Life Lyn Style

Tonight, I headed down to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  The leaders and participants from the Capitol Reef trip got together at the planetarium.  We watched a slide show of photos that we submitted.  They looked super cool on the dome of the planetarium.  Jason also put together a bit of a show for us.  He showed us the sky as it would have been back in August and Utah if there weren’t clouds and we talked and reminisced about our trip.  I would go on another trip with Nathan, Jason and Michelle anytime.  It was fun to realize just how much I learned on the trip.  Once again, they rolled out the red carpet for us and it was great!

Sometimes I think I am addicted to knowledge.  I think my husband is rubbing off on me.  After our reunion, I attended the Frontiers of Astronomy Lecture that was held in the auditorium of the museum.   The lecture series is sponsored by the Case Western Reserve University Department of Astronomy, The Cleveland Astronomical Society and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  I had no idea what to expect.  I read the description of the lecture.

“Exploring the Extreme Universe with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

Thurs, Oct 11, 2012; 8 pm

David J. Thompson, Ph.D., NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Gamma rays, the most powerful form of light, reveal extreme conditions in the Universe. The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been exploring the gamma-ray sky for several years, enabling a search for powerful transients like gamma-ray bursts, novae, solar flares and flaring active galactic nuclei, as well as long-term studies including pulsars, binary systems, supernova remnants and searches for predicted sources of gamma rays such as dark matter annihilation. Dr. David Thompson will discuss results of these searches. Some results include a limit on Lorentz invariance violation derived from a gamma-ray burst, unexpected gamma-ray variability from the Crab Nebula, a huge gamma-ray structure associated with the center of our galaxy, surprising behavior from some gamma-ray binary systems, and a possible constraint on some models for dark matter.

Free and open to the public.”

After reading the above, I still had no idea what to expect.  Our reunion ended just before 8PM and reluctantly headed to the lecture.  I was shocked to see a full hall.  It wasn’t standing room only.  In actuality, there were probably 40% of the seats empty, but it was a great turnout.  I’m was amazed.  I still had no idea what I was doing there.  I don’t really know much about astronomy, let alone gamma rays.

As I sat down, I heard some folks chatting behind me about how they didn’t know anything when they started coming to these lectures.  Now after coming for a few years, many of the things discussed are familiar and after they hear about things a few times, it starts making sense.

I listened to David’s talk and watch the slides.  I’m not volunteering to teach a class on the Fermi, but I must admit that I was interested and not bored during the talk.

Thanks to Nathan and Jason for suggesting tonight for our reunion and suggesting the lecture.  I’m glad I stayed.

Taxonomy and gamma-rays in the same week, I wonder what Saturday’s docent class will bring.

Although viewing the night skies was proving to be challenging due to the clouds, we were able to get great views of the sun.

Jason, who manages the planetarium at the museum, brought along this telescope for us to use.  He put a filter on it to make it safe for viewing the sun.

It was the first time that I ever looked at the sun properly.

There was also a smaller scope set up for viewing.  It was really neat to see the edges of the sun and the spots.

Clyde from the museum sent along some welder’s glass.  Jason was instructed to give each of us one.  It can be used to view the sun safely.  It’s not safe to look directly at the sun without the glass or some other kind of filtered set up.  Next time there is neat sun oriented event, I’ll be all set with the proper tool for viewing.

Back on August 12th, I set out on a journey to Capitol Reef National Park.  This was a Cleveland Museum of Natural History trip, and the main purpose was to see the Perseid Meteor Shower.  I took a 9AM direct flight out of Cleveland and landed in Las Vegas around 11AM.  I was on the first 737-800 that Southwest flew out of Cleveland.  The plane was only 2 months old.  Once I landed, I grabbed some lunch in the concourse.  I collected my luggage and after a bit, figured out that some of the people just hanging out in baggage claim were also on the trip.  It was fun to go up to someone and ask them if they were from Cleveland and if they were from the museum trip.  While we were waiting for everyone to gather, I put $5 in the slot machine.  I cashed out at $7.  That was short and fun!

Once we had our crew, we loaded up the vans and headed on our way.  Turns out, Capitol Reef National Park is in Utah, about 7 hours from Las Vegas.  You also have a brief stint in Arizona on the way.  The ride was fun and hot and beautiful.  During the trip I saw clouds, rain, a rainbow and Great White Pelican.

We made a few stops along the way.  We arrived at the visitor center and met up with the last of our group and headed deep into the park to the field station.  It was dark by the time we arrived around 8:30PM or later, we found our rooms and got settled.

Nathan cooked us dinner.  It was a simple, but fabulous pasta with salad and bread.  We also had a brief introduction from Jane, the field station manager.

After dinner, we saw lots of clouds.  I took a nap for a few hours and got up for sky viewing around 2AM.  Unfortunately, the stars were enjoying their time behind the clouds.  I managed to see a couple meteors, but the highlight was seeing Jupiter through the telescope with 3 of its moons.  Even without great sky viewing, we were in a great national park and the next couple of days were going to be great!  Exhausted, I slept well when I retired the second time.