Another Observing Run!

This is my first observing run for my new thesis project, and I couldn't be more excited.

Another graduate student and I got to the mountain two days before our run. The night before we started getting data for our use was gorgeous, and we collected data for someone that was remotely observing. I got to learn all kinds of new proceedures and learn about interferometry, which is the technique I'm now using. With the six telescopes in this array, the light is combined so stellar surfaces can be resolved---stars aren't just points of light!

Last night we were quickly in a cloud, but the telescope operator gave us a tour of the 100-inch telescope that Edwin Hubble used to measure the expansion of the universe. The old instruments were still there, and it was just beautiful. I have some photos that I will share, but I can't yet get them on my laptop (I forgot my SD card converter).

Tonight is worse. While I was sleeping, it snowed. It isn't much, but it is still snow. I'm still in a cloud, which is presently dumping more snow. I didn't even leave the "cottage" that I'm staying in today. Cottage is a lie; it's a trailer. It is a lot nicer than some other places I've stayed while observing, but giving it the name "cottage" is just misleading and cruel. It does have a fireplace, so maybe that qualifies it?

I leave on Sunday, but the other graduate student stays until Friday. I'm hopeful that some useful data will be taken.

Mostly the Upper Peninsula

The first step was crossing the Mackinac Bridge. This huge bridge crosses over the boundary between Lakes Michigan and Huron. It also connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. If you are from Michigan, you would probably refer to those regions as the UP to the Mitten. People really do point to regions of their right palm to indicate what part of the state to which they are referring.

Anyway, this bridge was huge, and I enjoyed looking at two Great Lakes at once.

After crossing the Mackinac Bridge, I hopped on a ferry to go to Mackinac Island.

The island is pretty much a really nice tourist trap. Seriously, it's a trap. You can only get there by a rather expensive ferry (and if you want your own bicycle, it's even more expensive!), which only run during the day. Once you're on the island, your only options of transportation are horses (which poop all over the place) drawing carriages or bicycles. This was exceptionally nice, I must admit. However, it promotes those who don't seem to know how to ride bicycles to ride them (see below).

There is a road that goes along the coast of the whole island. I rode by bike around it, frequently getting really agitated by the small children that didn't seem to know how to ride their rented bikes. I almost ran into one that stopped and got off of her bike when going up a hill right in front of me.

The highlight of the ride wasn't the cool lake breeze or the fragrant horse droppings, but rather the cleverly-placed snack stand with pickles. Apparently fried pickles are a highlight of this region of Michigan. Unfortunately, I didn't know that there was a difference between a pickle-on-a-stick and a fried pickle. I ordered the former, which was a massive pickle that couldn't be finished.

The next step was an excursion to Sault Sainte Marie, which is a town in both Michigan and Canada.

The Michigan town is known for the locks helping to connect Lakes Huron and Superior. Large boats use these locks, and it's just impressive.

The Canadian Sault Sainte Marie was not nearly as interesting. Although it was amusing to go to Canada, just because I could, the fact that I did that on the weekend preceding Canadian Thanksgiving really made the town seem barren and not worth the effort to cross over. In the picture of the locks, the big bridge in the background crosses to Canada. The land off in the distance is Canada.

Then there was Paradise, MI. I really don't know how to describe Paradise other than express that I don't understand why it exists. The only nearby attraction were the Tahquamenon Falls, which were by no means a thriving tourist attraction. Regardless, there is a really nice hotel there that is right on the edge of Lake Superior. There was also very little light pollution, which made trying to take pictures of the night sky actually fruitful (although they are mostly blurry, sadly this is not something that could be noticed on the small display on the camera). I had great hopes of viewing the Northern Lights from here, but they didn't show themselves. There had been a large solar flare the previous weekend, but that was just unfortunately timed.

Tahquamenon Falls were in a very well-kept state park. Michigan charges an admission fee per vehicle. This allows them to actually have clean bathrooms. I was shocked.

Anyway, the Falls were quite lovely with the changing leaves. I greatly enjoyed that the water was brown. This picture is from the upper falls. There were also far less majestic lower falls. The state park had a gift shop and a restaurant. Shockingly, the restaurant was quite good. I finally got my fried pickles. I was disappointed that it was the only opportunity I took to eat the fried pickles. They were glorious,.

