Andrew Saylor's blog
July 6, 2008
My Earthwatch experience began this morning at approximately 2:00 am eastern time. i live in southwest Pennsylvania, so I was flying out of Pittsburgh International Airport. My flight was at 6:00 am and seeing how I got only three hours of sleep last night, I am feeling quite exhausted. Reaching security, I knew this would be the last time I would see my parents for two weeks. I have been away from home in the past but only for eight days at the most so this expedition would push that record out to fifteen. Not typically ever suffering from homesickness, I am definitely nervous for spending two weeks with people I have never met before.
My flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago was a decent travel, being in the air only an hour and 15 minutes. Little did I know, I would be spending five hours in O'Hare International and not really enjoying myself at all. My flight out of O'Hare to Albuquerque was to depart at 10:56 am local time but didn't leave until a little after 11 that morning. This flight, lasting nearly three hours, wasn't one of my favorite experiences but I arrived safely and thats what counts to me. Anyway, once arriving in Albuquerque, I was able to meet up with my fellow teammates and get to know them on a very basic level. The group of us all ate at a Mexican Restaurant located in the airport and then travelled to Fenton Hill for a quick tour of the facilities.
Directly after the brief "day-time" tour, we headed towards town and were able to see many beautiful landscapes on the way. There was a little mix up with the hotel reservations and we were forced to stay in another local hotel. Going on only three hours of sleep, I have now been awake for nearly 17 hours and am completely exhausted. Some may laugh at my tiredness, but when one isn't subject to that amount of consciousness, it is difficult to instantly adapt to it.
The final thing I did on Day 1 of this expedition was to get to my room and unpack all of my belongings. After doing this, I laid down and called my girlfriend and phoned home. Watching the Simpson's Movie on TV with my roommate Chris Watson, I fell asleep, having been awake for 18 hours.
July 7, 2008
Today I woke up to a knock at my door and was told to be ready to venture out at 7:15 am local time (approx. 9:15 back home). Getting a shower and packing a day pack, Chris and I headed down to the van and met up with the rest of our team. Scott, our driver and team supervisor, drove us to some place to get our badges. Finding out that we cannot receive a badge without a passport or birth certificate, six of the eight team members were not able to get an official badge. Chris and Charlotte were the two fortunate ones to have brought their passports so the remaining six of us sat out in the lobby and played card games. Chris Fryer, Aimee Hungerford's husband, took the remaining six of our names and had visitor badges made for us.
Receiving our badges, we headed to Viola's for breakfast and then headed to Canyon School where we learned briefly about things we would be doing and Aimee took us through a tour of Stellarium, a virtual program of the stars and planets of our solar system. Once she finished up, Don came in with his Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and showed us all how to set it up for use in the field. Finishing up the tutorial, we travelled to a local chinese buffet for lunch and then returned to the school to begin our blogging.
June 8, 2008
This morning at approximately 9:00 am, we met up with Aimee and Carol (our Geologist tour guide) at the Canyon School. We all packed into the fifteen passenger van and headed towards an overlook that encompassed all of Los Alamos. On the way to our destination, we gave introductions to one another and were given an overview of the days events.
Arriving at the overlook, Carol explained how the Jemez volcano erupted hundreds of thousands of years ago and eventually collapsed in on itself, thus creating the Jemez Caldera. From the overlook, we travelled to other distinct locations and Carol was able to explain different geological features of Los Alamos. We made one stop and found several fossils and another stop at a natural dam and were able to see natural hot springs in the area.
After lunch, we headed to Fenton Hill Observatory Laboratory to be taught about the RAPTOR telescopes on the premises by a man that whose first name is James but prefers Jim. He gave us a quick explanation of what the scientists do at Fenton Hill and then showed us each of the six RAPTOR telescopes at the site. Once Jim finished up his tour, we headed back to Los Alamos and prepared for a 5:00 pm presentation by Didier Sauman at the local museum.
Didier talked about the findings of other stars that had planets orbiting them, some similar to our own solar system. He spoke of things such as Hot Jupiters and Super Earths. As he finished up at roughly 6:15 pm, we left for dinner and then travelled back to the hotel to prepare for our late night observing. As time passed on, Scott informed us to meet in Kelsey and Charlotte's room. Once the team had assembled, Scott told us that we would not be observing due to extreme cloud cover. So we travelled to White Rock , a local town roughly fifteen minutes away, to paint on the rock in the center of town. We painted Earthwatch and other things and I painted E+A on the opposite surface. Once we were satisfied with our painting, we headed back to Los Alamos to call it a day.
July 9, 2008
Today we sat through several different lectures. Lectures given by Cathy, Chris, and Gabe Rockefeller spanning from topics such as finding water on mars, talks about Jupiter and its moons, black holes, supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts. The lectures encompassed the majority of the day and all of the talks were interesting.
After Gabe's talk on gamma-ray bursts (the final lecture of the day), we got dinner either at Subway or Quiznos. We took our food to a small plot of grass and ate while listening to local bands play music.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for our first night of observing. Arriving at Fenton Hill we prepared the telescopes and for the most part were fairly disappointed on the amount of visibility we had at any given moment. Even though it was quite cloudy, there was a couple moments when viewing Jupiter was possible. Never seeing Jupiter through a telescope, I was very excited after seeing it along with its four moons. I could see Jupiter well enough to see its rings of storms and clouds surrounding its surface.
