Charlotte Guertler's blog 

Hi, my name is Charlotte.  I am from Dover, MA.  I am 16 and will be a junior this coming school year.  This is my blog of the experiences that I had during the two weeks that I spent in New Mexico for the project Transient Phenomena in Astrophysics, one of the projects that is part of the Student Challenge Awards Program.  

July 6, 2008

Day 1

The night before I had told myself that I would go to bed early since I had to wake up at 2:30 am (EST, which is midnight here in Los Alamos)  to catch my 5:20 am flight.  Of course, I didn't get in bed until 10:00 pm, and couldn't fall asleep for at least an hour.  I was too nervous and excited about Earthwatch and my first time flying alone.  

My alarm went off at 2:30 am.  When I turned on the light in my room, my dog looked at me like I was crazy (and I agree, waking up that early when it is still pitch black out is crazy!).  Luckily I was totally ready to go, and all I had to do was get dressed and leave.  

On the road to Logan Airport, my dad and I were wondering how many cars we would see.  Driving out of my town, and for about 15 more minutes, we didn't see anyone on the road (not surprising), but about 15 minutes from Boston we actually passed quite a few car, and then lots on the Mass Pike.  

At the airport, it took about 6 rows of the parking garage before we could get a spot.  It turns out that a lot of spaces are reserved even at 3:30.  FInally we got a spot and headed inside.  I had already gotten my boarding pass from the computer the night before, so I didn't have to wait in line for that (and surprisingly there was a really long line).  Instead we used a self- service bag check, and had to wait about 10 minutes until someone took my bag and put it on the conveyer belt.  Not much time saved.  

I got through security easily after saying good bye to my dad.  I then found the gate and looked around for Chris, the other Earthwatch student from Massachusetts.  I didn't see him, so I waited for 5:20.  Chris got the the gate and found me about ten minutes after I got there.  We then had to wait for our flight.  When the flight boarded, we found our seats (not next to each other) and got ready for the flight.  I just read the entire flight, since I didn't feel like sleeping.  

We arrived at Chicago about ten minutes early, and then had to wait for over three hours for our next flight.  We knew that there would be other Earthwatch people in Chicago, but we didn't know how to find them.   Chris slept and I read to pass the time.   We waited about two and a half hours before we found another Earthwatch person.  After I had gotten up to get something to eat, the person next to me in the waiting area asked me if I was going to Albuquerque, and if I was part of Earthwatch.  It turns out that he was Ryan.  After awhile, we boarded the plane to New Mexico.   This plane was much smaller.  I slept for about a half an hour, but got woken up when the drink cart passed.  After that, I read my book until we reached New Mexico.  

When the pilot announced that we would begin descent, I looked out the window.  I looked outside and saw a top of a light brown cloud.  It took me a couple seconds to realize that this 'cloud' was really the desert of New Mexico.  I had never seen land that flat and bare before.  I watched as we got closer and was amazed by Albuquerque.  It was mostly brown, with some green.  Most of it was flat.  It looked life a toy city, arranged perfectly in geometric shapes of land.  There were patches of farm land that was brown, arranged in square patches.  There were patched of housing, with lots of tiny brown houses packed tightly in rectangles.  There were patches of housing, a large break filled by desert, then another patch of houses.  It was really interesting.  

We landed and met up with the other people that had been on our flight: Erica, Andrew, and Kelsey.  We then found our team leaders.  After getting our checked luggage and finding the other two (Stephanie, nicknamed Nica, and Ben), we ate at a mexican restaurant in the airport.  

After lunch, we got in the van and drove to Fenton Hill.  Most of us had gotten up really early, so some slept on the way.  At Fenton Hill, we toured the facilities, then looked at the telescopes.  It was still midday, so we didn't use anything, which was probably good because most of us were having a hard enough time staying awake.  

We drove anther hour to Los Alamos.  In Los Alamos, the entire group got to check out the hotel.  Something had gone wrong in booking the hotel, so we last minute booked in Ashley Hotel.  We looked in a room to decide if we would be staying there or sleeping at someone's house.  Luckily the place checked out and we all got our rooms.  I share my room with Kelsey.  Our room seems pretty good except for the view (the parking lot at ground level.  We can see out and most likely people can see in.  We have decided to keep our shades closed.).

