Monthly Archives: September 2010

September 24, 2010

Leaving Leiden

Amazing how time goes fast. The conference is already over. Very productive, with lots of discussions, and fun too. What always amazes me is the surge of enthusiasm that I can always feel when I get together with other scientists, ...

September 19, 2010

Caput Draconis in Virgo. Do you know what that is?

Back from a fast dinner. I have seen a few of the workshop participants. But this short post is about something else, still connected to astronomy (or should I write astrology?), though. I am reading "The Lost Symbol", by Dan ...

September 19, 2010

Exploding Stars in Leiden

Just arrived in Leiden. Tomorrow, at the Lorentz Center, an international workshop on Supernova explosions will start. It will focus on the progenitors of one specific class of SNe, called Type Ia. They became famous because of the implications they ...

September 10, 2010

Adieu, WMAP

WMAP has left the building. A 20 minute thruster burn on 8 September 2010 sent WMAP out of L2 and into a heliocentric orbit. WMAP completed 9 years of CMB observing.

September 9, 2010

I am "SETI-less" but not for long.

Last Friday (Aug. 27) I took a picture of my office located at the SETI Institute, Whismann Rd in Mountain View which is attached below. Obviously there is something wrong here, since I am not very known for having an aseptic office. ...

September 8, 2010

SETI REU students 2010 – "This is the end…"

Three weeks ago was the final week of  the SETI REU students. It was a busy time for all of us since they had to wrap-up their work, write their report, and give their final presentations.  Keaton Burns from UC ...

September 2, 2010

Good bye, Paranal

Everything, sooner or later, comes to an end. This is my last day on Paranal, and it is quite unusual. In fact, last night we started off with a very strong wind, coupled to an extreme humidity. The inversion layer ...

September 2, 2010

lukewarm WISE still finding NEOs

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has run out of hydrogen in its secondary tank. This is the big one that kept the telescope cold. Now the telescope has warmed up to 45 K, and telescope emission has ...

September 1, 2010

A walk into the desert

A view of the desert from Paranal's residencia This is now the 8th night of this run at the Very Large Telescope. I have been observing at Kueyen, the second 8.2m unit telescope (UT2 for friends). At the moment ...