Watch LHC Launch Tonight on TV in US with FTA Dish

[hamster143]

Hi

Does anyone know if it's possible to see LHC launch tonight on TV in the United States (as opposed to webcast)? I have a FTA dish. There's nothing in Dish network program guide. CERN website shows a few satellites but the only one visible from continental United States is C-Band.

 

[ZapperZ]

What exactly were you expecting to see even if it is on TV? Experimental physics, especially high energy physics experiment like this, is actually quite boring. You tend to sit in a control room somewhere and looking at computer monitors doing your data analysis while the collision occurs at the detector far away from you. And this goes on and on and on and on... for weeks! In other words, you really don't SEE the experiment going on.

Zz.

 

[dipstik]

its not like the NASA channel is all that entertaining either

 

[hamster143]

I'm familiar enough with high energy physics in general and with LHC in particular, I know what to expect. And there are thousands of channels on satellites in the skies above the United States, maybe one or two would have room. There's NASA, there's numerous Discovery channels, etc. etc. Also, not like it's prime time.

 

[cristo]

The best you'll probably get is a webcast.

 

[dlgoff]

...And this goes on and on and on and on... for weeks! In other words, you really don't SEE the experiment going on.

Dang. It sounds like maybe you've done this before.

 

[Haelfix]

Its a right of passage for many grad students. Sitting in a control room in the middle of night. You press a button if something goes wrong (which never happens), and surf the internet.

 

[hamster143]

The best you'll probably get is a webcast.

Looks like you're right. Their webcast is 384x216 though. Either they are stringy with bandwidth or they didn't get a good webcam installed in time.

 

[hamster143]

LHC First Beam - 10th September 2008 - 9am CEST (GMT+2)

Due to a huge interest for this live video feed of the LHC First Beam day, you may not be able to see the live video stream and we apologise for this.
Please try reloading the page, come back later, or check the other connection options available on this page.
Many thanks for your interest in CERN and the LHC!

 

[CleffedUp]

I found another feed on an Irish news site:
http://www.rte.ie/live/

They have some well-informed commentators, which is probably an upgrade over the raw CERN feed. They explain the monitors and you get into the workings of the devices at a useful level of detail. This is CSPAN-esque, but definitely something I appreciate as someone with a developed interest.

I agree that the apparent lack of similar coverage by US agencies and news outlets is incomprehensible.

 

[ZapperZ]

I must be the only one who isn't that "excited" about having the first beam going around the ring. And the people that I've talked to who work at ATLAS are almost equally "yawning" at the prospect. I am more interested in the ccw-cw-ccw ability that they would know by the end of tomorrow, the moment they actually get full power in the beam, and the moment of first collision in which the detectors will be in full operation. I find those to be more important than first beam around the ring, which, to me, is more of an engineering/design issue and not physics.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing engineering/design issue. I'm an accelerator physicist and I know fully well how important and tedious it is to get the beam in just the right parameter. But the physics content isn't just that significant. And even in milestone/engineering angle, the ability to get the beam back to the same parameter after adjusting the ccw-cw direction would be more spectacular due to the nature of the magnet.

This is why I didn't sign up for the Fermilab Pajama Party. :)

Now if they have another one for first collision, I'm there!

Zz.

 

[CleffedUp]

Sure the most exciting early milestone will be the first collision, but it's still a milestone. The opening pitch of a baseball game doesn't usually mean much, but spectators cheer it just the same, excited about what's to come.

This is also the first opportunity to learn more about the systems and experiments in a way that's more engaging than sifting through pages of jargon we non-accelerator physicists don't understand, but also less watered down than what you'll get in popular media, or even CERN's public website. This is the first best opportunity for we spectators to get a deeper sense of what those who are now bored with the whole thing have been up to and have in store.

 

[f95toli]

They were broadcasting live from CERN this morning on BBC n=News (around 9 o'clock GMT). Simon Singh 9 -who used to be a particle physicist- was in studio; it was actually quite interesting to watch and Singh's comments were really good.

 

[ZapperZ]

While there is no collision for this first beam tests, the various detectors are also "on". This link below shows how the ATLAS detector detected the presence of the proton beam from this morning going through it.

http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/OPERATIONS/prodSys/atlasoracleadmin/10Sep2008/beam/index.php

Needless to say, the beam has to be aligned extremely precisely though all the detectors.

Edit: Corrections. ATLAS here was detecting muons, not the proton beam. There is a beam stop at the entrance to each detector, and when proton beams hit this beam stop, muons are created. This is what ATLAS saw.

Zz.

 

[Burnsys]

LHC Webcast here:

http://dl.groovygecko.net/anon.groovy/groovygecko/cern/index.asp