Other than the sighting of Jupiter, the night didn't turn out as well as I would've liked. Being disappointed, we headed back to the hotel and called it a day at 2:30 am.
July 10, 2008
Today is a bit fuzzy, but I remember that we traveled to Canyon School to listen to Aimee lecture on topics such as the people who originated the technology of telescopes and the studies they made of the sky. Following Aimee, Chris spoke of the gravitational force that we would be using to find the mass of Jupiter by the end of our expedition. Also, he briefly showed us how the bits and pieces of the physics would come together in the codes we'll be using.
After they talked for a couple of hours, we headed to the museum to listen to Aimee talk about Supernovae. Following her presentation, I know there was time spent eating. Following meal-time, we headed back to the School to listen to Don speak about the beginning of radio telescopes and the people who began this process. Also, he briefed us on the VLA (Very Large Array), which we traveled to see the next day.
July 11, 2008
Today we left at 8:00 am to go to the VLA. The weather did not look promising from the get-go, but by the end of our tour things changed and we were able to walk out to the VLA and see how massive the radio telescopes really are. At the VLA, we watched a brief movie about it and then took a tour, hosted by a woman named Judy, throughout the buildings that controlled the VLA.
A bit off topic, while on our tour of the facilities, Ryan and myself laughed at several things that no one else found humorous. Many things that I can't really bring to words, but I will share that one of the "funny" occasions nearly brought me to urinating in my shorts. All-in-all, the VLA was more comical versus educational for myself and quite possibly Ryan as well. So far, this has been the most enjoyable of our adventures.
July 12, 2008
Today I finally washed my own clothes! A very memorable moment in my life, I was able to wash and dry correctly on my first attempt. It turns out, that washing ones clothes isn't all that difficult. Anyway, from the Laundromat we ate at the Hill Diner and came to Canyon School to learn about computer hardware and software taught directly from Gabe Rockefeller. At 5:00 pm, we will travel to Don's house for dinner and to watch the movie Contact, featuring Jody Foster. Although short, today was a very fun day.
July 13, 2008
Today, we travelled to Santa Fe to visit the Gorgia O'Keefe Museum and then to walk around the plaza in the center of Santa Fe. I found that there were many nice things to buy (mainly jewelry), but it was all typically very expensive. In Santa Fe, we ventured to the Cathedral located a short distance from the plaza center.
Once our 3:00 pm meeting time rolled around, we headed for Scott's house to hang out for the remainder of the day. Ryan, Chris and I played several games of pool, most of which were just newly made up games that we invented. Everyone except Don came over for dinner, which was very delicious. Upon our closing time at Scott's, Cathy took us all down stairs to look at the weather to decide whether observing would be a possibility. The team saw the forecast and decided to chance it.
Leaving Scott's at roughly 9:30 pm, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the night's observing. Originally planning to go to Fenton Hill, Aimee called Scott and told him that we were welcome to observe at their two-week old house. Observing there was very convenient, and I was able to get two official drawings of Jupiter and its moons.
Getting back to the hotel after midnight, I laid in bed and read The Watchman, a graphic novel I picked up at the local bookstore. I fell asleep at 1:45 am, which concluded my first week on this years Earthwatch expedition.
July 14, 2008
Um, I apologize for not keeping this blog up to date. I haven't been able to blog daily and in knowing that my memory is not one of the best, I have simply forgotten what we did. I do remember that we worked on our Friday Presentation and that Ryan and I will be presenting the math portion of our talk. We'll be showing our audience how we can find the mass of Jupiter by watching Io (its closest moon) and using Newton's and Kepler's Laws to achieve this feat.
July 15, 2008
Today, we traveled to Bandolier National Monument and saw some really neat structures and learned our its long ago inhabitants.
We also worked on our presentation and observed late into the morning of the 16th. We got back to the hotel at a little past 4 in the morning of the 16th and we were able to sleep until 11:30 am.
July 16, 2008
We slept in this morning due to our late night last. We came to the School and worked on our presentation and then at about 4:15 pm, we headed back to the hotel to relax for like 20 minutes before we headed to the Museum for the last lecture of a series of five talks. Afterwards, we ate dinner and went back to our hotel rooms for the rest of the evening due to a thunderstorm that couldn't quit throwing lightning and rain our way.
July 17, 2008
Today, all we did was worked on our presentation all day long!!! Also, in the morning Don talked about CCD Cameras and Vic gave a talk about Dark Matter in the afternoon.
July 18, 2008
Today, we finished our presentation and did a couple of dry-runs and then presented it at the museum and found out that I got all worked up for nothing because it turned out that it was really easy. In the evening, we went to an outdoor concert and Ryan, Chris, Ben and I all yo-yoed on the ski slope.
July 19, 2008
Today, we travelled to Fenton Hill for one last time to do an amateur radio broadcast and then went to Chris and Aimee's house for the remainder on the day. We made a trip to the local grocery store to buy things for this evening's dinner and then as a team, made a Greek dinner for everyone.
Even though I am really excited to come home, I will definitely miss everyone a whole lot...
Thanks for reading my blog,
Andrew Saylor a.k.a.
Papa Burgundy