Christmas Day

For the first time ever, David and I are not home for Christmas. In the past, we have always been with one set of parents or the other. But this year, having just spent a few weeks with each family in August and with an observing run scheduled two days after the holiday, it was clear that we would be in La Serena for Christmas this time around.

Our dear friend Maren from Florida, who just moved to Santiago herself a few months ago, was also planning on Christmas in Chile. We asked her to come up and spend the holidays with us in La Serena. So, although we were sad that we were going to be away from home for the first time on Christmas, we were excited to have our first Christmas house guest! We decided that with Maren in town and our house decorated with the long-sought Christmas Tree, we would make Christmas dinner and invite the few people still who were also planning to be far from home on the holiday to celebrate with us.

Maren arrived at the bus station a few days before Christmas and we had a really great time showing her all around the area. Two days before the holiday, we went to Vicuna, a small mountain town East of La Serena. While there, we perused the Christmas markets and the main town square. We found a vendor selling cactus fruit, Copao and after a refreshingly convincing taste, loaded up on them at 10 for $2. David and I had an idea in mind, that, as you'll see later, worked out perfectly.

On Christmas Eve, we did a fairly spectacular and unexpected thing. After our grocery shopping, we loaded up the car with towels and blankets and headed to the beach. It was a perfect summer day and Maren and I abandoned all reason and went swimming in the Pacific Ocean despite the warnings I'd received that it was freezing cold. It wasn't actually bad at all and the water was just beautiful. I decided that if I had to be away from home for the holidays this was a pretty cool way to do it.

For dinner we planned a fairly simple and traditional meal, turkey (surprisingly hard to find, apparently not the meat of choice for Christmas dinner here), stuffing (David's parents recipe, with lovely chestnuts and homemade sausage), cooked carrots (with butter and a touch of brown sugar), salad, twice baked potatoes, and baked sliced apples.

We can't buy this type of sausage here, so David grinds the pork and seasons it himself

Yum, turkey!

Twice baked potatoes, cooked carrots, a salad, baked apples, and stuffing

Maren was a huge help in the kitchen and we ended up with a lovely meal in no time flat. However, we decided to make an interesting addition to add a touch of Chile to the mix. We took the Copao and made granitas (thanks Margaret, again!) We scooped out the fruit, added a bit of sugar, a lot of pisco, and stuck the mixture in the freezer for a while, stirring every so often to give it a slushy kind of feel. When we were done we loaded it back into the fruit shells, which we'd also frozen. Then we decorated a bit.

Copao granita - a little touch of Chile

Oh yes, we did!

We served the granitas as an apertif when everyone arrived to the house and they were really well received. The rest of dinner was a blast. As with most of my parties, I was too busy playing hostess to take any serious pictures. I think the memory of everyone enjoying Christmas dinner sitting around OUR table in OUR new home is one that probably will stay with me forever anyway.

During the day, we also had the chance to give our parents a call on Skype. Using our video cameras we were able to open gifts with both sets in "person" - which was really a gift in-and-of itself. We had a nice inter-continental toast with David's parents and watched the gift exchanges. We also got to see my brother and his wife Jackie open our present to them. As a huge surprise we'd bought them a Wii and I'd been waiting for weeks to see the looks on their faces. It was totally worth it!

The day ended up as a wonderful melding of friends and family and although I was sad that we definitely would not be getting any snow, I was happy that we managed to feel the warmth of home in Chile.

First Christmas Party in Chile

Every year for the last 6 years, David and I have thrown a massive Christmas party. Generally, we decorate the house, make a nice mix of some of our fancier dishes (including a load of cookies and cakes), and then invite everyone we know to come over and enjoy a night of eating, drinking, and conversation.

For those who know me well (which I'm guessing includes most of the people who would bother reading my blog) this party also doubles as a celebration of my birthday, which is December 17th. People probably think I am a little strange, but the present I give myself every year is this party; it gives me an excuse to make the food I love for the people I love.

