My Last Night on the Mountain

Well, Creepy Guy struck again. Encounter #4.

I went walking from the telescope to get some coffee to help me through the night to 5am. The moon had set, so it was dark, but I didn't want to use my flashlight because I like to look at the stars. It's like I'm an astronomer or something. The lights of Tucson can be seen on the eastern horizon, Phoenix to the northwest, and Mexico to the south. The views are amazing. I saw 2 more shooting stars today. I hope I'm always this excited to see them.

I am now a SARA Observer. I've named it to myself. I figure that since they're leaving the undergrads alone with the telescope we have the authority of title. I think it was more of an issue of lazy grad students.

The Plague

Today was a horrible day of bugs. I have now made the mental note not to go outside betwee noon and 2pm on the mountain in Arizona. The passing lane for the flying insects was apparently right by my ear and there were many suicide attempts into my face. We were also attacked by ladybugs, which isn't quite as serious, but still major excess. The most recent, however, is the spiders in the SARA room, where I work. This afternoon "Gimpy" arrived on the wall by the bookshelves. We named him Gimpy because he's missing a leg. To clarify, this is not a tiny spider or a grand-daddy long legs. It is like octopus spider size, so I don't want any grief about the issues between Gimpy and me. So, Autumn, Steve, Kiran, and Hartmann were all gone...and Christina founnd a flyswatter. That's when things got interesting. We decided that any hope of exterminating Gimpy would be when Autumn was not in the room...she has save all living things tendencies. Gimpy was currently hiding behind a piece of wood and in went the flyswatter, because it was a logical thing for astrophysicist students to do at 12:30. Gimpy ran and tried to retaliate which produced basically a screaming fest and running around the 10 by 12 foot SARA room avoiding computers, chairs, telescope equipment, and electrical wires. It was quite the fiasco....and just a second ago, and I'm sure he was sensing my hostility towards his kind, a mosquito eater appeared in the corner of my eye and tried to land on my head. And I get looked at with quizzical faces because of my quick reflexes of self defence.

Kitt Peak, Arizona

It's my second night on Kitt Peak in Arizona. We haven't had any Gamma Ray Burst activity, but it gave us time to view some other cool things in the sky: clusters, nebulas, galaxies...and others of the sort. I didn't make it the whole night last night....gave into sleep around midnight arizona time, but 3am for my body clock...since I had to get up at 5 to catch my plane out here, I was pretty exhausted. Today we got to visit the University of Arizona in Tucson and tour the astronomy facilities and campus. They have like 7 or 8 astronomy buildings! and the campus is really cool, but I don't know if I see myself in Arizona. Also got to tour the Steward Mirror Lab where they make the huge mirrors for the big telescopes around the world, so I am now an expert on mirror making...who knew.

However, the most exciting news of the night: I saw my first shooting star! It's pitch black on Kitt Peak with only a few cities close by...Tucson is an hour and a half away, so it's pretty much more stars than I've ever seen. The halo above Tucson can be seen to the east, and Phoenix lights can even be seen from 60 miles away...thank you mountains. It's awesome that it's so dark because you can just look up at the sky and see the milky way and who knows how many planets. In honor of Arizona, we are taking images of the Sombraro galaxy as the last ones of the night, and it's 4:10 am...we have about 45 minutes left to observe before the sun comes up, then it's off to my blacked out window room to sleep into the afternoon....