The rest of the day was mostly spent unpacking and resting, with a dinner at Sonic.   

July 7, 2008

Day 2

Today we had to wake up way too early again!  Luckily, the time was a bit more reasonable; about 6:30 am.  We got in the car and went to get our badges.  This was very interesting.  We were told we needed our social security number.  Of course, I didn't have mine and had to call my dad.   We got the the place, then we waited in line, only to find out that in order to get the passes, we had to have our passport or birth certificate.  Luckily I had my passport.  Chris also had his passport with him, but everyone else didn't and were refused badges.  

Chris and I went in and were told to wait in line and that we would be called up when they were ready.  We saw everybody else sitting down and assumed they would call us up by name when ready (like they were doing for everybody else).  We were wrong.  After sitting on the couch for awhile, I realized that the people were that getting called up were not there for the same reason as us.  We realized that we actually had to wait, standing up in order to be called up. I got to the place and was quickly called up.  They took my picture and then I had to wait for awhile for them to make the badge.  After Chris and I got our badges we met up with the rest of the group, who were playing cards.  After joining them in a game, the other people got their guest badges, which were different from Chris and mine.  

We then all got in the van and went to the old elementary school (now an LANL building).  There we learned stuff about the night sky and got to play around with Stellarium, a program that mimics the night sky on the computer.   Don then taught us how to put together and use a telescope.  The telescope was very cool and could actually be moved by motors.  

We went to the Bradbury Science Museum and learned a lot about the Manhattan Project and all the research that developed from it.  We got to learn about the history of Los Alamos and play around with a lot of the hands-on stuff there. 

After that we went back to the hotel and began our walking tour around Los Alamos.  We first went to Ashley Pond.  What's funny about that is the pond is named after the man Ashley Pond, so it should really be called Ashley Pond Pond.  We saw a lot of the interesting sites of Los Alamos and got to learn ore about it from Aimee, Chris and Don.  

After the tour we went to dinner, then back to the hotel to play cards and watch TV together.  

June 8, 2008

Day 3

Today was our geology tour!  We got up around 7:30 and went for a quick drive-through breakfast at McDonalds.  McDonalds somehow forgot my order for my milkshake, so I had no breakfast there.  Luckily I had eaten a banana right before, so I wasn't that hungary and I had my water to quench my thirst.  We met up with Aimee and Carol at the school and we began our tour.  

We drove for awhile, and on the way we learned about each other as Carol tried to match names with activities we had mentioned in our profiles. Eventually, we stopped at a place that we could oversee Los Alamos.  There we got a quick lesson about the history of the land and learned about the Caldera and a basic briefing of what we would be doing that day.  We climbed back in the van and went to see the valley that is part of the Caldera.  The valley was about two miles wide (and this was one of the smaller objects part of the Caldera).  In the valley we got to see our first elk.  The herd was too far to easily see, so we used binoculars and we could barley make out little black shapes that remotely  represented elk.  WE learned about the history of the valley and got to enjoy the beauty that was in front of us.   

Next we moved on to a part of land by the side of the road that had lots of pumice rocks.  The rocks has made a hill as they had fallen from their position in the cliff above us.  This allowed us to see the many rock layers in the Earth and gave us access to many of these rocks in the ground.  The pumice rocks were really cool; they were extremely light!  These rocks, we learned, were from the ash from the volcano, which allowed for a lot of air pockets, creating the light weight.  We got to collect some of the rocks and also got to try to climb the hill of these rocks and try to not fall.  We all had fun, but most of us ended up with a lot of rocks in our shoes.  

After that, we went to a canyon that had really old lime stone.  In these rocks, we were able to search for fossils of all sorts of ancient water creatures. This was my first time fossil hunting.  It was so fun, but it got really hot in the sun.  I found so many fossils of shells and other ancient objects!  I have now found a new hobby. Too bad there aren't any fossil places that I know about in Massachusetts.  After collecting all of the fossils we could find, we gathered together and compared our findings.  We had a competition for the biggest and smallest fossils that we could find. 