Anyway, this year proved to be a little difficult. We still had some boxes lying around and I wasn't at all used to the house yet. On top of that, I found out a bit late that unlike graduate school, most people at the observatory have already left town by mid-December. So by the time I had my act together, a gigantic housewarming party was out.

Instead we decided to invite 15 or so people over to enjoy a quiet evening. I made a lavender cheesecake (which unfortunately did not come out quite right, although this did not stop it from being devoured), a chocolate torte, a load of cookies (made with the help of some friends a few days before), and an apple crumb pie. My friend Emma made fantastic chocolate covered shortbreads and my new friend, Peter, gifted me a beautiful blue bowl from Bulgaria (All are pictured above)!

Jayadev looks over the remains of the bounty

We haven't been able to find puff pastry, a staple in a few of our more fancy appetizers, so we decided to experiment with filo dough. I can already see that I am going to be an addict. I had no idea it was so easy to work with! We made fantastic artichoke & shrimp and mushroom & goat cheese stuffed filo triangles that were gone in minutes. We also made pesto and curry flavored deviled eggs (thanks Margaret!) among other things.

Our neighbors Allison, Ryan, Emma, Jayadev, Susan, Rikki, and Chris and our friends Bryan, Nicole, and Peter as well as some visitors from Australia all joined us. We had a fantastic evening and I felt fairly good about my first fiesta in Chile!

Allison finishes off her cake(s)

Bryan chats with some guests from Australia

O Christmas Tree

We had heard from several people that we should prepare ourselves for the worst with regards to the availability of live Christmas Trees in Chile. Christmas trees just don't grow in this part of the country and since it isn't that common a tradition to have live trees in the home, they are not often shipped from the South. Still we'd heard that with some luck, they could be found.

On the advice of friends, we went into the local home store (think Home Depot) and found a few spruce trees with the roots balled up. My parents had bought ball trees two or three times and I wouldn't have minded going that route if the things hadn't look like the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree's retarded cousins. The best specimens were half dead already and cost $60. Meanwhile we'd seen decent looking fake trees all over La Serena. I honestly wasn't sure what to do. I'd always swore I'd never go fake - but faced with the prospect of either no tree, a dead tree, or a plastic one, I was definitely considering the unthinkable.

Then one day, while driving to meet friends for dinner, we saw a painted sign pointing to a dirt road that said (no translation necessary) "Christmas Trees" . The next Saturday, we decided to take a ride back and check it out. My hopes weren't particularly high and when we arrived at a dead end with no Christmas trees in sight, I was pretty disappointed. However, we decided to walk around a bit. To our surprise we discovered two young boys with saws guarding a small patch of trees for sale. It was a miniature "Cut your own" Christmas Tree Farm.

The trees weren't typical Christmas trees, they reminded me more of pine shrubs, like the ornamental ones found in my parents yard near the back porch. Still we gave them a look over and honestly, liked what we saw. They had the fresh pine scent we were craving, were very healthy, and looked like Christmas Trees, albeit miniature ones. We asked for the price (with a bit of dread, given the $60 price tag of the pathetic ones in the home store) and were surprised to find that they only wanted $10! This was the ticket! David and I picked the best one, the boys cut it down with a few quick strokes (for which we gave them a HUGE tip - I was in a great mood!), we loaded it into the car, and came home triumphant.

That night I set up the tree in our new house and started the task of going through my Christmas ornaments. I was a little scared as to what I might find. Fortunately very few things were broken. This was probably because I had spent half a day last January very very carefully wrapping everything. I knew we were moving, although at the time I didn't know where! Obviously the caution paid off.

So I happily decorated the tree with the best of my ornaments. So Tada! Our first Christmas Tree in Chile.

Back to Pachon

I went back up to Cerro Pachon for another training run, this time with James, another Gemini Fellow, who just also happens to be my friend and fellow UF grad. James and I have known each other for 7 years. The first time we met was on a volleyball court in Florida. The grad students in the astronomy department at UF had a picnic every year and one of the best things to do was round everyone up and play volleyball. I love the game, so it took no effort to convince me to give it a go. During one game, James was standing right next to me as I served up 13 aces in a row. From that moment on he called me Ace. In the hallway, around town, even we I came for my interview visit at Gemini, it mattered not - Ace I was.

