Richard Plambeck

science

• First discovery of a bipolar outflow from a young star. (Snell, Loren, & Plambeck 1980)
  I was observing with Ron Snell and Bob Loren at the University of Texas MWO, after installing the Berkeley 230 GHz Schottky diode receiver (receiver temperature 8000 K!). Ron and Bob noted that their 1-0 CO maps of the dark cloud L1551 showed redshifted and blueshifted CO line wings positioned symmetrically about the infrared source IRS5. We observed these positions with the 230 GHz receiver and I was thrilled to see that the 2-1 emission was stronger, indicating that the CO was warm and optically thin -- almost all the 2-1 lines we'd observed until then were almost duplicates of the 1-0 profiles (boring!).



• rnglike structure of the Orion SiO maser . Yeah, now we know that the masers are really in an X-pattern, but it was a big deal to see a distribution of maser spots over a 0.15" region when our synthesized beam was 2". I was so concerned about phase variations across the passband that we installed a transmitter at the Hta Creek Rim lookout tower (before it burned down) and I had to drive up the dirt road to the lookout tower at 3 am to tweak a knob.
• deuterated water in Orion
• 86 GHz flare in Orion - moved it closer
• First interferometric observations of 1mm dust polarization.
• Discovery that BN and source I are moving apart.
• survey of molecular clouds in M33 - a 759-field mosaic with BIMA