Man, when it rains it pours.
So I have been told. This week was the first time I have ever seen a cloud at Tololo during the night! Luckily I was able to get my observations. I was looking at Hen 2-90, a planetary nebula that was recently discovered to have jet like knobs along it's axis. My advisor looked at an image he had of Hen 2-90 and saw the exact thing that the HST image was showing. However, the HST image has better resolution, but the jets were clearly visible in Hugo's image. However, he didn't notice them because the jets looked like the vane spikes from the spider holding the secondary mirror! Talk about crazy! Anyway, the only way he can tell that the jet is there is because there are six spikes instead of the usual four! Imagine that. So, the moral is, go look at all your images again and make sure you haven't overlooked something!
I was going somewhere with that first paragraph before I was sidetrack. Yes, I was also observing Sa 2-237, the Bipolar PN that I have been studying. I was able to get some low resolution spectra of it and hopefully will have some temperature and density estimates from certain line ratios! Woo hoo. Observing is fun, I also had a photographic camera and I took some star images, but I didn't really know what I was doing, so they may be lame. There was one instance where I forgot to advance the film and exposed a single frame like twenty times! I felt really really dumb. Anyway, in the morning, the clouds rolled in like in ten minutes! It was a sight. Last time I heard it was pouring on the mountain!
I returned on Tuesday and began my Powerpoint presentation for my talk on Wednesday. Yes, I know, last minute... blah blah. Anyway, it was chore, but I wanted to do it in Powerpoint so I could put these cool animations in it. It turned out really nice, some of my Texas friends will be hearing it on Friday of next week. Afterwards, I settled into a nice comfortable chair and wrote some e-mails that were being postponed till I gave my talk. Then I was back into action, volleyball games, basketball games, then some good pizza! Pesto pizza! Mmmm.
Yesterday, good day. More basketball, with lots of other people too! It was some good playing. I woke up late, like at noon, I was pooped from the last couple of days. I didn't get much work done, but I didn't do something I should have, which is why I am here at 9PM typing up my last changes to my web page. I didn't check my flight, the one that I was so sure left on Monday. The one that was going to let me stay behind and do all the souvenir shopping on Saturday or Sunday... yes that flight, you know him too? Anyway, he decided that he wanted to leave on Saturday instead! I found this out today and I have to do lots of packing, updating and other things before then! So, pardon the errors in these last two weeks!
It has been a wonderful experience this Chilean Summer. I told everyone at my talk that the one thing I will miss the most about CTIO is TEA TIME! They all laughed, but I am serious. I learned so much from tea. It was splendid. When else do you get to converse with renowned scientists and technicians? I really enjoyed my stay here and I am definitely going to consider this one of the great moments in the history of my life. Well, that's mushy for ya! Gracias y Buena Noche!