Now, years later, James is the instrument scientist for T-ReCS here at Gemini, which is also the instrument I work on now! T-ReCS was built at the University of Florida by Dr. Charlie Telesco and many of the same engineers that worked with me on my instrument (CIRCE). It's a mid-infrared instrument. To give you some idea of what that means, our bodies glow in the Mid-IR. And when I say "glow" I'm not talking about the reflected light that lets one person see another. Instead I'm referring to the radiation that comes off our bodies, which is commonly known as HEAT. With the right camera you can "see" heat; T-ReCS has such a camera.

In space, you can look at a few things in the Mid-IR, but the most common is warm dust. Some astronomers would argue that the most important dust you can look at is that around young stars. That dust may be in the process of forming planets. So in the Mid-IR you can search for planets and solar systems in the earliest stages of life.

During this training run, I was going to work with James to (hopefully) learn more about T-ReCS. As it happened, we were splitting our nights with another team of observers using a totally different instrument. One of the members of the team was my friend Beth (from our Dieciocho adventure). So it was very nice to be up there with her and watch her work her astronomy mojo.

We ended up having good weather, but unfortunately didn't get much T-ReCS in. Still I'm getting more and more confident with the telescope and around the observatory in general. Next time I go up - I'll be on my own!

The dormitories on Pachon, our home away from home!


A comfy room in the dorms. Still the classic AURA furniture, though

The view towards the mountains from the dorm

It's amazing how little things; the view from the front of the dormitory, the wild horses roaming all around, the mountains in the background, really bring home the solitude and silence of the summit. For the first few night it can be a sanctuary - a place to run away from the constant goings-on of the world. However, for a people person like me, hanging out with only one other person for 5 days can be a bit trying! Still I've always liked observing.

Semi-wild horses roaming around the observatory grounds


The Cerro Pachon kitchen

Usually dinner is fairly good. I've had extremes on either end, though.

Looking toward the dome from the dinner table

Any dinner snafus are forgiven with a view like this

Our Stuff Arrives

Our stuff in Florida - just about to be packed!

Our stuff is finally here. The movers came two days ago and dropped everything off and although there were no major disasters, it was really quite an eye opener.

A sampling of our move - they damaged nearly every piece of wood furniture that we own in some way; gouging corners, snapping off molding, and adding various dents and scratches along the way. Our couch is fairly dirty. Things look like they were loaded with no padding at all, even though we were assured extensive padding would be done "at the warehouse". We are really lucky that more of our nice furniture wasn't destroyed.

All of our linens (towels, sheets, comforters) were merely wrapped in paper in Florida, then unwrapped at our new place and dumped unceremoniously all over the floor. Nearly everything is musty smelling after being in a container on a ship and in a warehouse for three months.

On the other hand, in the small amount of unpacking I have managed in two days, I have found large plastic boxes packed with 1) a solitary plastic stepping stool, 2) nothing 3) paper. And the worst part is that I had prepacked most of the linens ahead of time into plastic storage containers so that this wouldn't happen - they must have emptied them and done this instead!

And it looks like we might be missing several boxes. As many as 5. We're not sure because a large number of boxes were missing their numbers.

Besides a rant this is a GUIDE for all of you who are planning big moves in the future. I spent months, (a little bit at a time - you could probably do it in a week, but I was writing my dissertation) wrapping, organizing, and pre-packing my stuff, which really paid off. I can't imagine what things would look like if I hadn't done that. I highly recommend organizing your stuff because the movers descriptions on the boxes suck and you'll never find anything again.

On the other hand, I was way too nice with the movers on both ends. I thought I was being a pretty tough customers, but I wasn't tough enough (I think I was mostly exhausted by this point from defending my thesis). On the packing side, INSIST that everything is done in your vision. INSIST that the furniture is wrapped heavily before it leaves your house. Don't listen to ANYTHING they say about things being wrapped at the warehouse before making it to the boat. INSIST linens be placed in any plastic boxes you have, or DO IT YOURSELF and tape the boxes before they come. Be mean. OK, the movers won't like you, that's for sure, but you only need to live with them for a day, whereas you need to live with your broken stuff for years!

