let me know today if anyone else would like to join us on August 9th!

Sam

[Andrew Smigaj]

Neat.  I am very curious about how they use deep learning.

I did a little work in grad school with seismic event detection using a large network of GPS sensors (Panga).  It would be neat to see how they sort out gravitational waves versus other phenomena, or 'artifacts', as gravitational waves are so subtle.  I would figure seismic events would produce a much stronger signal and then you have many sources of noise.

Most of my own research is on understanding machine learning models.  Mechanistic interpretability - we cluster latent space and analyze the trajectories of data points through those clusters.  A population based approach that cares more about organization than raw activation values.

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