After fossils, we went to a hot springs that had calcium build up that had formed a dam.  The water from the spring was coming right out og the mountain.  It was so hot!  I think it must have been around 80 degrees.  Here we got to test the pumice and see how it is an unusual rock; it floated!  We all sent a rock of ours that we had collected down the river.  The dam created had caves and water running through it.  It was the coolest thing.  I took so many pictures of it.  We got to climb up on top of it and have the large view of the mountains and river.  It started to drizzle and there were black clouds overhead, so we went to lunch after that.  

Lunch was in an interesting place.  There were tons of animal heads and skins on the wall.  We had trouble finding enough chairs for the 11 of us.  During lunch the light drizzle turned into hard rain.  We ran back to the van after lunch and headed back to Los Alamos.  On the way back we got out of the car and got our picture taken by lizard rock.  This rock was a large boulder that people had cemented rocks into it to represent teeth and an eye of the lizard.  

We stopped in at Fenton Hill to get a tour of the RAPTOR telescopes, given by Jim.  We got to see and learn about all the telescopes, including the gigantic ones that have a mirror that is almost a meter in diameter.  They were all gigantic and surprisingly they could move around very quickly in order to observe the sky.  I was very impressed that all of thee telescopes all operated on their own.  They opened at dark, take many pictures, notify a person if there is anything of interest, and store the information.  They can even close themselves if the weather gets bad!  The many RAPTORS were named different things like RAPTOR Z for Zippy, and other less interesting names.  After touring more of the grounds, we decided to head back to Los Alamos because it began to rain.  

In Los Alamos, we went to the Bradbury Science Museum again to hear Didier Saumon's talk about Giant Planets, Hot Jupiters and SuperEarths.  In that talk, I leaned a lot.  It was very interesting and also included many interesting demonstrations to help convey his message to the audience in simpler terms.  

After the talk, we all went to dinner, and talked about the lecture and created new words.  Then we went back to the hotel.  There, everyone determined that we couldn't go to Fenton Hill that night because of rain and clouds, despite everyone's dismay.  Instead we decided to go and paint the Los Alamos rock.  Similar to the giant rock in the Dover-Sherborn High School parking lot, it had the history of its area in the layers of paint.  We added one more layer of spray paint that represented our Earthwatch trip and group, with a huge Earthwatch written on it, and many of our sayings and names.  It was really surprising how much we had to put on that rock that represented our group on only the third day of the trip!

We got back to our hotel and gathered in Kelsey's and my room to play cards.  We never actually played cards, but rather watched you-tube videos together.  At about 11:00 pm, we dispersed and later went to bed.  Today was so far the best day of the trip.

July 9, 2008

Day 4

Today we got to sleep in to 8:00 am!  Kelsey and my alarm somehow went off at 7:30 am, even though it was turned off.  Oh well, we got back to sleep for the half an hour until we got a call saying we would leave for breakfast at 9:00 am.  Kelsey decided to get up, but I tried to sleep some more, then woke up at 8:30.  We went to breakfast at a bagel place, it was good.  

After that we went to the LANL school and were given a lesson about Hydrocode Simulations of Impact- Related Structures on Mars by Cathy Plesko.  It was really informative and interesting learning about what she was studying.  After that we jumped in the van and headed to a lecture at another LANL site.  Unfortunately, we were unable to find the place until too late.  For some reason, no one knew where it was (and we asked many people!).  Instead we went to lunch and got to talk more with Didier.  There, we got to learn more about what he does and our questions were answered.  

After, we returned to the LANL school and had two more lectures.  Cathy gave another lesson about the Solar Systems.  I got to learn much more about it.  I thought I had known a lot, but apparently not!  It was really interesting.  After that lecture, Chris gave a lecture about Explosions from Stellar Collapse.  That was also really great.  In this lecture, I learned alot more about the death of massive stars.  

We then went to the Bradbury Science Museum for a lecture from Gabriel Rockefeller on Gamma- Ray Bursts.  In this lecture, I learned alot about the history of gamma- ray bursts and how people slowly gathered information on that topic.  It was interesting and probably the easiest to understand.  I had read about gamma-ray bursts before I came here, so this lecture was a good review and also healpful by adding visual components., like simulations of gamma-ray bursts.  