On the unpacking end, no matter how fast the movers want to go and no matter how heavy the boxes, make SURE you have them separate the boxes by room. Even if everything is going in one space - kitchen boxes should go in one corner, living room boxes in another, etc. Make SURE that if a box is unlabeled it goes in a special place that you can check before they leave. If your linens are wrapped in paper, DO NOT let them unwrap it. Tell them to leave the bundles as is. Make SURE that they go slow enough that you can check off every box and make notes about the condition of bigger items.

We do realize that overall we were pretty lucky (knock on wood; we've just started unpacking!) Most of the damage is fixable with a few good clamps and some wood glue. The organization that I did before-hand will hopefully save me from completely losing my mind and I've been able to gather up the linens and put them in relatively safe places. To put it in perspective, this stuff came from ~4500 miles away, it's really pretty impressive that your stuff can survive that. But a few simple things could have made it even better.

Hopefully, the advice will help you. The rant really helped me :)

It should be Easy

Anyone that has ever met David is probably well aware the he absolutely loves outdoor cooking. In fact, right before we left the US, we retired the old smoker, bought a new one, and brought it with us so we could guarantee that David's awesome Smoked Pork Ribs would be able to follow us to Chile.

David's smoker doubles as a grill and in the past, he's settled for that. However, it became clear that with the excellent weather, frequency of parties, and number of attendees we needed more grilling area. Also, I couldn't really wait until our shipment decided to arrive to have David start grilling some of the fantastic Argentinian beef. It became clear we were going to have to make a move and buy a separate grill. David is very against gas and so we were faced with finding a straight-up charcoal grill in Chile. Given the Chilean love of charred meat, we thought this would be easy, but (as almost everything else since we arrived) it turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. We discovered that while grilling is very common in Chile, most charcoal grills are very low quality; mostly ranging from very thin half-drum models to flimsy hibachi style grills.

Finally, we decided to take a trip to Easy, the local Lowe's-type store. We honestly think it's a little strange that they've used an English word to name the store (for instance, the place could be called "Facil") but it seems very typical to use English words to try to make a place more "high class". Think about the way we throw in random French or Spanish words into restaurant or shop names; you get the picture.

On this particular trip we were able to find a really nice (US-made) charcoal grill called the Char-Griller "Super Pro". David was practically apoplectic. Two things we've sort of realized in Chile 1) when you finally find what you want after weeks of looking discussion of price is mostly worthless because you aren't going to find a better deal anywhere 2) if you wait to buy whatever it is, prepared for it to be gone. So although my bargain hunting brain was a bit horrified by paying (a rather hefty) full price for it - we brought home the Super Pro that day.

A few days went by before David had a chance to put it together. When I came home from work, I met a mostly horrified David. Apparently, after putting the entire grill together, he realized the grates were missing from the box. All four of them. In the US this would have been a minor problem but we had NO IDEA how to fix this problem here in Chile. And we'd heard from friends that any kind of return or complaint was very hard to manage.

We went back to the Easy and tried explaining in broken Spanish the situation. I was getting a little panicked as no one seemed willing to help or listen. What could we do with an expensive grill with no grilling surface!? Finally after standing around waiting, I found someone from the correct department. In desperation, I simply stated. "Tengo una parilla sin parillas!" (I have a grill with no grills!). For some reason this struck the associate as absolutely hilarious. He began calling all over the store repeating my quip. Sooner than later we ended up in the correct "returns department" and in 15 minutes had four grilling grates in hand.

Another disaster avoided. And of course - here are pictures of the grill.

Arnold and Co.

As we've been working on getting our house in good order, we've decided to purchase a few new appliances while the dollar is doing well. What we really wanted was a new dishwasher and refrigerator. The old dishwasher is completely rusted, inside and out, and is currently a nest for spiders. The refrigerator that came with the house is small, old, and has been making some interesting noises. For people who like to entertain neither appliance is going to cut it.

