Astronomy in the Southwest Interim

Some Post-Trip Ponderings

Alyssa Massey — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:43:58 GMT

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly a week now since we left New Mexico. Surprisingly, the transition back to life at Calvin was not seamless (the dining hall seemed like such chaos! where did all the good food and family dinners go?), and I was grateful for the time during Interim break to reflect and refocus before beginning the new semester. This trip has been a fantastic experience for me. It was a chance for me to explore and reclaim my love of science (I often wondered if maybe I didn't want to pursue an astronomy minor after all) and think about how that fits into my life as a whole. One surprising - and encouraging - thing I learned during the trip was that amateur astronomers historically have played an important role in the development of the science. These things are certain: I am no longer going to malnourish the scientific part of my brain, nor am I going to continue thinking that you have to take science classes to be a scientist. A scientist explores, questions, tests, troubleshoots... and while that may not be primarily who I am, it is nevertheless an important part.

Also part of me, now, are the mountains and the flatlands, the hoodoos and the cacti... The desert is beautiful desolation, and amazingly full of life. I will miss being able to see thousands of stars every night, and the mountains through the bedroom window in the morning. God has taught me so much in that place. That said, it is good to be back at Calvin, with familiar faces and where so many exciting things are happening. :)

Most important to me, however, is the amazing community that I was blessed to be a part of during the trip. Thank you so much, everyone, for being patient with my many questions and adopting me in. I have learned so much from you. One of the best things about being with all of you is that we speak a common language and we all get really excited about the same things! :D I have loved sharing in all the excitement and adventure, even the grocery shopping and sleep deprivation. I know that it doesn't end here, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of you this semester!

And thank you to all of our devoted readers, for your support and interest!

~Alyssa

Afterthoughts

Nicolas Schuck — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:24:50 GMT

It’s hard to put in words how amazing our interim trip was. It was one of the most awesome trips I’ve ever been on! Looking back at all the places we went and all the behind the scene and special tours we went on was incredible. The people everywhere we went were we very nice and extremely helpful. And to top in all off the weather was wonderful with sunshine almost every day. I’ve met some incredible people on this trip and made many friendships. It was an adjustment coming back with all of the snow and colder weather. Speaking of adjustments, when we got back to Grand Rapids it was around lunchtime so I decided to go to eat. When I walked in the door of the dining hall I walked up to the lunch lady and handed her my driver’s license instead of my school i.d. I was so used to handing airport security my license, I completely forgot that the one place it wouldn’t get me was in to eat. It’s been great seeing everyone from our trip around campus in the last few days and I am definitely looking forward to visiting the physics reading room more often to see everyone!

Final Thoughts

Unknown User — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:31:59 GMT

So I've been putting off my final post for a while now, partly due to business, and partly because I haven't been quite sure what I would actually say. It has been an interesting few days since our return. I've had an adventure or two, but adventures aren't nearly as fun by yourself as they are when you're with friends. I just put my dinner in the oven: it is way too much for me to eat myself tonight, but it looks to me to be not nearly enough. Feeding one is very different from feeding 10, and that's how much food I'm used to seeing. I'll be frank; I miss the Southwest. But still, it is good to be back. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone (everyone I haven't run into over the past couple days, anyways) come Monday.

So I guess I didn't really have much to say after all--just a few thoughts straight from brain to fingers to keyboard. But there you have it. And now, its time for the new adventures to begin!

Afterthoughts

Rebecca Haferkamp — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:30:28 GMT

I'm sure you've all heard by now that we arrived safely in Grand Rapids, even if not according to original plans! We would like to thank all of you for the prayers you gave throughout this trip and on our trip home, even though we were mostly out of contact and thus often couldn't give you specific requests: God always knew what we needed!

