Erica Shen's Blog 

July 7, 2008

So far, it's been a pleasant one and a half-days in New Mexico. Currently, there are intermittent sprinkles of rain outside; however, the drive yesterday was fairly sunny. My first impression was that New Mexico was hilly, dry, and red -- not exactly what I'd been expecting, but then again, I wasn't sure what to expect in the first place. I am enjoying myself here, however. 

Midway through the drive, we stopped off at Fenton Hill, the observatory where our nighttime observations will take place. It's sparse, quiet, and apparently plagued with mice. We've been told that we're going to go observe tomorrow, so I'm excited about that.

Afterwards, we crashed at the hotel, watched some TV (a Chinese film dubbed in Spanish, Beverly Hills Cops, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, etc.), and simply rested. 

Today, we started lectures at the Canyon Complex -- we played around with a free program called Stellarium (and the very nice Macs), which allows you to track objects through the night sky for up to 99999 years, I believe. We also learned how to assemble the 10-inch telescope -- we'll be assembling the 12-inch telescope tomorrow, but in the dark. That should be quite an adventure. I'm not sure what we're going to be learning for the rest of the day, but I caught the words "satellite" and "nebula", so that's probably what's going on.

During lunch, we also visited the Bradbury Science Museum, detailing the nuclear program of the past and the present. A short documentary entitled "The Town That Never Was" was fairly interesting; to anyone interested in documentaries about the nuclear push in America, however, I would instead recommend "The Atomic Cafe". We'll be attending the museum for lectures, it seems, and we'll also be giving one as a group. I'm not sure what kind of lecture it'll be, but hopefully, we'll be ready for it. 

July 9, 2008

Yesterday got off to a bit of a rough start -- losing a contact is never very fun. However, it was located (stuck to the mirror), and we started away on our geology tour, after a quick stop at McDonalds. We toured the Jemez Caldera with Carol Hogsett, stopping off to play in the hot springs (Soda Dam), gather fossils, scrabble around in the pumice scree, and just stare at the beautiful landscape. It's simply amazing, perching on the cliffs, just gazing out over the view.

Afterwards, we went back to the Fenton Hill observatory to take a look at the Raptor telescopes. K, T, S, Z were their various designations -- their actual names escaped me, as Ben and Ryan decided to dub them Raptor Kitchen, Raptor Toaster, Raptor Sink/Spoon, and other more amusing names. I jammed my ankle slightly, but it's alright now, though I'm still unable to run.

Later that evening, we went back to the Bradbury Museum to hear a talk on exoplanets, hot Jupiters, and super Earths, given by the Didier Saumon. We were going to go up to possibly observe and listen to Jupiter's radio transmissions, but the bad weather meant that we trooped down to a spray-painted rock and added our own graffiti. 

Today, we're listening to some more lectures, learning more about what we're actually going to do -- hopefully, we'll be able to go observing tonight, as I hear tomorrow is impossible, due to the fact that we will be visiting the VLA. 

July 10, 2008

Last night was the first night of observing, and boy, was it fun. I was slightly chilled after a while, but staring up at the sky (when the clouds weren't there, anyways), was the best part of the night. Unfortunately, we had some difficulties aligning the telescope -- we found Vega, Antares, Jupiter, and Polaris, but when we actually set the alignment, it was completely off on our telescope. However, the other group managed to make it work, so we looked at Jupiter and it's moons through the telescope and drew a sketch of the alignment of the moons around the planet.

`Earlier that day, we'd had a long series of lectures -- three in a row, actually. The first was on impact, asteroids, meteoroids, and craters, given by Kathy. The second talk was on the life and death of stars, given by Chris. During our lunch break, we went over to a cafe called The Hot Rocks, to speak with Didier, who'd given the talk yesterday. Then, we trooped back to the museum for a talk by Gabriel Rockefeller (no relation to the famous family, or not close enough, anyways), for a talk on gamma ray bursts.

Dinner was a very relaxed affair -- we grabbed some Subway, then moved over to a log-cabin looking building to listen to some bands. A high-school band The Atomic Lab Rats (or something like that) were just finishing up as we got there. A couple of us stayed for the whole set of the band The High Strung -- I thought they had good energy, and very fun music. When I get back home, I think I'll check out more of their stuff.

After all that, we went back to our hotel, and then out observing. Tonight, we're not observing, as we're going to the VLA, so I'm not sure what else is going on today besides lectures. 

July 12, 2008

Yesterday at the VLA was quite fascinating. I'd visited the Green Bank Telescope in WV, so the question of what the VLA was wasn't a concern, but I was still astounded by the size of the entire array. We'd spent all day traveling, and spent about two or so hours there. Rain and lightning meant we weren't able to go up into the telescope, but we were able to move close enough to watch it swivel on its mount for a while.