David and I have been refrigerator shopping for YEARS. We know that sounds silly, but we would often go into Lowe's or Home Depot and stare at the beautiful stainless steel refrigerators for hours. While the selection here in Chile is not nearly as extensive, after a bit of looking around and research on the web, we found a refrigerator that filled our every wish! We ordered it up and it was delivered the next day.

And here he is...



We've decided to name it Arnold - as in Arnold Schwarzenegger, aka Mr. Freeze. Not that either of us has ever watched that particular Batman movie, but it sounded perfect to us.

Arnold has a couple great features, like the little energy saving hatch in the fridge door for accessing milk and condiments without opening the entire fridge. He also has a water dispenser with lights and buttons. One of the buttons (the EXPRESS FRZ) will even sing a little song to you. I will never tire of pushing this little happy button.



The dishwasher we bought is not totally ideal, a little small and without some of the bells and whistles. Still it is quite nice. We decided to go with white instead of stainless because of the white kitchen (and the extra $300 price tag...seriously). The inside is steel though - so we've decided to name her Bessie - after the Bessemer Process used to make steel :)




Anway, it's slowly starting to come together. Our stuff arrives the end of November! I can't wait to get my home in one piece and have a party!

Fray Jorge Adventure

David and I had heard about a fantastic little national part on the coast of Chile, just an hour or so South of La Serena called Fray Jorge. Supposedly, the fog and mist coming up off the sea create the perfect environment for decidious trees. The hum-dinger of this is that the majority of the park is desert. So, the park is a beautiful, vast, scrub filled desert kissed at its heights by a wet, green forest. It sounded wonderful.

After not much though, we decided to make the trip and our new neighbors Allison and Ryan wanted to come along. Ryan is a freshly minted new Ph.D. just like me and works at the other observatory on the Recinto, CTIO. He is leading the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program which pairs 10 or so students from the US with mentors here in Chile for a summer program. He is also a research postdoc, in the copious time left over from keeping 19 year old students from killing themselves (just kidding - hey I was an REU kid once!) Allison just finished her MS in astronomy and works at Gemini. They live in Casa 17, which is the house we thought we might get originally when we moved up here. In the end, it's all worked out - as we've found our new home Casa 10 suits us just fine.

Anyway, Allison and Ryan wanted to bring two other friends along - Matt Klimek a former REU student who was working here before venturing to grad school, and Beaux, their dog. Beaux is just a tiny little golden retriever puppy with lots of energy. We weren't sure how to feel with a packed car plus a dog venturing out to the middle of nowhere, but we decided - what the heck! We're in Chile! Let's be adventurous!

So we drove out to the park, which at first was an easy trip on a well-paved highway. However, when we turned off the highway we found ourselves on a dirt road. It was well maitained to be sure, but we knew we were far off the beaten trail.

We road the 1.5 hours into the park and up to the decidiuos forest. It really was a fantastic sight! The trail is a quite short, but the views to the ocean are fantastic and watching the mist move off of the coast is pretty cool.



Beaux got us quite a lot of attention at all the overlooks too, so it was pretty fun to have him along, except for the brief moment toward the top when he threw up on Allison.

Allison with Beaux

David, Me, Matt, Ryan, Allison and Beaux

Everything was peachy until we'd done all of our exploring and decided to leave the park. We got out of the main entrance and had about 10 km or so to go on the dirt road when the car suddenly started to struggle going up a few hills. We thought maybe, just maybe, we had too much weight in the car for all the uphills climbs, so Ryan and I got out and the car zoomed up without a problem. I was quite relieved until the next turn when the car stopped dead.

Fortunately for us we'd broken down right near a farm house. They suggested that we climb up the nearest hill and try our cell phone there and miraculously that worked! We managed to call the guards on the Recinto for help and they offered to send someone to get us and the car.