It was an amazing interim, but perhaps the most profound thing that I have walked away with is an imense sense of responsibility as I further my way in the world of science and academia. This was perhaps most strongly felt as we visited the Trinity site and later the Atomic Museum: one of the immense struggles I have in considering such things is that, even though something may be designed because of true necessity and have specific applications in mind, once you have made it, its actual use is often entirely out of your hands. The scientists who worked on the atomic bomb were distributing to request a demonstration of the bomb in an unpopulated area of Japan before using it on a city, and the government stifled this petition and proceeded to bomb tens of thousands of civilians, against the wishes of over 80% of the people who helped to create the very bomb that they used. As an engineer, this ultimate lack of control over the use of my designs is discouraging to think about, but very important to consider as I choose life directions.

All in all, I really enjoyed the interim. The community was extraordinary, both within our group and with the people of Rehoboth and various members of the astronomy community who would all be very welcoming to the group wherever we went. Going back to regular life will take a little bit of getting used to now, and I am very grateful for the last few weeks of my life.

~Rebecca

Home

Anna DeKievit — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:09:56 GMT

We made it home to Grand Rapids. This was of course a lot harder than what we thought it to be because both of our flights, from Albuquerque to Dallas and from Dallas to Grand Rapids, were canceled. We ended up catching an earlier flight to Dallas followed by a flight to Chicago on the 27th (when we expected to go home), and we then slept in a Days Inn and flew home the 28th in the morning. Despite all of the confusion, we all made it home safely. Thank-you for everyone's prayers while we were on this trip.

My final reflection of this trip can be described by two words: amazement and community. I was amazed by all the many things we were able to experience! I know that I will probably never again see a sunrise over the Grand Canyon or see the Trinity Site. I am so thankful that I was able to see the Andromeda galaxy from a parking lot and that I was able to run a 42" telescope! The community on this trip was also amazing. The devotions every morning as a group really helped me grow, and spending time with all the others also allowed me to make some great friends. Thank-you to everyone who made this trip such a wonderful experience!

an infinite game of bingo

Melissa Haegert — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:27:44 GMT

Melissa here, one last time. We were asked to write a final reflection on the interim, so here’s mine.

Several times in the days and months (and years) before this trip happened, I found myself super-excited for what I termed “the best interim ever!” I knew everyone on the trip, and I was excited to know them better; I had caught glimpses of astronomy in the Southwest before, and I was excited to look deeper; I had fallen in love with Rehoboth, and I was excited to live there for 1.5 weeks.

The trip surpassed my expectations in all of the above (as I probably should have expected). These nine friends who accompanied me (yes, we had nine students, and yes, we did assign ourselves names from the Fellowship) have shared laughs and scares and breathtaking views and full moon desert frolics with me. I saw huge telescopes, even got to work with some of them. And I watched several sunrises over the empty Hogback ridges south of Rehoboth.

But the trip also surprised me… because it was just like life. Of course it had its ups—I was expecting those—but it also had its downs. Saturday, Jan. 24, was one of the hardest days I’ve had in a long time. Throughout the trip, I learned all sorts of new things about myself, and some of those things weren’t so great.

Throughout the trip, I had the exciting opportunity to participate in what Calvin students have introduced to me as “Dutch Bingo.” (Even though I’m over half German… go figure. But I have Dutch connections.) This is an amusing game where one tries to find out how many various and sundry connections one can discover between oneself and one’s Dutch comrades. A very popular game at Calvin, whose student body is, I’ve heard, is 52% Dutch.

I think heaven will be one long bingo game. I’ve had a taste of heaven on this trip, sharing joys and loves and hilarity with friends who have all known different angles of the dear God that I have come to love. I’m so excited to share stories in heaven, with a whole host from every tribe and language and people and nation.

So finally, when I come back, I will have stories for you. My God has been teaching me so much on this trip, and I’m eager to share with you, and hear what he’s taught you while I’ve been gone. If you ask me “So, how was your trip?” you will hear me say “Great! Amazing! It was so much fun…” of course, but if you wait a little longer, and dig a little deeper, and ask a few more questions, you will hear a story of life, in all its beauty and sorrow and joy and struggle. And if we have time on this earth, I will start, just start, to share the working of God in my life, and together we can dabble in the great bingo game that won’t ever stop… Soli Deo Gloria.

