MY ASTRONOMY EXPERIENCE

The first night we went out, the mosquitoes were atrocious. It was dark, I was sweaty, and we had to stay in one spot and find constellations using a book and a flashlight. Outside, if I failed to mention that. For one, I didn't find much by myself that first night, most of it was thanks to Hoiwan who pulled me through the exercise. The second night we essentially did the same thing. Then we began to use the telescopes. This was awesome! We took pictures of the Sun during the day time, and then we suddenly started to take pictures at night. This meant galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, you name it. At first I really didn't have an idea of how to run the dome, but over time I learned. These picture taking nights consisted of finding objects with top-notch technology, eating food, and star spinning. I began to feel it: Carpe Noctem! Then one night Doc and I were trying to get the video camera to work in one of the domes, and that was an adventure. Thanks to my solo mission with Doc, I finally ran basically everything in the dome, discounting the polar alignment which, due to my enormous blind spot, I have trouble doing. The class has been a blast so far, and below are some photos describing better through photography what I might be able to do through words.

Last updated: July 29, 2005