So with a few hours to wait we decided to buy some snacks off the local farmstead. They had a sign and a tiny shack set up for tourists to buy cookies and juice. The woman on the farm, Juana, offered their outdoor table as a place to eat and rest while we had our nice little snack. We got to talking (or at least Allison and Matt did, they are fantastically fluent) and her husband, Pablo, came over. They told us all about their families and children and grandchildren. Soon we were playing with their dog, Penguino and admiring her cactii and hens; the next thing we knew, we were invited (despite our protests) to join them in "onces" (a midday meal, not unlike afternoon tea). We had FRESH goat cheese from her goats, beautiful homemade bread, and tea. It was fantastic.

Afterwards we noticed it was getting very late. They obviously had chores to do around the house, so we thanked them for everything and said our goodbyes, planning to wait for whatever AURA sent to bring us home near the car. A bit later, much to our surprise, a large flatbed rolled up and loads the car. We didn't know what to do, as it was obvious that we couldn't all fit in the cab. The driver motioned for us to get into our car. So we did. And we road the 60+ minutes home, in the car, on the back of a flat bed. I think the guards at the gate probably died laughing to watch all the gringos return home under less than their own power.

Did I mention Chile is the land of adventures?

Home Sweet Home

I returned to La Serena from my first observing run - not to the trusty apart-hotel Gran Pacifico, but to our new home! David and I managed to get ourselves off the bloody waiting list and into one of the houses on the Recinto!

As I mentioned before, the Recinto is a small community that is home to two of the large observatories in La Serena; Gemini and Cerro Tololo. The two main observatory buildings sit right next to each other, with a spattering of about 30 houses around them on a giant hill that overlooks the ocean. Most of these houses were built in the 70s, but they are still quite charming and have great yards. Better yet, they have American power, meaning we can run all of our kitchen appliances, lamps, etc. with no problems. We've been hoping to be able to rent one of the houses, but originally the prospects looked bleak. However our luck has seriously turned.

When we first saw our house, Casa 10, we were quite frankly, not in love. I don't know what I thought was worse: the terra cotta floors in the stark white kitchen, the peeling panda bear wallpaper in the kids bedroom, the red and brown plaid curtains covering every window of the house, or the cracking creme paint. Originally, we wanted another house, Casa 17, but our new friends and soon-to-be cooking buddies, Allison and Ryan, were ahead of us on the list and snatched it up immediately (not that I could blame them). So David and I thought we would settle for Casa 10 for a few months to get us out of the Gran Pacifico (which has started to develop a bad case of mold) and then move when another house became available. We'd heard, in fact, that two houses would be ready in December: Casa 4 (a permanent favorite of mine with a beautiful sea view) and Casa 28 (one of the newer houses built in the 90s).

However, when I came home from my observing run and saw the house a bit cleaned up, with some of the more hideous atrocities (like the plaid curtains) gone, it grew on me a bit. The kitchen, with a little hardware upgrade, could probably look fairly modern despite the 80s whte. But despite its flaws, it is simply huge compared to the kitchens in the other houses. Painted white, the main rooms will be very spacious. I can see potential in the guest bedrooms once the wallpaper is removed. And the house has two full bathrooms, including a huge master bath and "hardwood" floors (lamenate really; still better than carpeting)

We'd originally ask the Recinto management not to touch a thing, since we wanted to move in right away and planned to move out as soon as possible. So after chatting, yesterday we went with hat in hand and told them we'd changed our mind. We wanted to stay in Casa 10. Now all the painting and repair work will have to be done with us living in the house. This would be a pain, but without our stuff here - it's really not that much of a bother.

And at the end of the day, I'm just glad to be HOME!

Casa 10 - not much to look at..yet

First Observing Run on Pachon

This week I had my first training run at the telescope. It was a really exciting experience, but before I go into the details, I just wanted to describe a bit about the observatory.

Gemini South is one of the world's largest telescopes, with a single 8 meter (~ 26 ft) wide mirror. As it's name implies, it is a "twin"; an identical telescope (named unsurprisingly Gemini North) is located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Meanwhile, Gemini South is located on Cerro Pachon, just a few peaks over from Cerro Tololo, where I did the bulk of my thesis observing. Pachon is about a two hour drive from the La Serena headquarters, which is quite a nice change. In the recent past, when I went observing, it generally required several days of travel, in planes, trains, and automobiles just to get to the telescope. Now, I hop in a caravan that drives us up to the observatory at 4:20pm and a few hours later I'm observing.

