The Blog - The Archive

   At the top of the tower lies a sleeping telescope...

Okay, I'm finally feeling awake enough to post, so here we go. I'll start with an apology: I didn't bring my camera card reader, so I haven't got any new photos to show you, but I'll put some up on flickr later on, but for the moment I'm just going to write until I can't think of anything else to say.

So, as mentioned before, I'm up at Narrabri, in North-Western NSW. I'm listening to a weird radio station that is playing a curious country mix of a Madonna song and where they spend most of their time talking about the races, I can see about 100 kangaroos and a similar number of sheep within walking distance, and of course there are the telescopes, four of which are within my field of view at present.

So, briefly, ATCA is a set of six telescopes, five of which can be moved back and forth along a very wide railway line, and the sixth is a couple of kilometers down the road. By using so many telescopes looking at the one object, we can use some mathematical tricks and pretend that we have a much bigger telescope. This is called synthesis imaging, because we're synthesising having a huge dish. So, what we do is we cycle through a bunch of about 15 objects, looking at them for about 5 minutes each over a total period of time that is about 14 hours today and 10 hours tomorrow. I'm not going to go into detail here (we have wikipedia for that) but once we get back to Sydney Ivan has a huge job putting all the data together and seeing what pretty pictures there are to see in it all.

We're looking at planetary nebulae, which are the shells old dying stars that were once like our sun. They don't have planets, the name comes from the fact that the first ones found looked like green-blue balls, like Uranus and Neptune. Since then we've found a bunch of different weird shapes, but the name stuck because it's a nifty name. Anyway, I'm actually not sure of the finer details of which project this is for (other than Ivan's PhD), but anyway, the telescopes have been going strong since 6am this morning when we took over, and today has been a lot of fun.

The big problem I have with these observing trips is the fact that I have nothing to do on the first day. The first day is set aside for setting up all the schedule files for driving the telescope, and usually it's a one-person job. But I'm obligated to sit around and work on my own stuff while they do that just in case they need help that I can provide. So yesterday I was in a foul mood because I was sitting around doing nothing (okay, I worked a bit on my PhD, but not much because I couldn't get into it because it's rather boring at the moment). And while I can offer to help until I'm blue in the face, they don't need me.

But today, I get to sit in the control room, and occasionally chat to Ivan, and drive the telescope, and feel like my presence here is actually necessary. I'm sure that later, when they ask me to do a 4am-12pm shift tomorrow morning, I'll hate the lot of them again, but for the moment I'm enjoying this trip.

Today I actually got to speak with the two Japanese people who have been using one of the other telescopes (Mopra, for those in the know). They are completely awesome and adventurous, and together with the duty astronomer we set off on bikes to explore the old National Measurement Laboratory, which was a solar observatory that was in use for a long time from the 60s or so up until about 15 years ago, when the money ran out and they didn't even have enough left to pack everything up and put it in storage, so the telescopes are still there, and the motors are still able to open up the roofs to show us the sunlight. Now, since I have no photos to show at present, I will just tell you that these buildings are awesome. They look like your stereotypical american mailbox (half a cylinder on top of a box), and they split down the middle with the curved roof opening and curving underneath the platform that you are standing on. It's beautiful.

We visited two of these towers, though we only opened one because the boss could see the other from her house just down the road and we weren't technically meant to be there... *grins* The telescopes are still there, mainly because they're huge, and one looks like a death ray for a mecha! I'm not sure that I was able to convey that in my photographs, but seriously, this thing was awesome! We had to tread lightly as we walked around, because the wooden floors weren't necessarily safe, and we had to watch out for the birds who nest there and had pooped on everything. But all the old machinery was there, and it was just amazing to see all this stuff.

We also saw a current solar observatory, belonging to the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON), which was merrily chugging along in a modern little dome. That one is completely automated, and no one ever seems to visit it.

For Beto, I haven't see any spiders or snakes yet, but I'm sure they're lurking somewhere in the background. I'll be disappointed if I make it through the entire weekend without seeing any, even though I really don't want to.

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   Too stuffed to blog...