We returned to our hotel roosms for a few minutes and then walked to get dinner.  Most of us went to Subway, but a few went to Quiznos.  We got our food, then headed to a concert that was being put on by the Los Alamos Library.  We got there in time to see a few minutes of a Los Alamos band, then a new band came on.  This band, the Highstrungs, was a traveling band that had been traveling all over the country and playing at libraries.  They were pretty good.  After a couple songs, most of us left for the hotel early, but Erica, Ryan, and Ben stayed.  Before returning to the hotel, Kelse, Nica, and I walked to the bookstore by the science museum, only to find out that it was closed.  Back at the hotel, we hung out for an hour until it got dark enough to go observing!!!!

Our first night observing was so great!  It was much better than what I expected.  When we arrived at Fenton Hill, we spent a few minutes looking for stars with our eyes and learning some of their names.  We also got to see Jupiter!  It was my first time seeing it, and it looked like the biggest and brightest of the stars in the sky (with no telescope).   One of the cool things we used was a light pointed that could point out stars.  This was helpful for learning the star names.  

After our star introduction, we all gethered the two telescopes and their supplies and set them up.  Since we only had two telescopes, we divided into groups of four.  My group had Nica, Kelsey, and Ryan.  We set up the larger telescope, a twelve inch, and spent alot of time trying to find a star.  In order for the telescope to automatically go to a star, we had to align it with two stars first.  We finally got it pointed at Vega, only to have it get messed up when there were too many clouds, so when the clouds finally moved, Vega had moved.  Once that failed, we decided to align it with two stars we could see at that moment: Arcturas and Polaris.  By that time, my group was a pro at aligning the telescope.  Once that was done, the rest of the night was spent looking at Jupiter.  It looks so cool through a telescope.  You could see Jupiter well, with the lines of colors on it.  Also, we were able to see its four moons, which were glowing bright dots that surrounded Jupiter.  Kelsey tried to record the placement of the moons by drawing them, which took half an hour!  The drawing itself only took about five minutes, but the clouds kept covering Jupiter, so most of the time was waiting for it to clear up.  During the waiting, we hung out and talked, and naming our telescope Sylvia.  

At about 1:00am, we decided to head back to Los Alamos because the sky had totally clouded up and looked like it wasn't going to clear up.  We gathered in the van and began ourhour trip back to our hotel.  I slept for some of the way back while some others talked about all the jokes they learned.  At the hotel, Kelsey and I quickly got ready for bed and fell asleep. It was the coolest day!

July 10, 2008

Day 5

Today we got to sleep in until 10:00 am!  We had breakfast/ lunch at around 11:00 and then went to the bookstore that is near the science museum. There, I got a few postcards of the places I have been.  

After that, we went to the school, and got a few lessons from Aimee and Chris.  In these lessons, we learned about the discoveries and the changing knowledge of the sky throughout history.  It was really interesting.  Chris then taught us about Newton's Laws and the many equations that we will use this trip.  

After these lessons, we went to the Bradbury science museum and got to see a demo and planetarium.  The demo was making a comet out of soda, dry ice, and other stuff.  It was really cool!  When the 'comet' was made, it did really look like a dirty snowball (a common nickname for real comets).  After the demo, we entered a blown-up planetarium, where some of the museum staff introduced us to more stars and constellations.  It was really interesting, being able to lay back and see the stars and all the constellations of the entire year, not blocked by Earth or clouds.  

After the planetarium, Aimee gave a lecture on supernovae.  This was interesting, and taught me more about supernovae than I had known before.  

After the lecture, we went to dinner, then returned to the canyon school once again for another lecture.  This lecture was given by Don about radio astronomy.  This lecture was to prepare us for our trip to the VLA tomorrow.  I learned a lot about this astronomy, along with the history and other telescopes around the world.  

We were going to got Aimee and Chris's house to look at Jupiter, but it was too cloudy to see any stars.  Instead, we returned to our hotel.  Since it was Nica's birthday the following day, Kelsey and I decided to make Nica a birthday card.  After the card was finished, we went to bed.

