Guest Observer

Greetings from CARMA, the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy.  I have had this idea to blog about my observing runs for several months now, and in fact I have been on several observing runs during that time.  The problem is that observing can be very intense and tiring, and when I finally make it to the mountain, I become so focused on the task at hand, I hardly find time to properly document the experience.  But, lest I forget the true joy and novelty of what I do, I am committed to share these wonderful trips with you.  I regret that I didn't write about my previous observing runs (Chile, Hawaii, then Chile again), but I start now, with my current observing responsibilities at CARMA in California.

I should briefly explain the title of this blog.  It was inspired by a required component of observing, which is keeping a detailed log of all sources that were observed during the run.  The first place I kept an observing log was at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, and in fact, at CARMA, we instead complete a "Nightly Report", but the idea is the same.  It is very important to document the observations.  Later, when we come down the mountain with our data, or when we send the data to the scientists who proposed the observations, it is imperative that we/they know exactly what was observed, when the observations occurred, and some specific information about the set-up of the observations (as well as any errors encountered). 

I will be observing for four more nights (and days -- we observe round-the-clock here!), and I will try to document some of the day-to-day business.  If you have specific questions at any point, please comment.  I hope you will enjoy the adventure while I am here at CARMA, and as I travel to other telescopes in the future.  Thanks for following!

The setting of the observatory "low site", Owens Valley (CA)