Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to receive interacted energy at an optical calculation device attached to a down hole housing to be deployed in a down hole environment. Further activities may include optically compressing data carried by the interacted energy into at least one orthogonal component, using the optical calculation device, sending a signal associated with the at least one orthogonal component to a remote surface computer, and determining a property of petroleum located in the down hole environment using the remote surface computer, based on the signal. The optical calculation device may comprise a multivariate optical element (MOE). Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.