New Mexico Field Trip
Last week I went on the coolest field trip ever. My Observation class went to New Mexico to hang out at a 3.5 meter telescope for a couple days. Unfortunately it was cloudy, and really humid, so they couldn't do any real science. But on the last night there was about an hour when they put on the eye piece for us just to look at the stars. For the most part, big telescopes like that don't even have eye pieces, because their time is so expensive, it's just used on scientific observations. So what we got to see was rare beyond belief. It was amazing. I tell you I think it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. We started by looking at Mars, it was about the size of a quarter, and as bright as the moon (with a reddish tint of course) I saw the polar ice caps, the lava plains, and perhaps the most impressive of all: both of Mars moons, Deimos and Phobos. Completely amazing, and that's not even the beginning of what we saw. We looked at the Andromeda Galaxy, and another galaxy (M77). I think M77 was the most impressive, because you could see the entire spiral structure, not to mention that it's 20Mpc away (that's about 65million light years... i.e. when the light left that galaxy Dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth!!!!!) We looked at a planetary nebula, that was literally green (from O3 emissions) I mean most of the pictures you see of space have been artificially colored, so seeing NGC7027 was mind blowing, I didn't know that it was possible.
Also it was awesome because I got to know all of the astronomy majors, and just chill out. They're really cool people, (I played so much chess and cards, it's crazy.) So now I feel like I've made some friends, and had an awesome vacation in the process.
We stopped at White Sands NM on the way back, and played on the dunes. Oh man I was doing flips off of the sand dunes. Let me know if you want to see the pictures, mine aren't developed yet (yes I still use film) but I'm sure I can send them to you anyway. We also got a tour of the National Solar Observatory, which was pretty cool, that thing is like 300ft tall, only 100 above ground, and the other 200 below, it's crazy! And on the way back we toured the VLA, a radio telescope (the one in the movie Contact.) It was soooo cool, we got to go up into the telescope, and actually be on the dish. It was sweet.
So all in all, I have to say that I picked the right major. This trip was so amazing I could definitely see myself working at a telescope one day. It was wicked sweet.
Also it was awesome because I got to know all of the astronomy majors, and just chill out. They're really cool people, (I played so much chess and cards, it's crazy.) So now I feel like I've made some friends, and had an awesome vacation in the process.
We stopped at White Sands NM on the way back, and played on the dunes. Oh man I was doing flips off of the sand dunes. Let me know if you want to see the pictures, mine aren't developed yet (yes I still use film) but I'm sure I can send them to you anyway. We also got a tour of the National Solar Observatory, which was pretty cool, that thing is like 300ft tall, only 100 above ground, and the other 200 below, it's crazy! And on the way back we toured the VLA, a radio telescope (the one in the movie Contact.) It was soooo cool, we got to go up into the telescope, and actually be on the dish. It was sweet.
So all in all, I have to say that I picked the right major. This trip was so amazing I could definitely see myself working at a telescope one day. It was wicked sweet.