Today's Happenings: January 26, 2009

Unknown User — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:37:26 GMT

Today is our last full day in Rehoboth, and we set out to make the most of it. In the morning, we all headed into the school to make our visual aids to help teach a class in the afternoon. A while later, we had 12 stunning constellations, one sun, one earth, and one asteroid. After lunch, we put them right to use. We actually had two different classes come through. The first group we did all at once. We used the students to help demonstrate how we percieve prograde and retrograde motion of planets from the earth.

The second class we split up into two groups, and they did each of two activities for half the class period. For one part, we repeated the planetary motion demonstration. In the other part they worked on doing asteroid discovery and recovery. The class discovered 3 unknown objects, and recovered 2 more, so it was a very successful search!

After that was done, the remainder of the day was much more low key. We had dinner, started packing, and had some fun playing games. We didn't just relax--we also managed to do some light curve analysis and work on the telescope.

Overall it was a fun day. It's hard to believe it was our last one here. Tomorrow we board a plane and a few hours later we'll be back in Grand Rapids. Until then, we'll continue enjoying the time we have here.

-Zach

Tomorrow's Activity: Flying back to GR

Sunday, Jan. 25

Unknown User — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:58:59 GMT

Long, long ago (it seems), when we first left Rehoboth and headed west to Flagstaff, the idea was raised that we might be involved somehow in a worship service at Rehoboth CRC when we returned. Over time, this idea grew. We have some songs that we'd been singing together during our morning devotions, and we began thinking about performing one of them as the offertory. We settled on "The Magnificat": the classic words of Mary praising God ("My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."), set to music by Charles Christmas. Later, however, we were also asked if we wanted to participate in more of the service. Some high school students were scheduled to lead worship on the Sunday we would be back for, and would we like to join them? In the end, we sang The Magnificat, sang with the Rehoboth high schoolers during the normal praise songs, and led the church in a rendition of "I Will Sing a Song Unto the Lord" with verses in Wolof, the tribal languages of the Gambia, West Africa. Melissa was a missionary kid there for ten years, and she supplied the words and translation. It was a fairly amazing experience to lead the church in worship when I only had learned some of the songs a half-hour before the service started. I was grateful to have many excellent singers - from our group and from the Rehoboth kids - there to drown out my voice.

After church we were treated to a home-cooked spaghetti dinner, before I headed off for a Sunday afternoon nap. I was anticipating getting up early Monday morning (5:30 am) to play basketball with some of the Rehoboth teachers. Sunday evening we went once again to the home of Mike and Gail De Young for dinner. Besides the ten of us, there was Mike and Gail, three student teachers from Trinity Christian College, and Mr. Aleke Morris. We had a wonderful dinner, and I reflected on the differences between eating on the road and good home-cooked food. After dinner, Aleke, a Navajo and a teacher at Rehoboth, told us stories of the Navajo people. We heard about how Coyote put the stars in the sky, how Coyote learned not to make fun of others, and how the Lizard Brothers learned to accept Turtle as a friend when he saved their life. Driving home in the dark, we could see just what a mess Coyote made when he haphazardly threw the Milky Way into the sky.

Before bed, we began to think about the next day's activites, when we would be teaching astronomy to Rehoboth students.

Post on Saturday January 24, 2009

Luke Leisman — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:09:09 GMT

I think humans like completeness. There is something to be said for coming full circle, and today we did just that. Roughly 2000 miles after departing Rehoboth, we returned to Rehoboth, a little more tired, a little less organized, yet a lot more full.

