Observing Trip, Part II

So, I'm officially on a night schedule. It's 5:45 am, and I'm not dog tired. I spent my night and a half observing HRC 270, a young star in the Ophiuchus star forming cloud. Hopefully, I'll be able to use the high resolution spectroscopy to measure the surface gravity and hence the age of the star.

Last night, Jeremy, Scott, and I observed the M57, the ring nebula in 3 bands, (V)isible, (R)ed, and (I)nfrared. I spent today and most of tonight reducing the data, and these images are the fruits of my labor.







If you look hard enough in the second one, you can see a galaxy. I did some research, and the galaxy is named IC 1296. If you want to see a better picture than the one we made, go to APoD.

If we have extra time tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can grab a shot of either Saturn, Jupiter, or Mars.

West Texas is beautiful. There's been an unusual amount of rainfall lately, so looking out of the TQ (Transient's Quarters), it's hard not to think I'm in Ireland.



We've had so-so luck with weather. We lost about a night to storms and clouds. I managed to take some fun pictures of lightining and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope.



Next post, I'll put up some pics of me using the telescope.

Back in Austin on Tuesday. I'll be glad to get back...

Observing Trip - Part I

I'm observing at McDonald Observatory in west Texas right now... it's really freakin' beautiful. Probably b/c they've been getting lots and lots of rain, which means it's been slim pickin's for Astronomy. Seriously, if you look out the window to the valleys below, you'd think you were in Ireland, not the normally-desert-like west Texas.

I hitched a ride with Jeremy. Since his truck doesn't like going faster than 75, and since the other students were riding in a van that did 80, we kinda got left in the dust. So, we took our merry time and enjoyed the trip. Once we got to Balmorea, we decided to take a dip in a natural swimming pool. Jeremy's truck doesn't have A/C, so the dip in the water was well worth it. Of course, it's been "modernized" with diving boards and ladders and what-not, but all the water is spring fed, and there's tons of fish and even a few turtles. The water was so clear, it was amazing. I hate to say it, but it beats the hell outta Barton Springs.

Katelyn sucks

Hmph.

I have to admit, it was a pretty good prank. Dammit, I wish I weren't so gullible.

I'm back!!!

I'm finally done with my second year project!! The culmination of 1.5+ years of research, the second year project involves a public talk and a closed door session. The public talk is supposed to explain what the hell you've been doing for the past two years, hopefully showing some meaningful results. The closed door session is hell. Your committee keeps asking you questions until you have to say "I don't know."

My mother came down from Dallas to hear my talk, and I managed to stumble through it alright. All in all, I don't feel like I should have passed, but my committee passed me. Apparently, no one feels like they should have passed, so I guess I'm about average.

So anyway, I kept my playoff beard for my defense. Thanks to those of you who voted. Just so you know, here's approximately what I looked like.



As soon as I got home, I immediately shaved it. Now I look 12 years old. Mike D didn't even recognize me when he walked in the door.



Anyway, domino people and Caroline and company came over and we played guitar hero and dominoes until the wee hours of the morning. At least that's what people tell me. I remember most of the night, but things get real fuzzy after Mike D handed me the first of what was apparently many double shots of tequila. Needless to say, I don't remember how I got to bed that night.

Saturday was uneventful. Unfortunately, the tequila also erased my memory of my plan to steal Caroline's ticket to go see Marci's football game on saturday evening. Oops. Instead, I stayed home and re-lubed Bruno's chain, as it was kinda rusty.

Sunday, I was looking forward to for a long time. Jarrett picked me and Bruno up around 4:00ish, and we headed out to pay Emma Long a visit. (We went mountain biking, for all you people who don't live in Austin). Emma Long was where I f-ed up my knee the last time I was there, so this was my first real time back in the saddle since my accident. I was a little nervous, but all in all, it was good fun. I got lost for a little bit, but I eventually found my way. No crashes.

It's nice to rejoin the land of the living.

playoff beard?

If you don't live in Austin, or haven't seen me in a very long time, I've got something of a beard growing on my face right now. It's not just a beard... it's a BEARD. Seriously... Think of a mountain man, or of Walt Whitman. Well, maybe not walt whitmann... definitely Paul Bunyan though.

I've been growing it since about November, and I haven't trimmed it since the beginning of march.

The rationale was, everyone would get used to me with my big bushy beard, and the day before my 2nd year defense, I'd shave it off, throwing everyone for a loop, and giving me that oh-so-slight extra edge.

However, I'm beginning to re-think my strategy. I've essentially got what amounts to a playoff beard. You don't shave a playoff beard the night before the stanley cup finals! Even more, I think it might actually distract me more than my committee members. I think Dan's the only one who ever sees me on a regular basis.

What do you think? Should keep my bear-hunting beard until after my defense?

don't be a dodo

So, Dr. Tron and I went with a few other astro geeks to go see a showing of Flock of Dodos. Apparently, Caroline was there too, but we didn't run into each other.

