Not surprisingly, I was on a mountain again.

I went to Arizona in 2008 to observe at Kitt Peak National Observatory. There was this mysterious other peak with a few domes on it just to the side of Kitt Peak...MDM. It has one large radio telescope (not actually associated with MDM) and two smaller optical telescope domes. I had no business over there. MDM, it turns out stands for Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT. This tangent now makes sense. MIT no longer has a share in those telescopes, but some other schools have picked up their slack.

I got to go to MDM to help observe for a long-term project run by Ohio State (apparently they picked up some of MIT's slack). I thought this would be perfect as I applied for time on both telescopes using the same instrument that this campaign is using. I got more time than I requested (either because my proposal was that awesome or because Michigan has more time than they know what to do with).

Anyway, I spent another week on another mountain. I saw some pretty sunsets due to clouds that of course ruined observations. It was a good experience, except for the fact that I had way more homework to do than I originally anticipated having. There's also the fact that my skin was ridiculously dry even though I was actively trying to combat this issue.

I spent some time standing on a rock a short walk away from the telescopes. Below you can see the MDM telescope I wasn't using on the left and Kitt Peak in the distance.

I spent a week in Texas, and it didn't feel like I thought Texas would.

I went to Austin (which is apparently a pocket of liberalism) to attend the American Astronomical Society meeting. The winter meetings of this group are the biggest in America (for astronomers, that is). It is usually a fun and draining time. It's fun because I get to be in a different place and I get to see people I don't normally get to see. It's draining because I get to see a lot of people I don't normally get to see. I almost always leave these things with the strong desire to be alone for weeks on end. This is never possible.

I gave a talk this year, which was very nerve-wracking. I usually present a poster and have no trouble talking to people one-on-one. Fortunately and unfortunately, my talk was the first talk in the first session on the first day. This meant that I couldn't tell people about it to have them come. I couldn't look beyond the first few rows of chairs, so I couldn't tell you how many people were there if I tried. I think it went well. I was glad to not have to worry about it for the rest of the week.

I wandered around downtown Austin a little. There were few skyscrapers, but the ones they had were tastefully done. I walked along the river a little and stood on a bridge that is known to be home to millions of bats in the summer. Aside from all of the astronomers, I met up with a friend from high school. She talked astrology with my astronomer friends; they took it well. Because I actually know a fair amount of astronomers at this point, I spent more time socializing outside of the conference than sight-seeing. Also contributing to that was the fact that the weather was pretty gross, as seen in the picture below.

November Observing Run Photos

So, here are some pretty pictures from Mount Wilson in southern California.

The observatory is just outside of LA, so here is a view overlooking civilization.

The telescope that I was using was actually a set of six telescopes. The light from each of them goes through the white tubes and into a central building where it is combined. The result is hopefully a resolved stellar surface.

And then it snowed, so I got no data. On the left in this image is historic 100-inch Mount Wilson dome that Edwin Hubble used to use. The short buildings in the bottom of image are the control room for the CHARA interferometer (left; the telescope I used) and the building where the light is combined (right).