Even though this is my 200th blog post, and I had intended to give you all a big story, I just can't find the words. Seriously, my notes are all confuzzled and I'm starting to doubt my own literacy. So, in the interests of not disillusioning anyone, I'm totally going to just let you know I'm still alive (and see if the changes James made have fixed blog uploading), then I'm going to go make tea and fall asleep. I have to be up at 4:30 anyway, I might as well go to bed early-ish.

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   This is where I am at...

So, another thing that was missed by my readers was the fact that I'm now kinda a real astronomer. Which is to say that at the start of September I was dragged away from my computer (kicking and screaming and begging to be allowed back near my model, I tell you) and taken up to the radio telescope at Parkes (seen in the picture, which links to my flickr set about the trip). We spent 43 hours (continuous) observing a collection of supernova remnants that are known to be interacting with clouds, in the hopes of spotting some maser (microwave laser) light from them. Which was an awful lot of fun, let me tell you, even if we didn't necessarily find any. I ended up sleeping something like 8 hours out of 50 while we were away, but I ended up seeing a lunar eclipse, which was awesome.

Anyway, the moral of the story was that I had so much fun that they've dragged me away again, this time up to the Australia Telescope Compact Array at Narrabri. In fact, as of this moment I am sitting right about here, or maybe a little bit off the track. More like in the Lodge (not the one in Canberra), which is maybe 100m from the arrow. Close enough really.

I had a big long blog post planned, but my head is full of fuzz from the really long car trip to get up here, so I think I'll end this now and maybe post tomorrow once I've had a chance to look at the photos I've taken and figure out why I took them.

Suffice to say I need my sleep, because I'm not sure how much I'll be getting after tonight. (Yes, James, I know I told you that we were only doing daytime observing this time, but it turns out I lied, because Quentin bullied Ivan into agreeing to do the observations for the people scheduled at night, and we don't have enough people here to really do things comfortably like we did last time.)

Oh, and the knowledge that they keep the red-bellied black snakes (deadly) around because they eat the brown snakes (agressive and deadly) is not necessarily reassuring to a good snake-fearing girl like me.

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   "But now I can do it Professionally..."

Last night I took my mum to a Chocolate Appreciation course (supposedly for her birthday, but I just wanted some chocolate). The course description read as follows:

Taste your way through the history of chocolate from ancient to contemporary recipes. Take your taste buds on a journey and sample everything from chilli and rose to mouth watering Australian native flavours. Learn to detect the difference between compound and pure couverture chocolate, plus the characteristics of dark, milk and white chocolate. Find out the reason why some women NEED chocolate. All this in a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

What that doesn't mention is just how yummy are the chocolates this guy (Joseph of Kimberly Chocolates, who doesn't seem to have a website) makes! So very good! *bounces* But I'll start at the beginning...

So, the difference between *real* chocolate and compound chocolate is the way it melts in your mouth. Real chocolate is made with cocoa butter, which melts at 34 degrees C. Crappy compound chocolates use vegetable fat which melts at 38 or so, which means it doesn't melt in your mouth the same way.

Cocoa pods are awesome. They come in different colours (though we only got to play with a red one) and a decent-sized one will contain about 40 cocoa beans. The beans are roasted, and fermented, and in the process they go from being purple to a brown and they look like almonds. These then get mushed and turned into chocolate, though it wasn't until the 1830s or so (actually, I'm a little fuzzy on the numbers) that they invented chocolate as we know it in a solid form. For the most part chocolate has been a drink, for as long as there have been people living in the parts of the world where it grows natively.

Speaking of which, of the different chocolates I got to try (all at 56% cocoa), the one I liked best came from Cuba. It was very smooth to taste. I think James would have liked the spice of the Tanzanian chocolate, or maybe the Malaysian. But he would have liked the 100% chocolate best (though it had too much tannin for me)!

Oh, and we had hot chocolate, which was so yummy. The secret to hot chocolate is to use a mix of half milk / half cream, and to have about 70-80mL per person. Then you grate an entire bar of chocolate into it as it warms, and stir. If you want to use skim milk, add more cream. *grins*

We got to try a bunch of truffles, including a lemon myrtle (an Aussie bush) flavour, a peppermint one, a dried mango dipped in dark chocolate and something else that I'm obviously forgetting (Mum will no doubt read this and remind me). But they were all good.

