LAST NAME: YOUNG
FIRST NAME: KRISTEN
OCCUPATION: EARTHWATCH STUDENT (ASTROPHYSICS DIVISION)
LOCATION: LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO (FENTON HILL)
I am one of the lucky eight who were chosen to spend two weeks in Los Alamos, doing astrophysics research. One of the first things we did after arriving was visit Fenton Hill, our research site. We were introduced to the telescopes, MILAGRO, and REACT. Fenton Hill was to become our nighttime home.
Unfortunately, the skies were cloudy for about the first week. We were still able to attend lectures and visit the interesting historic natural sites of Los Alamos and surrounding towns. One of our favorite places was Soda Dam. It smelled pretty bad, but it was a great place to climb around.
We also got a great hands on lesson with CCDs. Then we got to apply what with learned with the world famous ROTSE. Andie and I took a great picture of Vega. It was extremely exciting to actually be using a telescope that does such important tasks as all sky surveys and receiving satellite signals about gamma and x-ray transients. While we were there, it received a signal from ALEXIS (which we later got learn more about and watched the computers that control it receive information as it passed overhead). Unfortunately the pictures that resulted from the signal were only of clouds.
Our first night of true observing was the Saturday after our arrival (almost a whole week). We attended an astronomers meeting in White Rock and then headed up to Fenton Hill. On top of the hill, the sky was more spectular than could be imagined. I learned many of the constellations, and viewed many nebulae, galaxies and clusters through REACT, a 10" Meade catadioptric, and a 7" Meade Maksutov. We stayed up at Fenton Hill till about 4am.
Sunday, Galen had us all over for a cookout. It was wonderful. We ate a lot, sang a lot and watched Contact.
During the second week, we continued learning about the natural and historical history of Los Alamos as well as attending lectures. We took a field trip to see the Very Large Array (where part of Contact was filmed). This place was amazing! The telescopes were in the D formation which means they are spread out 13 miles long in each of three directions. We climbed into a dish ourselves, which not everyone gets to do. Our tour guide was also the guide for Jodie Foster when she was there. We also got to see how they move the dishes. The control room had some computers but most of the computers were in another room. They took up the entire room.
After our trip to the VLA, we headed up to Magadelena Ridge. It was definitely up. I was completely scared. The road was an old dirt road, that went right up the edge of the mountains. It was worth it though. The stars looked even better than at Fenton Hill (which is hard to believe). It took a while for the clouds to leave, but after that, we saw everything. One of my favorite things to look at is the Milky Way, right where it goes by Sagittarius. I love it because it is where the center of our galaxy lies. I keep thinking that if I look hard enough I will see something like an X reassuring that it is the center, but it hasn't happened yet. The trip was a real bonding time for us. It was so cold! Jim, Tim and Mariana stayed up all night to keep the bears away. We also did a lot of data collecting. We made it down the rode the next morning (very slowly).
We had one more night of good observing before our presentation. It was a lot of fun preparing for it. We tried to keep it entertaining. I don't know how successful we were, but it was still fun for us (through all the nervous twitching). We spent one last night at Fenton Hill the next night. We hooked up a CCD to REACT, and took a few pictures. We also got great views of Saturn and Jupiter through the telescopes. And we listened to Jupiter in the Radio wavelengths.