July 11, 2008

Day 6

Today was our trip to the VLA (Very Large Array) and Nica's birthday.  We got up and got in the car, and grabbed some doughnuts and bagels for breakfast from the front of the car.  Then, our four hour drive began.  Luckily, Kelsey had brought her laptop, so we were able to watch a movie and then play around, taking pictures on the computer to entertain us for a few hours.  After that, we basically talked the rest of the way.

By the time we reached the VLA (many radio telescopes, combined to act a one), it had started to rain and there had been some lightning.  It seems our entire trip had either had rain or lots of clouds.  We were only allowed to get a tour of the inside of the VLA control room and around the building.  They told us that since there was lighting in the area, it would be unsafe to go inside the telescopes like other groups had done in the previous Earthwatch years.  

After the tour, we went on a walk outside along the VLA after the rain had died down.  It was amazing, so big!  Sadly, my camera's battery died, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked.  

We stared our four hour trip back, and I slept for some of it.  In Santa Fe, we went to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate Nica's birthday.  Sadly, most of her birthday had been in a car, with not much interesting stuff to do once we got to the VLA due to rain.  The dinner was good, and then for desert, the restaurant staff brought out a big sombrero and sung happy birthday to Nica after putting the sombrero on her head.  It was really great. 

Once we got back to the hotel, Kelsey, Nica and I got together in Kelsey's and my room to watch TV shows on the laptop, before going to bed.    

July 12, 2008

Day 7

Today we had free time in the morning.  We used that time to do our laundry at the laundromat.  It took much longer than I would have expected, since we were only washing and drying everything. It took most of the morning!  We ended up skipping breakfast and going immediately to lunch after finishing our laundry.  After lunch, we stopped by our hotel to drop off our clothes, then we headed off to canyon school.  

At canyon, Gabe showed us lots of computer parts that we got to handle.  After that 'intro' to computers, we got to take apart two computers.  This was interesting, since I had never seen the inside of a computer, let alone been allowed to pull things apart.  As we took things apart, we got to learn about the computer parts we were curious about.  After taking apart the computers, some people tried to put them back together.  

Once the computers were back together, we began our lesson on coding.  We got to learn the basics of coding so we could later do coding that was relevant to our project.  I thought coding was very complicated.  It seemed like it would take a long time to earn this 'new language' but Gabe helped us with an introduction to it.  After he explained things, I think I got the basics of everything we did.  

After coding, we went to Don's house for dinner and a movie.  There, we got to look at all of Don's antique calculators. They were really cool.  A whole history of math was before us.  It's amazing how far we have come with calculators!

We got to see his kittens, two boys, which were adorable and very friendly.  We then hung out for awhile and talked.  Don then gave us lesson on quesadilla- making, and we were then put loose to make our own quesadillas with his quesadilla- maker. My quesadilla came out perfect to my liking, I was both surprised and happy.  Kelsey, Nica, Andrew, and I sat out side and we talked as we ate our quesadillas.  After dinner was over, we all gathered in front of a projection screen, watching Contact, a movie that featured the VLA.  It was a good movie, and it was really great to see a place we had been just the day before.  

After the movie, we sat around and some of us had banana splits.  It was my first time having a banana split, and it was so good!  Once everybody had finished theirs, we returned to the hotel and went to bed. 

July 13, 2008

Day 8

Today was our day to see Santa Fe!  Kelsey and Nica woke up earlier than the rest of us, and left for church.  Since Kelsey ad been woken up by the normal phone call from Scott, I had heard it too and woken up not much after she did.  This just gave me a lot of free time to call home and catch up on my journal until it was ready for the rest of us to pick up Kelsey and Nica.  Once that time came, the six of us not at church grabbed a quick breakfast and then picked Nica and Kelsey up.  Then we headed for Santa Fe! 

Our first stop in Santa Fe was the Georgia O'Keefe museum.  This was a really nice place with a lot of her paintings.  I was surprised that so many of her paintings had been based on the New Mexican area.  

After the museum, we went to the plaza and decided to split up, promising to stay in groups and then meet back at the plaza in an hour and a half.  Kelsey, Nica and I went off to the open air market.  This market was filled with natives and their hand- made crafts.  Everything was really beautiful.  We talked to one of the natives about the market and learned a lot from her.  Kelsey and I ended up buying something from her.  We then went to get ice cream.  After that, we walked around and went into any interesting place.  