Gemini is not operated like any observatory I've ever visited before. Most observatories run in classical mode, which means that an observer applies for time to use the telescope, is judged on the quality of his/her proposal by a Telescope Allocation Committees, and if awarded time, flies to wherever the telescope "lives" to take their data.

At Gemini, after time is awarded to the astronomer, his/her program is placed in a massive database or "queue" with all the other winning programs. It is then observed sometime in the next six months by trained Ph.D. astronomers that work for Gemini. There are lots of reasons for this different system, not the least being that people get exactly the weather conditions that they ask for. With classical observing, an observer might come all the way to Chile only to be clouded or snowed out (and this has happened to me). With queue observing, unless an observer has a program that can handle some light clouds, their observations are only taken under clear skies. There are many other reasons for queue observing, but this is a large advantage.

As a Fellow, I will probably observe about 25 - 35 nights a year as a "queue" observer. My job is take make the observations for my colleagues in the Gemini science community who have programs in the queue. I will be trained as an expert on all the "cameras" at the observatory (we currently have 4 in operation that, but another 2 about to be completed). With one camera, I can image a distant galaxy or find out what is inside the remants of a dying star. With a different one I can look for the conditions that form planets around nearby stars. With the third I can investigate the regions where stars are born. The data are not mine, of course, unless I happen to have a project that is deemed worthy enough to observe with Gemini myself. Most Fellows do; they are so familiar with the telescope after a few years, they know exactly what it is capable of.

Anyway, this was my first time observing on Gemini. I was up purely for training with my officemate Etienne and only for two night. I wasn't particularly nervous, as I knew that I was just learning the very basics. Still I was excited for my first night on an 8-m class telescope.

I arrived at the dormitory and was surprised at how nice it was. Every place has its problems, but this was fairly nice for the middle of nowhere. The bed was soft and the bathrooms fairly modern. I was pretty happy about the accomodations.



After a relaxed dinner (summertime affords us quite a bit of time), I went up to the telescope with Etienne and Erich. Erich is an SSA, Gemini's version of a telescope operator. While the astronomers operate the cameras that take the images and evaluate all the data, the SSA is moving and monitoring the telescope. All our observations are taken as a two person team - and, in fact, no one is ever left alone on the summit.

Erich was very excited to have a reason to "show off". He moved the telescope and dome around a bit and I felt like I got quite a show. I took some amazing pictures.

The 8-m Gemini South Telescope on Cerro Pachon

The wind gates, open to let the dome come up to temperature

Erich and I with the telescope

The night was a fairly short summer one, but still frantic. For as experienced as an observer as I am (well over 50 nights at small telescopes and another 30+ at 4-m and up) I was pretty amazed at how different queue observing could be. I learned a great deal and I can't wait to go back up for my next trip.

The blooming desert on the way back to La Serena

My New Office

This week, my second at Gemini, I moved out of my temporary space into my permanent office. My desk isn't quite ready (there is still quite a bit of musical chairs going on) but I settled into another empty spot in the office, just to get the feel for it. The picture above is actually a view from my office; I would say that looking out over the Pacific Ocean is a fairly large upgrade from staring at the back end of a football stadium.

I also got to meet and chat with my new office mate, Etienne. Etienne found out that I was interested in nature photography and very enthusiastically showed me his extensive birding site. His photos are pretty remarkable; I'm fairly sure he could have a career as a nature photographer if he wanted. Instead he studies brown dwarfs, objects that are just a bit larger than Jupiter-like planets and just a bit smaller than the smallest stars. (He's very good at that too!) He also works on NICI, a special new instrument at Gemini that will find planets around stars other than our sun. Besides the bird pictures, he's also got quite a bit of photography of his baby daughter, Heloise, and his wife Myriam.

