Today we woke up nice and early to visit mount hopkins. We got to see a 6 meter telescope, which is roughly 18 feet. It was flabberghastingly huge, and had the added benifit of being built in a building that swiveled! The engeneering prowress to build any componant of, nonetheless the entire complete building and telescope, are mind blowing. The trip up / down the mountain was wonderful, thanks to the wonderful powers of Bonine (tm), save for the fact that they're narrow bumpy, gravel roads. While we took it slow, it was still a somewhat slightly perilous trip, and it helped me come to the conclusion that I do not have a fear of heights, just an extreme distrust of.
On the way down, we visited a 60 inch and a 41 inch. The 60 inch's dome was nearly half the size of the 61" we used earlier this week, thanks to advances in technology and the use of cross axis mounting system. The 41 inch's dome was not much smaller, although it is 2/3eds the size of the 60". The confusing part was when we walked into the dome and I thought to myself "This thing's kinda small" in spite of the fact that it still stands 3 people tall and could crush most of us under it's weight easily. Still, compared to the 6 meter, the 41" is small. They explained HATS to us, [hungarian auto-tracking sky survey], which are (as the name suggests), autotracking telescopes that survey the sky. When the HATS find something interesting, in this case stars that 'wiggle', they send order to the 41 and the 60 inch, which take closer looks at them. If there is wiggle, then the message gets passed on to an even larger, which then passes it on to a telescope in SPACE. This method helps locate planets orbiting stars, and the HATS usually get at least one hit a day.
Scattered around the mountain were gamma radiation detectors. An array of 299+ hexigonal mirrors focus light onto a detector. They are attempting to record Charenkov radiation, which is created as the gamma particles release energy during transit through the atmosphere. A slight disagreement came up betwixt myself and Dane; he claimed that gamma radiation couldn't penetrate the atomsphere, I disagreed. His claim was that, if gamma radiaton could penetrate, we would all be irradiated and dead and stuff (his exact word's were along those lines, although replace dead with glowing, etc. etc.). I claimed that most of the radiation would pass directly through our bodies without interacting, but before I could explain that any collision would cause damage -i.e. mutations, read: evolution -, Arion popped into the conversation and explained that any impact with dna woudl cause mutations, and ultimately lead to evolution. I was slightly upset that he stole my thunder, but as my point was made, I let it drop.
We returned to La Quinta, where I relaxed, snagged a shower, and shaved my face to near-perfection. The class decided on Delectibles, which it's good we agreed on that restaraunt, becuase DA had already called in the reservation. While a bit expensive, the food was enjoyable (Bree and Artichoke hearts, with a side of fruit), and the atomsphere was relaxing. The restaraunt was displaying (and selling) artwork from whom I assume is a local artist, and it was suprisingly well done. If I had 100 - 600 dollars to spend, I would have considered buying one.
The evening is winding down now, although it has been slightly productive. I've not put too much of a dent into day 3 of Saturn's imaging, as the videos are such poor quality it serves to be disheartening. Instead, while the program was optimizing, Myself, Melissa, and Justin played phase 10. I quickly formed a lead that they could not overcome, and I succeeded in winning easily, before anybody else had even reached the 10th phase. But I digress. It sounds like tomorrow we will not be visiting the mirror lab, which fills me with sadness, other than that I can sleep in later now. We will still be heading up to Kitt peak, which will hopefully be a fascinating trip. Until then, sleep beckons.