The day started before the sun was up. In perhaps my favorite animated movie of all time, The Emperor’s New Groove, one of the main characters, Kronk, is, among other things, an avid bird watcher, and at one point in the movie he comments “Ooh, that’s another one for exotic bird bingo – I’m loving this.” I couldn’t seem to get his voice out of my head this (Saturday) morning as we piled into the van at 6:30am to go to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

While we didn’t go very far into the park, we stopped to watch the sunrise with a huge flock of snow geese. The cool crisp morning air backdropped by a beautiful sunrise made it a pleasant time for quite reflection. I especially liked watching the birds interact and giving them human mannerisms. There were obviously some late sleepers, and some others that wanted to get things going, and also some temperamental ones and some easy going ones.

We followed up our early morning with an excellent breakfast at Denny’s and then a good devotions time at the motel.

I find that the more this trip goes along the more I enjoy the time in the van with the group. I think it has something to do with being more comfortable with each other and knowing each other better. On the drive from Socorro to Albuquerque we had a good time dancing to Weird Al and completed our fifth collective crossword of the trip. While this much travel can be wearing, it also is rather fun.

Then on the trip from Albuquerque to Rehoboth we listened to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” stopped to watch the sunset from a cliff over the El Mapies lava flows, stopped again to get some aa and pahoehoe lava from by the road by a Subway and Shell station, and had some quality conversations as the miles fell away behind us.

While we spent a fair amount of time in the car, we also paced the day with plenty of activity. In Albuquerque we went to the Atomic Museum, a very thought provoking experience. We started our visit with a video about the making of the atomic bomb, which put very well the paradox of the bomb as both a bringer of peace, and a bringer of mass destruction.

Fascinating to me was both the science that went into designing these bombs, and the grand scale of the effort to produce them. Whole cities developed just to make the necessary Uranium and Plutonium for the bombs. The effort accounted for 1/10 of the total electrical power used in the United States.

The visit was especially enjoyable and informative because a retired army engineer who worked on designing the bombs, D. M. Evett, showed us around the museum and told us stories, making the model planes come alive and pointing out things that we might otherwise have missed.

Yet, while the visit was informative and enjoyable, it was difficult for me to digest the pain caused by the bombs. I usually consider myself man enough to watch most movie scenes, but I half covered my eyes when they showed images of a little boy with his red, open back gasping his last. I think that surviving one of the drops might be the worst possible life experience.

Afterwards, at the “House of Bread” run by Professor Molnar’s friend, we had a long discussion on the logic behind dropping the bomb, and the many different facets playing into the decision. Should they have given the Japanese more warning with a demonstration? Should they have dropped the second bomb? Would we have been able to end the war just with more flexible negotiation? How did the Russians factor in? What role did that even have for today?

We finished the travel day with an excellent meal at Earl’s, a restaurant known for their steak and their Mexican food in Gallop.

After Earl’s we dropped off out stuff at the dorm and then headed over to Rehoboth CRC to practice for church the following morning. The dancing and singing together was a wonderful way to wrap up our day, made even better by the fact that someone managed to scrounge up a violin so that Anna and I could play again!

Up next tomorrow, wonderful worship at Church, magnificent meals, and spectacular star gazing!

January 23 2009

Nicolas Schuck — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:02:16 GMT

Today we woke up bright and early and were off to breakfast at McDonalds at 7:30 on our way to White Sands Missile Range to see the LINEAR telescopes. LINEAR stands for Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research and is located inside the military base.

We arrived at the gate and met our government escort into the base. We had a car in front of us and a car behind which made us feel pretty special. Once inside the base it was strictly prohibited to take pictures. After a short drive we arrived at LINEAR. LINEAR not only uses their telescope for asteroids but also works with the government in tracking satellites as well. Many of their telescopes were first designed to track satellites and then were found to be very effective in finding potentially hazardous space rocks such as asteroids. We got a tour of a couple of their telescopes and one of the guys there told us about the amazing technology of the chips in the cameras and how fast they were at taking data. He also showed us how fast the telescope and dome can move if they need to track something moving very fast. The domes had hundreds of bar code stickers along the circumference of the inside to let the dome know where it is so it never gets out of sync with the telescope which I thought was a very ingenious way to do it. An astrophysicist there then showed us the control room with all of the hard drives and computers and fancy screens. It blew my mind how much data they could store and process. While we were in the parking lot I heard a boom off in the distance which I thought was pretty awesome because I knew it wasn’t thunder.