At 3:00, all of us met up in the plaza and headed back for the van.  On the way, we stopped into a gallery, and were allowed to take pictures of all the cool stuff.  

Instead of going back to the hotel, we headed off to Scott's house for dinner.  On the way, we stopped at a glass blowing place that also had a sculpture garden.  The glass pieces were really pretty, but really expensive.  The outdoor sculptures were really cool.  A lot of them had moveable parts that would spin in the wind.  This movement and the overall creativity of all the sculptures gave the garden a whimsical nature.  

At Scott's house, a lot of us got to get our 'dog fix'.  Scott has three friendly dogs and the neighbor's dog, which gave everyone a chance to pet and play with the dogs.   I have missed my dogs, so it was nice to be able to see some dogs if I couldn't be with mine.  

I also got to play pool for the first time.  I am so bad at pool.  I guess I need a lot of practice, because I can barely hit the cue ball in the vicinity of my planned area, let alone hit the ball I want to move.  Oh well.  I gave myself a few laughs. 

Scott's girlfriend, Franchesca showed us her hundreds of hummingbirds.  Out side the house, around the 20 feeders, are a constant flow of hummingbirds coming to drink.  It was amazing to see that many at one time.  There would be at least 20 insight at all times.  Franchesca told us she goes through over 300 pounds of sugar every year.  Not surprising, but still it is amazing.  

After dinner, we watch some TV until we decided we would chance the clouds for a second night of observing.  Luckily we went to Aimee and Chris's house to observe rather than driving an hour each way to Fenton Hill.  

First I have to say, their house is amazing.  It is big and really great (for what little I could see in the dark).  We got to look at Jupiter and get two sketches of the moons and it.  We were using Aimee's telescope, which is a really nice telescope, but sadly the battery was not charged, so we had to do everything manual.  Manual is fine for finding an object, but Jupiter moved really fast in the sky, so we had to keep adjusting the view in order to follow Jupiter in the sky.  After a while, that got really annoying.  

We then got to look at the moon.  The moon is amazing!  We got to see all the craters on the moon and lots of other bumps.  It was so much more beautiful through the telescope.  I'm really glad I got to look at it.  I probably would have not thought the moon to be too interesting, and never have looked at it that close if I hadn't come to Earthwatch.  I wouldn't have done so much stuff if I hadn't have come here!

At about 1:00 am, we decided to call it a night and headed to the hotel.  What a great day, but it was really tiring!  

July 14, 2008

Day 9

Today we woke up at 8:45.  When we got to the car, there were donuts for our breakfast!  We drove to Canyon School.  There, we set up an internet file for our blogs.  We have been writing them each day, but they haven't been in a file that was internet compatible.   

Then we began our planning for our presentation on Friday.  We discussed some ideas for topics and ways to make the presentation creative and informative.  After we had designed a basic plan for the presentation, we broke up and started getting everything together.  After we had done that for some time, we decided to take a lunch break. 

When we got back, we learned more about coding.  This time, Aimee, Chris and Gabe worked one on one with us to make sure everybody had a basic understanding of coding, or at least understanding a pre-made code.  I think everyone understands it better now.  

After coding was finally over, we all went out for dinner at a pizza place.  Once dinner was over, we headed back to the hotel for some free time before observing.  During that time, Kelsey, Nica, and I watched some you tube videos.  

When it was dark enough to go to Fenton Hill, we all piled in the van and started the hour drive.  Before we even left the parking lot, we saw a huge flash of lightning.  We pulled back into a paarking spot and called Cathy to see if the weather was going to stay bad.  We ended up not going observing again.

Instead, some of us gathered in Kelsey's and my room for some hot chocolate and watching TV until it was time for bed.

July 15, 2008

Day 10

Today we woke up at 8:00 to go to Bandalier National Monument.  At Bandalier, we got to walk around and see all sorts of the huts and religious places that the ancient natives lived in.  It was really interesting.  We also got to see alot of their petroglyfs and the caves that they had carved into the rock.  We also climbed a mountain by stairs and ladders.  This mountain had a underground hut we could go in along with some small caves.  During the climb, it was the first time I noticed teh high altatude effects. I, along with others who were not used to being this high, became out of breath alot quicker than we normally would have.  On the way down the mountain, Kelsey slipped on the stairs and sprained her ankle.  Just minutes before we had even been talking about how the stairs were more dangerous than the ladders because they were very narrow and had sand on some of the steps.  Poor Kelsey.  She had to walk all the way back to the car with her hurt ankle.  Luckily by the end of the day, it was mostly better.  