Almost immediately after settling into my office, I found out that I would be going up for my first solo run at the telescope at the beginning of December. Since I know absolutely nothing about the instruments, the telescope, etc. I decided that I needed to schedule my first training run as soon as possible. Fortunately, Etienne is observing next week and he's agreed to show me the ropes. So I'm already planning my first nighttime trip to the mountain!

Of course, I've met many new people besides Etienne; at Gemini there are plenty of opportunities to socialize. Every Wednesdays, the science staff gets together for "Science Coffee" and chats (over coffee and cookies, of course!) about interesting science results that we've seen or (hopefully) produced. Gemini also has a monthly meeting to celebrate all the birthdays that took place during the month. The "Birthday Celebration" is followed by a nice spread of food including sushi, cake, empanadas, etc. It's clear that they work very hard on a very positive morale here and go out of their way to make sure everyone knows each other and feels important to the observatory.

So far I'm really enjoying my time here. It will be interesting to see what next week brings!

First Days at Gemini

On September 22nd, two weeks after we arrived in Chile, I started my first day of work. Beginning in a new place is always a crazy experience, but after spending seven years at Florida and knowing everything about everyone, it was particularly odd to not know where I was going, what I was doing, or who I was meeting. I haven’t had that sensation in a while.

At first, I didn’t have much of an office. Gemini is in the midst of some renovation, so I found myself in a temporarily space. I didn’t stay in my seat for long though - I had so many meetings to go to on my first day that I barely even saw “my” desk, so it was no big loss. Still, someone had very thoughtfully laid out notepads, pens, and various other office supplies for me. I even had a phone programmed with my name and voicemail. After sharing an office (and a phone) with at least five other graduate students for seven years, this was quite a change.

The Gemini Headquarters in La Serena

My overall first impression was that Gemini Observatory is really well-organized - and I realized very quickly that it needed to be. For the uninitiated, Gemini South is one of the world’s largest telescopes - in fact it is the 8th largest. Every second of nighttime operations is worth $1. In other words, losing one night due to mechanical failures, disorganization, or poor communication costs at least $30,000.

Given this price tag, Gemini has a responsibility to make sure observations at night go as smoothly as possible. This translates into a giant complex of engineers, astronomers, and staff making sure that things are where they need to be, when they need to be there. It also means a more business-like approach and a LOT of meetings! Still people manage to have fun at work and the observatory is willing to spend the money to make sure that everyone has the tools needed to do a good job. In fact, Bernadette, who is the head of science, told me to order myself a new laptop!

Besides that, I was also scheduled for a driver’s training course. Not only would I get to drive around dirt roads with a professional driver, I was going to take my first trip since my interview out to Cerro Pachon, the mountain that is home to Gemini South. Given the efficiency at Gemini, it was unsurprising that my training had already been scheduled...for Wednesday! I was really excited because I’d heard that Danielle, the professional driver was a lot of fun. I also found out that the entire desert was in bloom, a rare event, and that the mountains on the way to Pachon were covered in flowers. I anticipated a really great day driving around learning more about operating a car on mountain roads.

Unfortunately, while this dirt-encrusted adventure *sounded* awesome, especially for someone who was a tom-boy for most of her life, the reality was dominated by some severe car sickness; I was nauseous the entire time. Danielle took us to a course that he had set up in the mountains near Pachon. Among other things, we practiced slalom and spun the car out to get a feel for how to regain control if the back-end of the car loses traction. We also went up and down a fairly step little hill to understand how the vehicle handles. I was ok while I was driving, although I found that I was too nervous to really love the experience. When my fellow trainees started to drive, my stomach began to lurch. By the end I was miserably green.

Once we stopped for “lunch” (a cup of coke for me and a few bites of pasta) I did get to take some shots of the dome against a back-drop of snowy mountains I confessed to Danielle that I'd had better days and I think he felt bad that I wasn’t enjoying myself much. He stopped several times to let me get out, have some fresh air and take marvelous pictures of the mountainsides in bloom. So after all the drama, I did end up with a pretty memorable day.