We then were told that the mission for that afternoon had been canceled and it would indeed be possible to go see the Trinity site where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945. We followed our escort through another set of locked gates further into the base past numerous “authorized personnel only,” “do not enter,” “danger radioactive materials,” “warning explosive test site” signs and numerous kinds of others. When we finally arrived and went inside yet another locked gate we were all in awe that we were actually standing in the same spot that the first atomic bomb was detonated and that great mushroom cloud that had graced the skies almost 50 years ago.

Our escort showed us pieces of Trinitite that were scattered on the ground. They are pieces of sand and debris that had been blown up in the air by the bomb and melted from the extremely high temperatures and solidified into greenish colored glass crystals on the way back down to the ground.

The McDonald Ranch house was another site we could see so we decided to skip lunch and continue our once in a lifetime exclusive tour. The McDonald ranch house was where the plutonium core of the atomic bomb was assembled. It was so cool to be in the same area as so many famous scientists had been.

After being escorted out of the base we rushed to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Operations Center at New Mexico Tech for our tour. On the lower level they showed us where they make many of the receivers and components for the radio telescopes. They we also working on some of the electronic components for a new radio telescope array in Chile at 16,000ft. The cool thing about radio telescopes is that you don’t need a dark or clear sky to observe with them and can use them during the day even with clouds. We then went upstairs and saw the room where they store the data. The amount of computers and racks of hard drives was unbelievable.

After our tour of the Operations Center our guide rode with us and we drove out to the Very Large Array (VLA) site. As we got closer we could see the enormous size of it with 27 telescopes spread out for miles in the shape of a Y. After a short stop in the visitor’s center to view a short film we walked out to get a closer view.

The dishes were huge! 25 meters in diameter weighing 235 tons a piece. Since we again had connections we could walk out across part of the array which you normally couldn’t do. As we were all standing in awe of the giant radio telescope, they all began to move in sync with one another. It was quite an awesome sight. We then were taken into the control center where all of the signals from the 27 are combined. We couldn’t actually go in the room because some of the signal could be altered if it came in contact with one of us and some data could be lost. Next up was the control room where each dish is controlled and monitored. The array operator for the night was Larry Brothers whom my family knows through a family friend, so it was really cool having a connection with one of the operators of the VLA! The last stop on our tour of the VLA was a building to house a dish to during maintenance operations or modifications made to the instruments. Also near the building was the Jack of Diamonds which is the machine on the railroad tracks used to move each of the massive dishes.

After dropping off our very nice tour guide back at New Mexico tech it was off to dinner at the Owl Bar and Café which had been recommended my Mike De Young . All of us were starving as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I had a spicy green chili cheeseburger which was delicious! All of our food went down in no time. After dinner we went shopping at a grocery stop for lunch items for the next day and also each got a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and ate it when we got back to the hotel.

Tomorrow it’s back to Rehoboth to set up camp with a stop at the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque!

-Nick

On the road again...

Alyssa Massey — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:26:52 GMT

[This blog is for January 22, but hey, better late than never! Also, pictures are to come, so stay tuned!]

Hello all! Alyssa here. Today was another driving day, but, as is expected to be with a group of astronomy students, not without loads of adventure and excitement! Who would have thought that the road from Tuscon, AZ to Socorro, NM would pass by the cultural site of Ice Age hunters, a once-lawless town named Tombstone, and a small town named after a game show?

But let's start from the beginning (a very good place to start). It was a good day for driving, because it was rainy and not good for much else. However, that didn't stop us from taking a wet hike at the Clovis site, where archaeologists have discovered artifacts from the Ice Age and geologists have discovered nanodiamonds - tiny little diamonds that could possibly be indicators of an impact that could possibly be related to the beginning of the Ice Age (and the extinction of the mammoths!). We didn't find any nanodiamonds, but we got to experience the smells and muds of the wet desert!

