The week began with Staff Tea at 10:15AM in the Library. This is held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The time we spend in tea time is amazing. I think tea is a good thing, don't get me wrong. How else could I get clued in on the behind the scenes action at CTIO? All I am saying is that a lot of time is spent at tea, it is fun though. Tea slowly broke up and we began our Astronomy Class.
These are a series of 'classes' on relevant topics that every budding astronomer must know. The series of classes this week were geared toward prepping us for our group observing project. We learned about resources on the web. Databases, articles, etc. We learned how to use DSS images to create finder charts for the objects we were going to observe. This was very helpful. We also received the list of objects we were going to observe and more details about our group project on RR Lyrae Stars.
On Wednesday we heard Roger Smith talk about CCDs and how they work. This included a hands-on model made of Duplo LEGOs! It was informative and interesting. The talk concluded with at tour of the engineering lab. Then on Thursday we heard about the lastest on Gemini and Soar.
My project on Bipolar Planetary Nebula picked up this week when I received data on Sa2-237. I began preliminary reduction to extract the spectra and become familar with the packages in IRAF (twod and longslit, for those that care!).
The weekend was quiet, we had movie night at Don and Stephanie's house. We watched the God of Cookery. It was hilarious! There were chocolate candies, chips and dips. No one brought any chains or whips, just body heat and experiences. I went to town to buy some much needed supplies. Chile is a strange place and I can't quite figure out the people. It just may be that this is tourist season in La Serena and I am confusing Argentinians for Chileans, but don't tell them I said that. The mall is quite different from what I am used to.