At 8am I woke up and traveled on down to the hotel breakfast for my regular waffle meal. We packed up and headed out around 9:30am, our first stop was at U of A to pick up the OIII filter we had forgotten back up at Carthage. I walked around and found the Chi Omega house, so cool it looked like a giant mansion.
Unfortunately no one was home. Our second stop naturally was the grocery store in order to pick up some snacks and items for our meal plan for the next three days/nights. There were a few disagreements and we might be a little short (because we all have a soft spot for indulging ourselves), but it’ll be fine. Afterwards, we trucked ourselves on up a long windy road to the Steward Observatory. Along the way we made two stops. Our first stop was a memorial for a WWII Japanese Camp. It was amazing to remind ourselves about how blessed we are in our lives to live in times that are not as difficult. The second stop we made was at a Windy Viewpoint, some other people got some beautiful pictures of the point we stood at. I, however, don’t have a picture camera, only a video cam, so take a look at theirs. We finally made it up all of the windy roads, from which I think we all were a little nauseated. Once at the top, it looked a lot more like home (plus some gorgeous mountain views) with snow and chilly weather. I pulled out my winter coat and we started right away. We got a quick tour of the telescope and how to fill the liquid nitrogen container. The telescope is has a 61’’ mirror and is completely fascinating. Especially after taking telescope-making with D. Arion last J-term. That night we started by collecting data for Jupiter (the group I’m in). It was probably one of the most fun things I have ever done as a scientist. A couple computers in front of me and a giant machine (slightly resembling an oversized laser) I am one mad scientist.
-- Sidenote: Ian and I have decided that it would be prolific to create a laser approx. the same size and shine it over the city in order to watch all of the cats in the town assemble –
After we finished gathering our data, it was time for “midnight supper.” Ian and I played house, or I should say Henry and Meredith respectively and cooked a bratwurst and ramen noodle meal to feed our ten children. It was a good time. I think everyone enjoyed the nighttime flavors. Once we resumed our research it was time to get some nebula images. Everyone was taking turns practicing using the equipment and getting images of different objects. Finally it was my turn and I was all about the horsehead nebula. I set up everything and the program had finally finished running and reading the image when BOOM! Power out. Steward Observatory and the city below us lost all power. Reason is still unknown. It may have been the Horsehead Nebula was just too much. Maybe Wednesday night, hopefully it will work. We meandered on back to the dorm and I passed out around 4am. I’m excited to continue working on Jupiter these next few days.
The outage was pretty freaky! It's a good thing I brought my LED light to save the day!
ReplyDeleteThe brat's were fantastic. I didn't have a chance to try the raman, sadly. I personally would have liked it with the pepper.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely thanks for making dinner! I totally want to be there when you make that laser! But you'd probably fry whole blocks of the city with it. That's kind of the problem with ideas that sound really good at 2am though. The image of Jupiter looks great, by the way.
ReplyDelete