The adventure did not stop, however, when we were in the van. We had one of the more impressive lunches of the trip, prepared and eaten entirely in the van (lovingly dubbed Moby, now coated in many layers of sediment) en route to Socorro. I ended up cutting cheese for Wonderbread sandwiches on my leg with a butter knife... good times. With our combined brainpower, we smashed through a crossword puzzle before taking a pit stop in Tombstone, AZ.

That's right, Tombstone. As in Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. We were there. ;)

We also stopped in Truth or Consequences, a tiny little town named after a game show forever ago, where we ordered good food and nine chocolate malts (Josh is a nonconformist and got a shake instead), taking the workers by surprise... and not long after that, we arrived at the lovely Motel Six, where we got some much-needed shut-eye. :)

Next up: A double-packed day of missile ranges and very large radio telescopes... don't miss it!

Tales of Interest: Our Day at U of A (Wednesday, January 21, 2009)

Unknown User — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:32:35 GMT

So I'm writing this a little late, but it turns out we don't have internet at the moment anyways. That seems to be a common motif on this trip; one which I wouldn't mind breaking. Regardless, I'll post this as soon as I am able, and hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.

Our day was a rather busy one. Morning started with waffles at the hostel, but picked up pretty quickly from there. We soon headed out to the Sabina Canyon Recreation Area (http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coronado/forest/recreation/camping/sites/sabino.shtml), where we met Dr. Shoemaker of the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, who also happens to be a Calvin alumni. We enjoyed a nice hike up aways, but were distracted when we came to a stream. We spent the remainder of our time enjoying that area, but soon it was time to head out to continue our day.

We headed over to the U of A, and had a group lunch together on campus at one of their food court areas.

Our next target was the mirror lab (http://mirrorlab.as.arizona.edu/) that lives under their football stadium. We had a long awaited tour that included a feature I had been looking forward to for quite some time: GIANT SPINNING OVENS. Unfortunately, the mirror had already been cast, and the oven was vacant, but we did get to see it in its various pieces. They were in the process of prepping the mirror for grinding and polishing.

The picture don't really give a proper sense of scale; remember that the mirror taken out of it was roughly 8 meters (26-ish feet) in diameter!

We also got to see another mirror being etched with hydrofluoric acid in preparation for further polishing.

Our tour quickly came to a close, but our host Dr. Shoemaker was able to take us on a more extended tour of his department. This tour included seeing their "small optics" shop, which included the Discovery Channel Mirror (4.2 meter diameter). We were also able to visit some graduate student labs, where we saw a couple different MagnetoOptical traps (MOTs) in action. At one we were possibly witness to a new experimental confirmation of theory!

Even after a full day of exploring both the park and U of A, we weren't done yet. We were headed out to the Haferkamp's who very kindly invited us out for dinner. We were treated to a barbecue, complete with some peppers (I can't quite remember what they were called). Let me tell you, a cheeseburger with barbecue sauces and pepper on it is quite good! If our hosts are reading this, let me just thank them again for the wonderful food and hospitality. We stayed and talked for a time, but before we knew it it was time to head back to the hostel to get ready for the next day.

-Zach

Upcoming Activities:
Travelling to Socorro, with some stops along the way.

Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Unknown User — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:58:49 GMT

Dear Readers,

This is Jess Vriesema again, writing about Tuesday, 20 January 2009. Today, we visited Kitt Peak National Observatory. For those of you who are familiar with astronomy, that may be enough said. For the rest of you, Kitt Peak is a mountaintop covered with dozens of telescopes and enough astronomers to require dormitories, a full cafeteria, and other support staff. Kitt Peak National Observatory is a Mecca for astronomy. We ate breakfast with Bob Denny, an outstanding programmer who wrote the Astronomy Control Platform (ACP) and PinPoint Engine software packages we use daily with our telescope.