Chicago, again

I am now about a four hour drive from Chicago, which means that I can much more easily get there. That's good.

I went there for a weekend. I had an amazing view of the city (thanks to last minute hotel booking) and went to the planetarium. It is a fantastic city that I'd like to explore more.

They also have really good pizza.

The rest of the summer in California

I was horrible about updating over the summer.

The NASA Exchange Lodge promised some things that made me chose that as housing: low price, access to the base pool, free laundry facilities, and free wireless internet. Only the low price existed. OK, so the internet worked after 1 a.m. and when all of the interns were at work. I didn't think it would be appropriate to update the blog while at work, so I just kept putting it off. Then I went back home and promptly packed almost all of my belongings to move to Michigan. The next thing I know, here I am with unpacked boxes in my apartment still and I'm already into the semester.

So a little bit of a summary of my summer seems necessary.

In my one and only post, I commented that Mountain View was a far walk. After I did it about a million times, I no longer thought it was a long walk. The only part of it that was long was the stretch with no shade. That was miserable. The weather was gorgeous almost every day, but when in the direct sunlight it was hot. I got a lot of sunburn. As a direct result, I got a lot of freckles (many of which are now fading to my excessive dismay).

What did I do for the summer? I spent a lot of time working. I worked exceptionally long days and frequently left work to have dinner and work remotely from my room. I found it incredibly rewarding. I am still working remotely on the project. I will be presenting the results at a meeting in Austin, TX in January (unless I get the paper out, then I will be presenting something else).

I also went to San Francisco several times. I rode cable cars, went to Fisherman's Wharf, took a ferry to Alcatraz, and saw the Golden Gate Bridge. I quite enjoyed San Francisco. I saw some small redwood trees. I also went to Half Moon Bay for the beach, where I realized that northern California has cold ocean water because the water comes from Alaska...not the south. That was silly.

I ate a lot of food. I spent some weekends exploring Mountain View. I spent a lot of time with the people I worked with.

That's the general overview of the summer. I will be returning next summer. The highlight was the day that my advisor first indicated I am to be welcomed back next year. It's a requirement of my fellowship that I do work for NASA, but knowing that they are anticipating my return is very rewarding.

A Different Part of Northern California

I have been staying just outside of Mountain View, CA for two weeks. I really shouldn't say "just outside" because Mountain View is almost too far to walk.

I've been working at NASA's Ames Research Center for two weeks, and my supervisor seems pleased with my work. The people I work with are all very nice. So far, it has been a good experience.

I haven't seen too much outside of Mountain View. The first weekend I was here, I went to a street fair/art festival in Sunnyvale, which is a cute little town. Last weekend I went to San Francisco.

As soon as I exited the train station, I was greeted by a naked man roller skating. OK, he didn't greet me in particular, but he was right outside of the station. I went to a farmer's market outside of the Ferry Building, which is a pier building filled with specialized food shops (see below). Most of my lunch consisted of fruit samples. California really does have delicious produce. While I was outside the Ferry Building, several parades of naked men on bicycles passed me by. I am told that this is not actually legal in California, but no one seems to care. No, I did not take any pictures of that.

The best part of poor observing conditions...

¡¡ESPECTACULAR!!

Yesterday while I was at dinner, the observatory assistant working at my telescope left a note that was a sky map with the International Space Stations's fly-by marked and labeled "¡¡ESPECTACULAR!!"

After getting everything set up for the night, I took the camera and tripod outside and got this nice picture. I know I should have exposed for longer, but the twilight was still really bright, and I feared over exposure.

So there you go, ISS (with Endeavour still docked to it!) flying by Cerro Tololo. It did a nice large arc missing zenith, the point directly overhead, by merely 3 degrees, I believe. It was rather spectacular.

More Adventures in the Andes

Please note, for some reason Blogger won't let me post the photos in such a way that will allow you to click on them and view them. I will continue trying to fix this, as it wasn't a problem when I posted the Shuttle picture a few days ago.

Once again it is rather chilly in Chile. That tends to happen in the winter, but I really think that joke never gets old.