Today, we got up late and did laundry -- mine's still not dry, so it's somewhat...scattered about the hotel room to dry. Right now, we're listening to Gabe Rockefeller talk about computers, both hardware and software. Later, we're going to Don's house for dinner, and then to watch the movie "Contact", I believe, which was filmed at the VLA. 

July 14, 2008

Two days, after finishing blogging, we proceeded to completely break down a computer. I even managed to pop a heat sink off the north bridge of the motherboard, but I wasn't allowed to keep it. After that, as aforementioned, we went to Don's house. He's got two cute kitties, Tippy and Tyler, and a fascinating collection of antique calculators. After a good dinner of quesadilla, fruit salad, and chocolates, we sat down and watched Contact. It's a decent movie, but I think I lost all seriousness near the end, when a certain person from her past appears. That night, the weather was too bad for us to observe, so we simply went to sleep.

Yesterday, after a quick meal, we drove off to Santa Fe, where we spent the whole day. First, we visited the Georgia O'Keefe museum, where many of her landscape paintings are. Also on display were the photographs by Ansell Adams, who was a contemporary of hers. I picked up this lovely brown and green swirled mug -- it reminds me of some mountain paintings I've seen. After that, we went into town, where we split up from the plaza. The boys and I went over to the church at the end of the road, and talked to a kindly old lady for about half an hour, learning about the history of the city. After that, we attempted to visit the Palace of the Governor's, but as we only had 15 minutes at that point, we decided to forgo it. I browsed the stalls nearby of the artisans, finally deciding upon a pretty copper bracelet. There's a few tool marks on it, and a few water marks, but it's very pretty for its price, I think.

I'm not entirely sure what we're doing today, but I'm mostly hoping we'll be able to observe tonight. Again, yesterday night, we went up to Chris and Aimee's house, where we got about three data points of Jupiter. With any luck, we'll be able to go up to Fenton Hill this time, and possibly stay there for a bit longer than we did last night. 

July 15, 2008
Disappointingly enough, yesterday, we again didn't go to observe due to a thunderstorm that swept through. So, this morning, we went over to Bandolier National Park and hiked around in the remains of the houses of the Anasazi Indians. Lovely scenery, with very interesting pictographs and other etchings into the rock elsewhere. We climbed up 140 feet of ladders into an alcove area, where we just sat for a while.

Now, I believe we're working on our presentation. Still hoping on the weather, but after the numerous disappointments, I'm not too optimistic.

July 16, 2008

So, last night proved to be quite clear after initial coverage. After some frustration, we managed to get Jupiter focused on the viewfinder, and took about three data points. It was really pretty up there -- using Gabe's tremendously fun laser pointer, we managed to locate Cygnus and the rest of the Summer Triangle. We also looked at M31, although heavy condensation prevented us from getting a very good look. The moon was tremendously large, meaning it was easy to get around -- good news for my ankle. However, I wish the janitorial staff would come up and get that rotting mouse that's in the corner of the room. It's slightly disgusting.

Today, we hope to nearly finish our presentation, since tonight may be the last time we can take data that we implement in the final talk. Fingers crossed!

July 17, 2008

No observing last night. Pity. Not much happened last night. The presentation really does need to be done today, however.

Don gave a talk on CCD cameras, and we played around with different filters and "modern art" shots. Then, Vic came in, and gave us a quick talk on dark matter.

July 18, 2008

Today was the day of the presentation. After three dry-runs of our talk, we went over to the Bradbury museum. There wasn't a huge turnout for our talk, but it seemed to go very well. There were a few physical demonstrations inserted, such as demonstrations of Newton's Laws of Motions -- I got pushed across the room in a rolling chair. After that, we went up to the ski lodge to listen to some "country rockers" called the Gourds. Not half-bad -- they reminded me mostly of Vandalia, except with a tiny bit more rock. I talked for a while with Cathy and Vic; when we looked outside, though, the weather wasn't so kind, so we went back for some much needed sleep.

July 19, 2008

Last day -- we got up a little late, then headed up Fenton Hill to do some amateur radio. We managed to contact several people from other states before lightning heading our way put us out of business: Wisconsin, California, New York, Missouri, Michigan, Kansas, Tennessee. Traveling back down, we went straight to Aimee and Chris's house, where we picked out Greek cuisine. A quick trip to a department store yielded souvenirs, then another jaunt to the grocery store garnered all the ingredient we needed.

Several hours and many culinary messes later, we produced quite a delectable dinner, which we consumed while watching the movie Galaxy Quest. I hadn't realized Alan Rickman was in that movie, and was quite pleasantly surprised to see his acting. Now, we're in Canyon Complex for our very last blog. It's been a fun two weeks, but I think it'll be nice to go home. I will miss everyone, most definitely.