For lunch we went to Subway.  After lunch, we went to the bookstore again and some people got postcards and books.  After lunch and bookstore, we went to canyon school.  Here, we did some more coding.  This time, we were split up into groups of two and tried to match the code to an orbit of a planet.  We had to change the mass and velocity of the planet and star it surrunded in order to match the data.  Kelsey and I worked together and needed alot of help at first, but by the end of it, we had matched the orbit basically by ourselves.  By that time, we actually understood how to work the coding process and probably could do another one totally by ourselves.  

After coding, we got to go back to the hotel for a half an hour of rest.  Then we went to a lecture at Bradbury museum.  It was called the Hitchhiker's Guide to Galexies, given by Steven Diehl.  This was very interesting.  I enjoyed this lecture alot.  After the lecture, we went to dinner with Steven and others.  

We then went back to the hotel, and it was raining.  We hung out for the decision of whether we would go to Fenton Hill or not.  Sadly, it didn't look good.  At 9:30, we got a call from Scott and were told to hold off until 10:30 before the final decision.  At 10:30, we were told that we would go up, even if it was raining in Los Alamos.  Everyone was skeptical.  

When we got to Fenton Hill, it was all clouded over.  In 30 minutes, by the time we had set everything up, some stars were visible.  My group (Kelsey, Nica and Chirs) did a two star alignment with only some wait time for clouds.  The rest of the night was spent looking at Jupiter and its moons, and in the 30 minutes between the drawings, we had a chance to look at other stars or rest.   We got alot of data during the night.  It also cleared up nicely after a while, so the night got much better.  

We observed until 3:00 am.  We headed back to Los Alamos, sleeping in the car.  We got there a bit after 4:00 am.  I didn't fall asleep until 5:00 am, but it was great that we got to observe again, our second time at Fenton Hill.

July 16, 2008

Day 11

Today we got to sleep in until 11:40 because we had stayed up so late the night before.   We then went to get 'breakfast' that we ate in the park.  Once breakfast was finished, we went to canyon school.  At canyon school, we tried to reproduce the orbits of Jupiter's moons, using the data we had collected from observing.  Kelsey, Nica, and I used our data and got four 'good' looking orbit pieces when we plotted our data.  Bad thing was that we had very little data to base our reproduced orbits.  This just made us wish we had gone observing even more than we had wanted to before.  I just hoped that we would have at least one more night of observing before our presentation tomorrow. During our time at canyon school, Daniel, a person from the Durfee Foundation, came to check out our program.  (Durfee is the foundation that funds the SCAP Earthwatch programs, like this one).  

We then went back to our hotel for a half hour of rest before going to our last lecture at the Bradbury Science museum.  This lecture was about TeV Gamma-Ray Astronomy with Milagro and HAWC, given by John Pretz.  It was interesting.  It was really cool to learn about Milagro, the gamma/ cosmic ray detector that is being taken down now.  What was so great about that was that we actually visited that place because it is stationed on Fenton Hill.  It was nice to learn about something that we had seen.  

After the lecture we went to dinner with John and many other people, including Daniel.  Once dinner was over, we returned to the hotel to wait for dark.  Kelsey, Nica, and I watched the third episode of the Secret Life of and American Teenager on you tube while we waited.   At 9:30, we got a call from Scott saying they would hold off on the decision of whether to go up or not until later.   A bit after he called we began seeing tons of lightning and hearing a lot of thunder; sadly it didn't look good.  At 10:30, another call saying we would hold off for another half hour. Erica joined us in our room for some hot chocolate, since we were pretty certain that we wouldn't be drinking it up at Fenton Hill tonight.  Then finally at 11:15, Scott came to tell us that we weren't going to Fenton Hill.  It was sort of disappointing, but we knew we didn't want to be up there when it was stormy and cloudy outside.  