I spent a day and a half in La Serena. This consisted of a lot of walking and a lot of napping. It was a relaxing time. I was very disappointed with the selection of junk at the "craft" market, La Recova. Not only has the stuff been the same for the last three years (OK, OK there was some new pottery, but I didn't like it enough to be tempted...the outrageously bright baskets to go with my other outrageously bright baskets did tempt me, however), but it has gone up in price. There is also no bartering these days.

I'm now up on the mountain and busying myself by taking pictures of the Andes. I have to say that the ride up the mountain is about the only car ride that I never want to end. Once we get to the mountains, it takes about 45 minutes to ascend and every second of it is an amazing view. Speaking of amazing views, I am happy to take advantage of the fancy new camera that took all of the pretty aurorae pictures. I hope to take some lovely ones of the stars. The ones I took tonight came out alright, but there is a thin haze that is blocking the majority of the faint stars of the Milky Way, so you can'texactly tell that it is in fact a way that is milky. I'm also really hoping to capture the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our very own Milky Way.

In any case, I give you this lovely picture. Why yes, that is the moon. It's really rather bright...and I exposed the image for thirty seconds for dramatic effect. You can see from this that there are some low clouds.

So far observing is going as well as usual...bad weather and computer problems. However, I'm in Chile. That being said, yet again, the hot dogs I ate at lunch...and dinner...must then be Chile dogs. Like chili dogs, but not with chili. They were also not with buns, but that's beside the point.

Space Shuttle Launch

On April 28th, I decided to be spontaneous. I booked a flight the next morning to Orlando.

I was in Florida, rented a car, and drove to the coast.  I wanted to see Endeavour make its last journey to space. In the photo, Endeavour is behind the structure on the left. It was sadly very far away. Even more tragic was the fact that Endeavour didn't launch.

Endeavour actually launched today; I watched the live feed. It was not the same, but I had an adventure anyway.

Northern Lights!

Our trip started in Stockholm; we arrived in the early morning (luckily our room was ready at our hotel).

We stayed in a hotel with a lovely view of the harbor (our hotel is the one to the right of the yellow building). We were in the Östermalm neighborhood. We brunched at a nearby Paris-style café, which was delicious. They were very liberal with the "Paris-style" part, as it was indoors. We opted for a supermarket dinner consisting of bread, cookies, fruit, and strawberry juice (my favorite thing in the world to consume). We walked around the area's streets enjoying the architecture and storefronts.

The next morning we left to fly to Kiruna and then off to nearby Jukkasjärvi, home of the IceHotel (pictured here at night). We spent the first day exploring the hotel. That means that we have pictures of almost every room.

Our room had a boat bed. It was awesome. However, I was a wimp and couldn't sleep there more than one night. I kept waking up covered in sweat from the sleeping bag being too warm, then I'd get cold from the air, then hot from the bag...it was a vicious cycle that landed us in a warm cabin the next night.

The first night we dined in the renowned IceHotel restaurant. It was amazing...except for the sea buckthorn gel. We started with alcoholic drinks that were cooled by gigantic ice cubes that were the same ice the hotel was built from. Then we had reindeer steaks with potato cake, various root vegetables, and pumpkin purée. I can't describe how delicious the whole meal was. Our dessert choices were not terrible, but they were not as satisfying as the meal. The lingonberry mousse I had was a bit more sour than I would have liked. The previously mentioned sea buckthorn gel was apparently the centerpiece of another dish, but certainly was disgusting (sour, unpleasant flavor, etc.); luckily the trimmings of meringue, cookies, and ice cream were better.

We also made a trip to the Absolut Ice Bar. We got a drink in an ice cup (!) that was currant-flavored vodka, black currant juice, and guavabanana juice. It was delicious. Currants really need to be this delicious and plentiful in the US, too.

The second day we snowshoed, which I was remarkably good at. This is noted by the fact that I only fell twice where I needed the assistance of a tree or another person to get up. This snowshoeing venture involved riding a sled towed by a snowmobile, which was fun on its own. During a break in the snowshoeing we ate arctic raspberry muffins and drank warm lingonberry juice, which was just delicious.