It was a good documentary, in that it treated the "debate" fairly even-handedly. I say fairly because the director was, before becoming a film-maker, an evolutionary biologist. He does give the ID'ers their fair due, and goes so far as to concede that most of them are not complete nut-jobs, and do believe that the earth is indeed 4 billion years old.

The main message of the movie is that the Scientific Community has done a crappy job of communicating with the public, while the ID movement has appealed more to the layperson. Because of this disconnect between scientists and the public, people are more prone to accept explainations aimed at their level.

The film is sprinkled throughout with various evolutionary scientists, and while they do make some very coherent arguments, they also come across as pompus and asinine. A perfect example is way some scientists have categorically refused to debate ID. While this gut-reaction feels rather satisfying for most scientists, to someone on the fence, it comes across as quite condescending. We scientists should never be afraid to discuss our science. In fact, if we never communicate our results with the general public, our pursuits become pointless and meaningless. By sharing our results with the world, in some small way, we hopefully will help contribuite to a more educated populace. There's no way in the world that can be a bad thing.

Outreach is quasi-important here in the Astronomy department. I say quasi-important, because we have quite a large outreach program (Stardate, for one), but it's almost an afterthought. People are so focused on the cutting edge, the general consensus is to look down upon people who spend part of their time doing outreach. Sort of a "those who can't do, teach" mentality. It shouldn't be that way.

procrastination - sorta

Lyrics from the song "Why does the Sun Shine?" by They Might Be Giants
---------------------------------
The Sun is a mass
of incandescent gas
a gigantic nuclear furnace.
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
at a temperature of millions of degrees.

Yo-Ho it's hot,
The sun is not
A place where we could live

But here on Earth,
there'd be no life
without the light it gives

We need its light
We need its heat
We need its energy

Without the sun,
Without a doubt
There'd be no you and me.

The Sun is a mass
of incandescent gas
a gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
at a temperature of millions of degrees.

The sun is hot - (It is so hot that everything on it is a gas: Iron, copper, aluminum, and many others!)
The sun is large - (If the sun were hollow, a million earths could fit inside; and yet the sun is only a middle sized star!)
The sun is far away - (About 93 million miles away! and that's why it looks so small!)

And even when it's out of sight,
the sun shines night and day.

The sun gives heat,
The sun gives light
The sunlight that we see.

The sunlight comes
from our own Sun's
Atomic Energy

(Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom smashing machine! The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, and Helium)

The Sun is a mass
of incandescent gas
a gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
at a temperature of millions of degrees.
---------------------------
Gotta love these guys...

Observing

Guess who's going observing in Hawaii in March?

That's right, I am.

We live in an awesome neck of the woods...

Wow... that's really all I can say.



Tonight, Rebecca (friend from work) and I got paid $250 each to drag a few telescopes up to Possum Kingdom lake and show some rich old farts a few cool objects in the night sky while some real-estate moguls wined and dined them into purchasing their second or third million dollar homes. I can't say that I'd buy from them, but I'd definitely like a ranch or a lakehouse out here, at least before it gets totally yuppi-fied. (prolly too late, I know).

Anyway, Rebecca talked about the astronomy department and McDonald Observatory, and I gave a short tour of the summer sky (i.e. constellations, visible planets, scale of the solar system/galaxy). I managed to work in a short plug for my old A&M days, and I got a few whoops and a few cat-calls from some red raiders. After it got dark enough, we pointed the scopes at the sky and showed them some cool things (Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, basically). Let me tell you, drunk people are rather entertaining to try to explain astronomy to them. Well... for a while... then, after the 4th time you show them where the north star is, they just get annoying.

Anyway, they wrapped everything up by 10:30, so we had to clear out. As it had been a long time since both of us had seen a decent sky, we went back to the hotel, stocked up on some bugspray and some red flashlights, and headed out down highway 16, until we got tired of driving and pulled off the side of the road.

When we got out of the car, we both started laughing almost hysterically... I have NEVER EVER seen a sky so dark. The Milky Way just pops out and smacks you in the face. We set up the Dobsonian telescope and took out a few binoculars. Jupiter was so bright, it almost hurt your eyes to look through the scope at it. I could see globular clusters with my naked eye. I now know more constellations than I ever knew existed, and can cross at least 10-15 Messier Objects off my list.

The Milky Way is really something. It's not something I can put into words. It's more than beautiful, it's more than humbling. I've never seen the milky way as clearly as I did tonight. We could even see the dust lanes. I was simply dumbstruck. Just looking with binoculars, I could see all sorts of cool stuff in the sky, and we were able to find quite a few of them with the scope. By far the coolest time I've ever spent stargazing.

If you've never seen the milky way, GO! Go to a DARK location. Preferably 60-70 miles away from any sort of civilization. Go to Ft. Davis. Go to Possum Kingdom Lake. Go anywhere.

I've never been more excited to be an astronomer. You guys don't know what you're missing out on.