We began our journey by driving out to Kitt Peak. The drive itself from our hostel in Tuscon to the mountain was over an hour. Just before ascending the mountain road, we stopped to take some pictures with lovely cacti.

The road itself was noteworthy--a full twenty minutes of beauty. We all were glued to the windows, gazing out at the garden landscape outside...except once or twice when we realized how steep the cliff two feet off the road really was.

At the top, we made an obligatory stop at the visitor's center, where they featured a special infrared camera, which takes pictures of light produced by heat. Most telescopes offer the ability to take pictures in the infrared part of the light spectrum. In the following pictures, Iam holding my jacket in front of me. In the second image, I am pressing my warm hand against the jacket. In the third image, my hand was removed, but its warmth remained in the shape of my hand, leaving behind an infrared hand print! Cool, huh? You can see dark spots around my eyes, which indicate that my glasses are cooler than the rest of my face.

After the visitor's center, we visited the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, which continuously points at the sun while it is up. This telescope had a larger-than-usual focal length, so it was longer than any of the other telescopes--so long, in fact, that it tunneled into the ground.

[ IMAGE (diagram?) OF SOLAR TELESCOPE ]

We then passed by some dormitories (Shh!--day sleepers!) on our way to another telescope. This telescope implements a new technology called "adaptive optics," which help it produce the sharpest images on Kitt Peak.

We ate lunch in the parking lot.

Our contact, Jim Scotti, showed us two 'scopes that he works with. One, called the SpaceWatch telescope, was particularly interesting because it is an "altitude-azimuth" mount instead of the usual "equitorial" mount -- the difference is in which axes the telescope uses to move itself. This telescope also was the first of its kind: custom-built to search for asteroids on a large scale, seeing up to 4000 asteroids per night. Whereas Calvin College has nearly 200 asteroids to its name, SpaceWatch has roughly 20,000. The other telescope he showed us was the oldest telescope on Kitt Peak, and it is now used in conjunction with the SpaceWatch telescope for broad surveys of asteroids. We climbed a ladder in the dome and sat on a perch on top of the dome, on top of a mountain. We could see nearly a hundred miles away.

    [ PICTURE OF PERCH ON DOME ]

We hurried to the 4 meter telescope -- the largest on Kitt Peak -- just before it closed at 4:00 pm. Wow. This is the largest telescope many of us will ever see. The dome dwarfed all other domes, and the telescope was gargantuan. Hopefully these pictures will give you a sense of scale:

    [ Picture outside of dome -- Nick or Alyssa? ]
    [ Picture inside of dome ]

After checking out the 4 meter telescope, we ate supper at the Kitt Peak cafeteria with Jim and some other astronomers. By the time we finished, the sun was getting dark, and Jim brought us back to the two instruments he had shown us earlier. He showed us how he started them up, but since the sky was too cloudy for the kind of sensitive measurements he makes, he didn't start taking actual data. Instead, we talked for quite a while. He even posed with me to form the constellation "Jim 'n' I." (A pun on the constellation "Gemini," or the Twins) :-)

When we'd finished talking, we headed back to our van, descended the mountain slowly with only the parking lights on (to reduce light pollution), and went to bed back at the hostel.

I still have trouble believing that we really went to KITT PEAK!! WOW!

Sincerely,
-Jess

PS--Stay tuned! Zach will tell us about the Steward Mirror Fabrication Laboratory at the University of Arizona!

Post on January 21 2009

Unknown User — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:02:47 GMT

Josh here. The 19th was somewhat of a transition day. We caught a few winks as the sun was rising to prepare us for a long drive, then saw Sunset Crater Volcano, then drove to Tucson.