After our snowshoeing adventure, we wandered around the IceHotel compound and relaxed quite a bit. We again went out for dinner, but this dinner was special. We first went to the Swedish Space Corporation's Esrange Space Center for a very comprehensive tour of their facilities and capabilities. We first saw the Northern Lights peaking out behind the clouds from the top of the Esrange compound. We visited their rockets and learned about their atmospheric tests. Much like in the morning, we then trekked through the snow (this time without snowshoes!) to a tiny cabin in the woods. Our tour guide made us dinner. The first course was smoked salmon, which did not taste like any salmon that I've ever had before (in that it was delicious and not fishy at all).

We went outside while the main course was cooking to witness the Northern Lights in a newly cleared sky. Unfortunately, we only captured a handful of aurorae pictures, but the ones we did get are fantastic (ignoring that the stars are slightly blurred). We were too busy watching the sky to play with the camera excessively. Anyway, the Northern Lights do, in fact, shift before your eyes. It was an absolutely amazing night. The aurorae were fantastic and the sky was so clear (certainly rivaling Chile). We finished our dinner of moose, potatoes, and black currant sauce (like cranberry sauce but better). Dessert was chocolate mousse with cloudberries (also good, but lots of seeds). I made some unnecessary comment about consuming several kinds of moose at some point. We were driven back to the IceHotel (during the drive to the space center we saw some reindeer and on the trip back we saw a female moose).

After a while we walked down to the Thorne River (where all the ice comes from) and took pictures of the moon before everything was engulfed in clouds (no more aurorae).

The next afternoon we returned to Stockholm. We wandered around Gamla Stan, which was supposed to be the best place to buy souvenirs. They were probably the worst souvenirs I've ever encountered. After walking around the old, old streets of Gamla Stan, which is the oldest part of Stockholm, we wandered back to Östermalm, walking along the harbor. We ventured back to an Italian restaurant we had seen a few days before. It was amazing (but not better than the reindeer). We returned to our hotel, which was right by Stockholm's central train station. In this hotel, our room had controllable mood lighting, which was amusing.

It was a fantastic trip, and we saw some amazing things. However, it was far too short. Sweden is a lovely country with very nice people and amazing food.

Seattle Nerd Conference 2011

I once again went to Seattle for the meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Most unfortunately, I had little time to wander around.

In the process of finding a store that would print my poster on very short notice, I stopped by the Space Needle. It is still there. It is just how I remembered it from four years ago...all "futuristic".

Aside from conferencing, I did a lot of eating. That's about it. I met a lot of important people; generally that's the point of a conference at this stage in my career it would seem.

Gettysburg

I will be quite honest; we went to Gettysburg at the end of August to stay in a "haunted" inn, the Farnsworth House Inn. It was quaint, and there were plenty of creepy things hanging around (see picture!). However, there were no ghosts. We ate some "period" meals (fresh baked, fluffy gingerbread was a highlight!), drove through the battlefields

(which looked much like the picture, but some others were much more overgrown) on our own and on a tour, and went on a ghost tour in the dark. One of the most amusing portions was after the ghost hunting, we were taken to the basement of the Farnsworth where the tour guide (also our tour guide form the afternoon, by coincidence?) told us ghost stories. He is a talented narrator, so we all enjoyed ourselves.

This was a fun weekend trip, as I had never been to Gettysburg before. I was reminded of the history I learned in school.

Last Days and Departure

So I've been a little sloppy with the up-to-date nature of this blog.

The conclusion of Paris was quite enjoyable. The sister and I went to the Château de Chantilly, which was an adventure on its own. We experienced the walking around the quaint little town. The castle is pictured here. I was so glad that we could do something I haven't done before.

We walked through Chantilly for lunch. I had forgotten how hard it was to find food in a small French town. We finally found food that was tolerable, but what saved the meal was the Chantilly cream topping the massive mounds of ice cream we got for dessert. We also acquired some of the best macaroons that we had. I miss the macaroons.

Additionally, we ascended the Eiffel Tower and descended into the depths of the catacombs. Long lines were to be had everywhere. Overall, it was a pleasant trip with lots of good food.