July 17, 2008 

Day 12

Today, we went to breakfast with Daniel, the person from Durfee.  Then we went to canyon school.  At canyon, Don taught us about CCD cameras and we got to see the different pictures and functions of a CCD camera.  After CCD cameras, we worked some more on coding, trying to match the moons orbits about Jupiter.  We then went to lunch.

After lunch, Vic gave a talk about dark matter and energy.  This is really interesting and a huge mystery.  Then we continued with coding.  My coding group, Kelsey, Nica and me, had a lot of computer trouble.  Something had gone wrong with our code, and it took a long time to figure it out.  Aimee had to figure it out and fix it for us because it was past our coding ability.  Finally, we were able to create a close orbit for Io.  

Then, we began to work on the slides for our presentation before we went to dinner.  After dinner, we all sat down and began to discuss our presentaion.  We assigned tasks and began wrking on them.  Since NIca and I had already finished our slides, we began working on our demo of Jupiter and its moons.  For that, we had to go to the store to buy some supplies.  

With our supplies, Nica and I created Jupiter and its four moons.  Finally, we left canyon at 11:00 pm, feeling mostly prepared for tomorrow.

July 18, 2008

Day 13

Today is presentation day!  We woke up early to get to canyon school as soon as possible so we could finish the presentation and still have enough time to practice.  We efficiently finished our last bit of the presentaton and the rest of the time was spent doing dry runs.  We took a short break for lunch at Sonic, but that was it until we felt really comfortable with our presentation and speeches.  There were only a few tweeks we had to do to make our presentation better.  One we felt great about the presentation, we went to the hotel for a quick rest.  

Then, it was to the Bradbury science museum for the presentation.  There, before the presentation, we tested everything and re-run our demos.  Finally at 5:00, it was our presentation.  Our presentaion went really well.  Only problem was that only 5 other people showed up for our lecture.  We had Aimee, Don, Gabe, and other people who we knew, but there were only 5 people form the public.  At least no worries about stage fright.  

After the presentation, we all went to the ski hill to hear a band perform.  Most of our time there was eating and hanging out inside, rather than being outside where the music was.  We considered going observing again, but of course it was cloudy.  Instead, we went back to the hotel, where I wrote a few postcards and got annoyed by a baseball team of 10 or 12 year old boys at our hotel who kept knocking on our door. 

July 19, 2008

Day 14

Today is our last blog day, adn last full day.  It is really sad.  This morning, we were woken up at 9:00, then had an hour and fourty minutes to get ready.  I think I would have rather slept, but I was already awake by the time Kelsey and I found out that we really had that long to get ready, and we hadn't heard Scott wrong.  

We ate breakfast in the car on our way up to Fenton Hill.  At Fenton Hill, we raised a huge antenna, then used that for radio.  We were on the air part of an amature radio station.  We got to communicate with lots of people all over the US, like California, Missouri, New York, Tennasee, and lots more.  This was really fun, learning the radio talk and hearing others form different states, but of course, the weather interfered with lighting and we had to stop.  

We ate our lunch at Feton Hill, then tested the radioactivity of a piece of sand (now glass) from one of the atomic bomb tests.  It was interesting, but sometimes it was hard to keep track of the beeps when they got over 100 counts.  

Once the rain stopped, we took down the antenna, then headed back to Los Alamos.  We went to Chris and Aimee's house and made the final decision on what Greek food we would have for dinner (celebrating Greek astronomers).  We also got to see the rest of Aimee's house.  It is so cool.  The kids rooms are awesome, with slides, ropes, pirate ships and cool cubbies.  

We then went to CB Fox department store for some suvaneers.

Then we went to the food store to buy the ingredients for our dinner.  Once back at Aimee's house, we all worked together to make dinner.  As it turns out, we did a really good job.  The dinner was really great.  We then watched a movie and had dessert.  

We had to say good bye to some people today, like Gabe, Cathy and Vic, which was really sad.  It is going to be really sad tomorrow when we have to say good bye to everybody.  We then came to canyon and finished our blogs.  

I have had such a wonderful experience these two weeks and it is going to be really hard to leave Los Alamos and say good bye to all the great people I have met.