Or maybe it’s just the eye of the hurricane…
After a long weekend of (mostly) work, I got a brief “kinda” break. Although I still have homework due, I’ve only got it in 2 classes instead of the normal 3. Hopefully that’ll give me some time to get more research done and work on my thesis a bit.
Right now I’m working on integrating Fortran and C into a useful program. It’s only moderately successful so far (read: not useful or working at all 
). But, I’ve got a few days left…
It is very clear out tonight so I will be heading out soon to do a Constellation quiz. They’re usually quite fun to do. It’s always nice to be out under the stars….
Even with the large workload this weekend, I still managed to have some time to play with bikes… I had ~500 tests to grade by Monday morning, plus a homework set I hadn’t started on. So I had my work cut out for me. Fortunately I made great progress on the homework and finished grading the 1500 short answer questions 
As for the bikes…
(more…)
Last night was a public night at the McCormick Observatory at UVa. I was slated to help out, which would’ve involved me pointing a telescope at interesting objects visible in the sky this time of year. However, we were completely socked in with clouds (it even rained a bit!), so there was nothing to see. A short talk was given showing some impressive images from Hubble and a tour was given of the 26″ refractor on site.
Next up for public nights for me is the Fan Mountain Observatory public night. This should be a lot of fun, as the 31″ and 40″ telescopes will have eyepieces! That’s a relatively big telescope to look through with an eyepiece! That’s coming up in October and tickets are required to attend.
More information about the observatories UVa has access to is available on the astronomy department website.
There were two astronomy colloquia this past week, both held at NRAO up the road from the astronomy building. The first was about the Austrailian Square Kilometer Array Technology Demonstrator (ASKAP) and the second was a talk about feedback between active galactic nuclei and the environment and consequences for galaxy formation. Both were quite interesting talks.
(more…)
I just got back from a 1 night backpacking trip near the Blue Ridge Parkway. We hiked a couple peaks on a 5 mile loop. It was a nice trip and we got to see a fantastic night sky!
(more…)
