The Flamin' Hot 40"

My first thought: "There's no proper Wi-Fi." HA...just kidding. My first thought actually was "Where's the telescopes." Trust me, that was my first thought, because all I could see were trees, more trees, trees, and brown buildings. 

The physics class had finally arrived in Yerkes and we were about to have what our instructors call a life-changing experience. Personally, I think this whole program is life-changing, so I thought that was maybe a little redundant. 

To be honest, nothing exciting happened yesterday, except the tour of the observatory and using the telescopes. They have a room called "The Vault," which sounds cool but is actually just a room full of cabinets, and glass plates with pictures of stars. It's actually quite ordinary. I thought it would be very Harry Potter-like, but I guess not. 

Last night, when we toured the telescopes and used them, I instantly fell in love with the 40" because

A picture of Saturn I took from the 40"

of how old it was. You had to push it around by hand and everything it had was still from the 1800s and 1900s. It is huge and was the world's biggest telescope at the time it was built. The 41" on the other hand was much more modern and didn't require pushing physically: motors did ALL the work. Also, somehow, the 41" became dysfunctional while my group and I visited it, which I thought was a little funny. 

Fast-forward to the next day, we had to decide what our projects would be on and I had no idea. As in absolutely no idea. It was beginning to seem like last time, except it couldn't be like last time. It was Tuesday night, we had to use the telescope that night, and the project was due Thursday at 2 PM. I couldn't just pick my project 24 hours before the due date and get away with it. 

The flamin' hot 40"

Luckily, all the instructors are very understanding of this and had a schedule planned out to help people like me. They made us complete a survey so we could slightly narrow down our interests and be grouped together with others who have around the same interests. I ended up in a group with Lindsay and four other guys, with Professor Kron leading us, which I thought was perfect since Prof. Kron was the one who mostly helped me through my last project. 

Apparently some of the people on our group hated the 40" and were mad that they got placed into this. That made Lindsay and I very mad because we both love the 40" very much.  There's a whole different experience when you physically get to work with the telescope rather than have a computer do all the work for you. Where else can you see and use a telescope like this today, anyway? Hearing them complain made me feel as if they were being a little ungrateful for this opportunity, but I had to walk away because I had to decide what my project would be ASAP. 

An hour after dinner, while one group was using the telescopes, I got the idea that maybe I could compare the rate at which binary stars get closer to the masses of the binary stars. I could do this by finding the distance between the stars from today and comparing it from the distance from years before. Somehow, I even found a equation later for this, so after collecting data from multiple stars and their masses, I could just plug them into the equation to see if I collected data right. 

I wish it could have been a little more complicated, but we really don't have time for that. We pretty much have a day and a half to work on this, so I think this project will do. Lindsay, who was sitting next to me, still couldn't find something that interested her and time was running out very fast. In the end, we decided to just work together, because why not. 

Lindsay and I will also be buff by the end of tomorrow. Do you know how much of a workout it was

Prof. Kron in The Vault

to move that telescope? Not to mention, I could literally just hang on it, and it won't even budge because I'm that light. But, Lindsay and I managed, and we got the data we needed by the end of the hour. 

Also fun fact: Prof. Kron's dad helped VERA RUBIN with her research. I remembered while reading through one of her papers that she thanked someone named Dr.Kron for providing her with the right data, and then I remembered that Prof. Kron and her were friends. So, I asked Prof. Kron about it that night and he said that the "Dr. Kron" was probability his dad. And then, apparently, Prof. Kron's mom and Vera Rubin's mom were good friends. I'M STILL SO MINDBLOWN.

Now, as I am writing this blog, I realized that it would probably be very helpful if Lindsay and I did a quick room description of our room. We could have been a lot more prepared, especially since they have a mini-fridge in the room. I mean, we could have grabbed Raqeeb's Tupperware so we could grab extra food from the cafeteria and store it! Oh well, that'll be something next year's kids will have to do instead for us.