Just a quick note that I am still alive… I have spent all of the week so far at the 2009 AMLA meeting: Assembly, Gas Content and Star Formation History of Galaxies. It has been a very interesting conference with lots of good talks and even a bit of debate. I have gotten to meet a lot of collaborators who I’ve been in email contact with, and some I haven’t. All in all, it’s been a successful meeting. The last day is tomorrow, which should include some good talks. Then, tomorrow night I continue working on proposals. The meeting, although exhausting, has gotten me excited about some new scientific possibilities. That is always a good thing!
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Labor Day 2009 (finally)
Finally getting around to writing up my Labor Day adventures from this year (since I just got the pictures uploaded). Spent it down in NC with Mike, Katie, Peter and Aleya. Had a great time hiking, boating and climbing.
Aleya and I arrived late Friday night, after a 6 hour drive. We set a departure the next morning and went to bed. As was to be expected, the departure time came and went… We woke up, finished breakfast and left, 1.5 hours behind schedule. Oh well. With slight uncertainty about our destination we set off towards Linville Gorge, aiming to climb routes in the Amphitheater. After some mild confusion and a half hour detour down a gravel road, we found the correct gravel road which took us to the Table Rock parking area. We tossed our packs on and headed down the trail.
Following some incorrect information from a hiker about the direction of the trail, we found ourselves bushwacking through thorn bushes around short cliffs at the top of the gorge. Eventually deciding that was wrong, we re-joined the trail. After a few minutes on there, it became clear that was, in fact, the correct way to go.
We suffered yet more trail confusion trying to find the correct unmarked trail and decided to call it a good hiking day and head back to the lake.
We then spent an hour or two tubing, wakeboarding and swimming. The night was capped off with some grilling and fireworks!
On Sunday we went to Rumbling Bald to give climbing another try. These cliffs can be seen from the lake, so we actually found them this time! We spent the day (until the mid-afternoon) doing several climbs on the “Cereal Buttress”: Granola, Whiskey for Breakfast, and Bee Tree. Very fun climbs.
I didn’t have Labor Day off so after the climbing Aleya and I drove back up to Charlottesville. Was quite a fun trip, will definitely have to do some more climbing in NC.
The rest of the pictures are available here: North Carolina on flickr.
Monday, 14 September 2009
Proposal Season…
I guess it is similar to hunting season. Lots of targets and options around, but probably less sitting still and quiet. In fact, quite the opposite!
Proposals for the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands are due in a bit over 8 hours. I just sent the draft of our proposal back to my advisor for more edits and comments. Fortunately it seems to have converged rather quickly. I suspect there will be one more round before we submit. We should get it in comfortably, with plenty of time.
That is just the beginning though. Upcoming deadlines include those for telescopes operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Very Large Array, Very Long Baseline Array, Green Bank Telescope), the space-based X-ray telescope XMM-Newton, the Gemini optical telescopes, and a slew of other optical and infrared telescopes. It should be a busy few weeks! These upcoming rounds of proposals are exciting as they will likely form the basis for my dissertation. Always exciting to see that take shape.
Now back to editing!
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Backpacking St. Mary’s Wilderness
Earlier this morning I got back from an overnight trip into St. Mary’s Wilderness (along the Blue Ridge Parkway). A couple friends and I left yesterday to do a quick trip. For one of them, it would be her first backpacking trip! Our aim was to hike along St Mary’s River and see some of the cascades. After a 2 mile hike down a fairly low-flow creek, we met up with St. Mary’s trail. At this ‘T’ intersection, we could either turn right and head to camp or turn left and make a side-trip to see St. Mary’s falls. We’d made very quick time getting that far, so we decided to take the side trip to see the waterfall.
As we were still dropping down towards the river, the hiking was fairly easy. After another couple miles, we started hiking upstream along the river. It was pretty late in the season so the river wasn’t flowing much. However, there were some very inviting swimming holes on the way up. We will definitely be heading back there during the next warm spell. We started losing the trail as we got close to the falls. As a result of the dwindling number of hours left before nightfall, we opted to turn around and get to a campsite. On our way back out to meet St. Mary’s Trail, we heard a rustling off the trail to the right. We turned just in time to see a bear-looking shadow scamper away through the trees!
The rest of the hike to camp was rather uneventful, climbing up the slopes to reach the camping areas. As dinner time approached, we passed some remnants of the old mining operations in the area. Seeing an inviting location for camp, we dropped our packs and started picking up wood for a fire. With one match and some dryer lint, Ryan had a fire going in no time. Between the three of us, we had no trouble finishing off the 8 hot dogs we’d brought. Topped off with some Mac&Cheese, we were all pretty full by the time darkness fell. We spent a bit of time watching the fire die down before calling it a night. First time I had gone to bed at 8:30 in a long time!
It was cloudy when we went to bed, but when I woke at 3am, the sky was perfectly clear! Gorgeous views of stars through holes in the tree canopy. A bright shooting star flashed in and out of existence just before I drifted back off to sleep.
We got up the next morning around 7, broke camp and ate breakfast. We’d hiked around 8 miles the previous day and decided to call it an early day and take the short route out (due to soreness, the need to write lectures, and the need to write telescope proposals!). We booked it up the trail, finishing the last 2 miles in just over an hour! An excellent first backpacking trip for Clarissa.
We hopped in the car, and were back in town before noon. Sadly, I left my camera at my office, so no pictures. However, next time I go….
Monday, 7 September 2009
Labor Day Happenings
It has been a relatively slow day at work here. Mostly been doing small things to get into the swing of things for the week. Aleya and I got back late last night from North Carolina (write-up about that later, once pictures have been edited), so I am a bit tired. This week starts the first “real” lab for the Introduction to Observing class: an introduction to the night sky in the form of a constellation quiz. Students will learn and teach each other constellations and stars in the night sky, then be given a relatively easy quiz to identify some of the objects. The goal is to familiarize them with the night sky so they can easily find other objects using the constellations as references. The weather this week is looking quite poor though, so the lab might be put off until next week.
Tonight is the first meeting of the Graduate Council for this academic year. I am the Astronomy Department representative. The council primarily decides how to allocate the money paid by graduate students as part of their fees. Should be an interesting experience.
Mondays are my lab night, but if the clouds stick around as forecast, that won’t happen. Should give me a chance to finish putting away climbing gear, edit some pictures and do some reading for work.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Support the MS Society!
In a bit over three weeks, I will be riding in the “Best of the Blue Ridge” Bike MS ride. As part of this, my team I will be raising money for the MS Society. The team is primarily composed of members of the Astronomy Department here in Charlottesville, and we have named ourselves the Orange and Blue Stragglers (Orange and Blue being the UVa colors, and Blue Stragglers being an interesting open problem in astronomy). We will be doing the 50 mile ride on Sept 26, and have each pledged to raise at least $250! Please help us reach this goal.
Donations of any size are appreciated!
Public AGN Talk Tomorrow!
Tomorrow evening (02 September 2009), I will be giving a talk at the monthly meeting of the Charlottesville Astronomical Society. The meeting is at 7pm at McCormick Observatory on the grounds of the University of Virginia. The general public is welcome to attend.
The title of my talk is “Exploring the Nature and Environment of Active Galactic Nuclei: Cygnus A and Markarian 34″. I will primarily be discussing the current view of AGN, highlighting some results and ongoing work of mine. The talk is aimed at the general public, so feel free to come by! Directions are included in the link below…
