Lazy git as I am, pics from my New Mexico observing run in July are finally up.

http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045309&l=5c606&id=1112324

It seemed counter-intuitive that my main experience of New Mexico is of rain, but that's what I've had plenty of. It turns out that July is considered the 'monsoon' season around here, and especially around the mountains I've seen nary a peek of sunshine through the everpresent clouds.

My arrival at Apache Point was not without incident. I flew into El Paso airport on the Texas-NM border, and rented a car. From a certain point of view, it can be argued that I am not qualified to drive (I have never driven on the right-hand side before, and I have not driven at all for close to a year). There is a 100-mile drive to Apache Point from El Paso, some 20 miles which involve mountain roads, so it was a fun experience to hit the road.

Most of the trip from El Paso to Alamogordo, the nearest big town to APO, involved long stretches of desert road, under clear blue sky. By the time I had ascended to the Sacramento Mountains where the APO is, the sky was shrouded in clouds. However, by the time my allocated time arrived, the sky had cleared enough to see the Milky Way. This being my first solo observing run, and also since I had never used the APO 3.5 metre telescope before, it took me nearly two hours of fumbling about with calibrations before I could start taking science data. Lo and behold, with less than 20 minutes of data taken, clouds started rolling in .

The next couple of nights were little different. At some parts of the the 2nd night, the cloud cover was thin enough that I could take data n a couple of the brightest objects on my target list, but otherwise I spent the entire night wandering through the World Wide Web.

During the day, I spent a few hours hiking through the nearby hills and forests, although the otherwise stunning views were spoiled by...clouds. Yesterday, I had tramped some 4 miles away from the observatory when the heavens opened up with a thunderstorm, and within minutes I was soaked to the bone.

With my 3 days done and laughably little data to show for it, the only positive I can take out from this is that I am now qualified to operate the 3.5m remotely (the entire purpose of the trip was to train me to use the telescope). So the next time I wrestle with the New Mexico weather, it will be from the Peyton Hall basement in Princeton.

After my observing run at Apache Point next week, I hope to take a couple of days off to see some of the sights of southern New Mexico. One of the 'attractions' of the region is Roswell, where an UFO was allegedly captured in 1947, 60 years ago to this coming Sunday, 8th July, while on the 14th a local farmer discovered 'UFO debris' in his ranch.

There is of course a UFO museum in Roswell, and although I won't be able to visit it on the exact anniversary this Sunday, I hope there will be enough UFO nuts swarming the place when I do visit.

I have almost resigned to the fact that I will be purchasing unnecessary amounts of UFO-related trinkets.

I have an observing run for about 3 nights at the 3.5m at the Apache Point Observatory, New Mexico, in about 2 weeks time. In September, I have another 4 nights in Las Campanas in Chile. This is a rather inordinate amount of observing stellar spectra for someone who purports to be working on cosmology theory, but it's a chance to travel.

I am looking forward to visit the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the parts open to the public at any rate (and the White Sands National Park itself has lots of beautiful white sand in it, I'm told). Also Roswell/Area 51 is about 50 miles away from APO, but it's intriguing enough to warrant a drive there I suspect. I'm told that there will be many interesting characters I'll meet out there.

And the bicentennial of Chilean independence is 2 days after my allocated time in the Chile run, so it will be a fun experience to hang around to check it out.

To think that I'm ostensibly working all summer....

I don't quite remember writing up a paper to be such hard work. I am now writing up what was officially my first semester project which had overflowed beyond the first semester and had been put on hold for several months. I had written up papers before, most for most of those I essentially just wrote up the method and a brief summary of the results, leaving the detailed interpretation for my supervisor(s). So I guess it is progress that I understand more about the results than my advisors do. Nevertheless, that is not a very reassuring thought when I'm cracking my head trying to interpret the data.

I think I know understand why Princeton requires us to submit at least one paper before general exams. The process of writing and trying to present the work in a coherent manner is a very effective method of revealing deficiencies in my own understanding. While actually doing the project, my understanding is a vague and jumbled blob. Actually writing it and having to justify to the referee and scientific community is a great way of beating my own comprehension into shape.

I'm still halfway through the first draft, and the week has probably been the most concentrated amount of work I've ever done, averaging 14-15 hours in the office a day. But the thought of getting the paper submitted and fulfilling 1/3 of my generals requirements (the other two is that I pass my courses and oral exam) is a driving motivation. The feeling of actually getting concrete things done is also a very welcome change from the feeling of helplessness and ignorance in my first months here, when I really did fear I will get kicked out (as it transpires, a very common sentiment among graduate students in Princeton).

Nevertheless, it's slightly annoying to realise that after the first draft, there will still be the process of revising and editing the paper (probably extensively) to make it more coherent and take into account my advisors' comments, adding in references etc before submission at some point.

In the meantime, J. who is 2nd semester advisor taps his fingers at my laughable progress in his project...