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