Team Member Summary by Nabina Liebow

DAY SEVEN: Saturday in Santa Fe (hey, that rhymes!)

We began the day by eating lunch/brunch at a restaurant on the way to Santa Fe called the Tesuque Village Market. Food was fine. People were nice. Nuff said. The rest of the day was spent out on the wild-west streets of Santa Fe. We were initially welcomed into Santa Fe by a man who was hostile towards the Los Alamos laboratories. He swore at us and then asked for beer money. Logically you'd think that first he'd ask for beer money, and then, upon us saying "no" begin swearing; apparently, this guy had things a little backwards…After the "welcome committee", we all went to the Georgia O'Keef Museum. There was a range of responses to the exhibit. Everything from, "Wow!! That was so awesome!" to, "If I ever see another painting of flowers, I think I might shoot myself." Our scientific team has now collected data to support the statement, "Art is subjective."

After the museum, we were set lose into the city…town…well, more like village of Santa Fe. Emily2 and I enjoyed walking in the stores and around the plaza while we looked at the art and jewelry. The guys, on the other hand, were less enthralled by eyeing vendors' wares, and they ended up eating at a burrito joint to pass that time. They also reported on buying a chocolate cigar that melted, seeing a semi-decent mariachi band, and walking around in circles. Sounds fun, no?

I found it very relaxing to sit in the Plaza and read a magazine for a bit. While I was reading, I saw a (seemingly intoxicated) woman with a kitten on a leash. That was odd. That was Santa Fe. That was day seven.

*****Moving on to night seven*****

We finally met the famous Mr. Galen, who had returned from his business trip to Europe. Also, we met the former Earth Watch volunteer, "Kate." Together, we had dinner at the "Hill Diner." After our meal, we spilt up, and us students all went up to the observatory at Fenton hill. The night's activity was based on double stars. Our task was to locate binary (Double stars) and determine whether or not we could tell if they were two distinct, separate stars. On stars with a smaller separation of arcseconds between them, it got harder and harder to discern a noticeable difference between two stars. Us girls were able to get lots of data. We figured out that the smallest amount of separation we could distinguish between the binaries was a separation of 2.2 arc seconds. Not only did we collect a lot of data, but we were also able to learn more about how the telescopes work. We all got lots of "hands on" time. The guys had less luck collecting data, although they were able to view a couple of different double stars. After Fenton Hill, we returned to the hotel and slept.