Abraham adds, “Prior to the availability of Mac OS X, I’d been using Linux and Windows boxes, and I’d still be using them if they provided me with a better way to get the job done. But Mac OS X is easily the best operating system for this kind of thing. Not only could I code up this whizzy software quickly that would let me get this project rolling, it also meant I could ditch having two computers on my desk, since the Mac does everything I need.”

The BSD underpinnings in Mac OS X were especially helpful to the astronomer. “Having Mac OS X meant that I could use the standard UNIX tools everyone in academia is familiar with,” Abraham observes. “My colleagues and I could use a UNIX-based application like IRAF for the parts of the project where IRAF is really the right tool for the job, and have access to all this stuff on the same machine used to run our custom analysis software.”

Data Reduction in Real Time
Abraham’s new Cocoa application has greatly reduced the amount of time required to sift through the astronomical data that Gemini captures. “Ordinarily that’s the hardest part of the process, since it’s pretty fiddly,” he says. “You come back from the telescope with a tape full of data, and weeks or months later you have a bunch of extracted and calibrated spectra. But using this program, we’re able to extract and calibrate our spectra in real time ... we’re keeping up with the data flow at a level that’s just not possible with any other existing tools.”

Mac Converts
Abraham’s Mac-based programming has resulted in many converts. While he was the only occasional Mac user a year ago, over half of the team of 11 astronomers now uses Macintosh systems. The PowerBook G4 has emerged as the most popular computer by far for the astronomers.

Says Abraham, “I now use a Power Mac G4 as my main computer, and I use an iBook for making presentations. My two PhD students took one look at what I was doing with my computers and asked for Power Macs too. We figured that they’d get more research done if they could spend less time dealing with the intricacies of Linux, so it wasn’t a tough sell. Among astronomers in general, Mac laptop usage seems to be skyrocketing. People can run all of the standard astronomy software on them, they’re fast enough for serious data reduction, and are terrific for making presentations. They’re really great for everyday use.”

Best Tools for the Job
Gemini has been able to probe a region of the universe that previously was entirely unknown. For example, if members of the GDDS team look 10 billion light years out in space, because light travels at a finite speed, they’re actually glimpsing what existed 10 billion years in the past. Thus, with ever-larger telescopes, scientists are now beginning to probe the epochs in cosmic history during which galaxies were formed.

“It’s an exciting time,” states Abraham. “If we can figure out when galaxies came to be, then watch them evolve and change over time, we may finally be able to answer some fundamental questions that astronomers have been grappling with for the last 100 years, such as how the different types of galaxies are related to each other.”

Preferred Combination:
Macs, Mac OS X, and Cocoa
No matter what secrets Gemini reveals, it’s no secret what technology tools will continue to support the data-gathering effort: Macintosh hardware, Mac OS X, and Cocoa. This combination, laughs Abraham, is truly “out of this world.”

“Everything our team did could have been done on a PC. But it would have required much more time, energy, manpower, and money, and probably wouldn’t have worked as well or been as much fun to use. Astronomers rarely lack computers. What we’re really lacking is time, so tools that help you get the job done efficiently are the way to go. It really came down to a matter of choice ... and for us Mac OS X and Cocoa were the best tools for the job.”