And at the end, because chocolate is an appetite suppressant, I totally didn't need to eat any dinner. Or breakfast this morning (though I did have a bit of toast for morning tea).

So yeah, I had a great time, recommend it to everyone, and may yet go back for a chocolate making course in a few months when my wallet's recovered and I have free time. I love chocolate, don't you?

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   Why the hell do I feel obligated to clean up after you?...

Sometimes I think I only got the blog back so that I could rant about my family. They piss me off so much! The subject of today's rant: my father.

So most of you don't know this, but my father moved out of home in February. He moved into his mother's townhouse, which, sadly, is still in the same suburb as our house, and he tends to come over and hang out here whenever he wants. Because the internet is faster (he'll never convince me of his "dial-up is faster" wankfest, mainly because: a) I understand the science of how it works; and b) I control the router, so I know why he believes that the internet was always down/slow around here), and because he can't stand his mother. And I think on some level he wants to confuse my poor mother, who just wants to be left alone so that her broken heart can start to heal.

Anyway, that's the background of where I'm at with regards to my relationship with him.

So then we get to his crusades. Ever since his brain tumour / personality transport (1988), my father has been prone to declaring that "next weekend is a cleanup crusade and you all have to be here to participate." Regardless of previous plans or inclination and who the so-called "mess" belongs to (usually him). Most of the cleanups have centred around the garage, and in recent years I've been able to skip it simply by going in to uni to work.

This weekend was no different, although as well as cleaning out the garage, he'd arranged a council cleanup (where the council guys send a truck around to pick up a 2x1x1 metres pile of stuff - you get two of these a year). Now, aside from the fact that I kept getting called out to the garage to confirm that "yes, the box of stuff marked "Catherine's" does belong to Catherine, and yes, I still want my Star Wars toys, you heathen scum", they tore up a bunch of furniture (which probably could have just been moved and left for one of our neighbours to collect) and generally built up a pile that was about 10x1.5x1 metres i.e. it was frickin' huge!

And while the neighbours were very obliging about picking up some of the furniture, and the unopened scanner, and the old cricket gear (most of which went to a very cute little kid who seemed delighted to get his first cricket bat, even if it was a little bit battered), a lot was left for the council. Who, quite understandably, only took 2x1x1 metres worth of stuff and left the rest. Kinda like they'd agreed.

That brings us to tonight, when my father decides that not only is he going to pick up Catherine from the station and do my mother a favour (and why the hell is he hanging around here anyway? Does he just lurk to watch the council workers or something? Were they cute?), he's going to dump a carful of garbage in one of the parking lots up there. While I'm sitting in the car.

HELLO? Did he miss the part of my adolescence where I took part in six Clean-Up Australia Days? And the bit where I was president of Club Earth in High School? And the bit where I always vote Green? And he wants me to just sit there and take it while he litters like that? When I tried to express my outrage all I got was a "I pay my taxes, and the council won't even do their part..." rant. I don't fucking care about your taxes! Your council, who you voted for, chose to enact these rules. They are, in effect, your rules, that you desired. And if you didn't agree, you should go to council and petition them to change it.

The worst bit is I feel so bad about the whole affair that tomorrow morning I'm going to go back there and clean it up. I'm not sure how I'm going to dispose of his boxes of garbage, but I'm sure I'll find a way. It's the right thing to do.

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   Behold while I do rant...

Okay peoples, here's the thing: Every morning, my sister's alarm goes off at 6:30AM and wakes me up.
I'd have no problem with this, save for the fact that she never gets up until 7:15AM or so.
So, this morning I had had enough. I asked her, very politely, if she could move her alarm back to 7 or so, so that it goes off after my alarm and we all live happily ever after. And she glared at me as if I'm the most horrible person on the planet!
What's a girl supposed to do? I like my sleep! I never get enough, and she's not helping by waking me up twenty minutes early every day. Grr!

ETA: I spoke my to Mum, and she said that I was indeed polite and well within my rights to ask such a thing.

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