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Chile ACEAP Expedition – Day 4 – Street Astronomy at Cerro Tololo
How many sunrises did the tall dome see?Sleepy, it shutters its vertical eyePink orange light reaches around the horizonThe small humans inside click at controlssleepy too, following throughwith a traditionto elicitthe mysteries above, within, and long agoAn echo of faithClimb we not still to the summitto ask wonder and answerhow this world was born? After…
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Chile day 3 – Visit to Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Many photos courtesy of Mark Johnston. Check him out here! From the hotel in La Sirena, we hop into the van and ascend the foothills. The slope increases, and next we turn onto a local road. I look down at my notebook and scribble for a few minutes. I look up again. The mountains surround…
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2:50 AM Looking up at Cerro Tololo
2:50 AM – Cerro Tololo I beat my alarm by 10 minutes. I dress in layers, mechanically. Later today we will visit the observatories, but right now, I want to go outside and look up. I want to try to tell you how dark it is outside, here on the Summits in Chile. My first surprise…
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Chile ACEAP Expedition- Day 1 – Arrival
Where the world’s largest telescopes live I’ve been invited on a 9 day tour of some of the world’s biggest telescopes. ALMA, AURA, CTIO, and the new Vera C Rubin. The program is called ACEAP – Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program. Our goal is to meet the scientists and researchers that make modern astronomy…
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June 20 – Enghaveparken – Pétanque Club + Sunspots
Join us for an open day from the Copenhagen Pétanque club. Link Here! Last weekend I met with Eric, on a sunny day in Enghaveparken. He’s a former player of Denmark’s national team. I heard his idea – let’s invite people to have their best day in Copenhagen. Pétanque in a beautiful park, delicious BBQ,…
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København Gadeastronomer
Hej! Nu bor jeg i Danmark! I’d really like to get back into blogging, but so much new has happened over the year, I never know where to start. So I’ll just give a small update and some lovely pictures. I’ve found a job and moved to Copenhagen! I’m working as an engineer, that means…
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We’re at Music Festivals
Lieder Lauschen Am Rand is a music festival hosted outside of Berlin, right up against the Polish border. The name of the festival translates to “Listen to songs on the Border”. The street astronomers were invited to set up our telescopes for three evenings for roughly 500 guests of all ages. Music festivals are an…
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Popup at an Optics Conference
My good friend and mentor, Julius Muschaweck, invited me to see his talk at SPIE Optical Systems Design in Strasbourg. He’s an expert in illumination optics, and he worked at OSRAM when they brought the LED to market. We met when I took his course, after I realized just how hard it is to design…
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A dobson-style refractor mount
For most people, the telescope mount ruins astronomy forever.That little piece between the tripod and the tube that allows you to steer.Ruined forever. I’ll explain what happens to most people who buy their first telescope. They spend a few hundred, and maybe they get something like a Celestron Astromaster. They can’t see anything. But why?…
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How a Neutral Density filter fights light pollution
“Here. Wear these like sunglasses and look around.” I handed him a neutral density filter. We use them in the telescopes on nights when the moon is too bright. Too much light through the eyepiece is blinding, so we use these gray pieces of glass to reduce the light and create a more pleasant viewing…