After returning to the hostel from our respective observing stations (I was at the U.S. Naval Observatory, others were at the Lowell Observatory), we all tried to sleep for three or four hours. We packed up and headed off for Sunset Crater. At approximately 1000 years old, this cinder cone is the newest volcano in the volcanic field just east of the San Francisco Mountains that hover around Flagstaff, Arizona. Driving through this mass of ash and hardened A'a lava on our way through Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument was quite an experience. Trees and other plants have moved back into the area in the intervening years since the most recent lava flows covered the land, but much of the terrain remains as rugged, bare black rock. In some cases, the flows were several feet higher than the surrounding terrain. Black, gravelly cinder cones were all around. Sunset Crater itself is not the tallest, but is the youngest, and is therefore the best preserved. The sides are black, but the rim is colored in red, brown and orange. They say that the final stages of the eruptions that made Sunset Crater contained iron-rich rocks which subsequently rusted.

We then set out for Tucson. As we left Flagstaff, we noted our elevation: just over 7000 feet above sea level. Flagstaff sits near the southwestern corner of the Colorado Plateau, a high, relatively unbroken landform covering a vast area in the Four Corners region, and the location of all our escapades since leaving Albuquerque. Leaving Flagstaff would finally take us off of the plateau. As we drove south, the land grew more mountainous. Moby (our trusty van) drove up and down, but consistently more down than up. Sometime before we reached Phoenix, we began to see Saguaro cactus covering the hillsides.By the time we reached Phoenix, we had dropped over 5000 feet in elevation, and the temperature had risen 20 degrees Fahrenheit. We stopped for dinner at Los Compadres, a Mexian restauraunt recommended by Professor Harper; it did not disappoint.

We stopped at a McDonalds with WiFi so that Professor Molnar could try to start up the Rehoboth telescope, but without success. Then we set out on the last leg of our journey to Tucson. We drove for two more hours and arrived at our hostel, tired and relieved.

Tomorrow: we visit Kitt Peak National Observatory!

Post on January 21 2009

Anna DeKievit — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:44:10 GMT

January 18^th Blog

By Anna DeKievit

I am suppose to write about the 18^th, but instead I am going to write about all the events between the 17^th and 18^th. From Melissa’s blog you can see that our group split up into two locations in order to do overnight observing at two locations, the Lowell Observatory where Nick, Luke, Jess, Professor Haarsma and I were at, and USNO where Melissa and the rest of the crew were located.

After touring USNO on the morning of the 17^th followed by dinner, the Lowell team headed off to start up our telescope at 5:15. We started up our 42” telescope. I was able to step out and look at the night sky was absolutely amazing. I was able to learn many new constellations because I was able to such faint stars because there is very little light pollution on the mountain.

We mostly worked this first evening observing galaxy clusters for Prof. Haarsma and Luke’s research and asteroids for Prof. Molnar and Melissa’s research. We got a lot of help from the astronomer running the 72" telescope, Brian Skiff. His presence was very helpful and insightful because he is a well published astronomer. When not working we spent time on the internet catching up because we have had such spotty internet so far. We all got really, really tired since we had been up for almost 25 hours. After closing up we went back and collapsed at the hostel after greeting the other half of our group. This was the beginning of the 18^th.

We woke up again at 3:00pm on the 18^th and then headed back to the telescope hoping to get an early start just in case we had more glitches. We started up just fine, but we had cloudy weather. We took that opportunity to go out into the catwalk around the top of the telescope and have some devotions. It was glorious singing hymn into the dark night spotted with stars between the clouds. We soon felt that the clouds were clearing a bit so we went back in so that we could start taking data. We found out that the sky was still just cloudy enough to not allow us to take the pictures of asteroids and galaxies needed because we could not get detailed enough. We instead took pictures of bianary stars for another research project because that research does not require the same kind of detail.

This evening we were able to have more free time because we were more comfortable with the telescope. We all took turns sleeping and we spent a lot of time eating snacks and playing cards. I again looked at the stars and I was able to see the Andromeda Galaxy with my eyes and with some binoculars. I was also able to see the Beehive cluster. Both of these objects are too faint to see with the naked eye from Grand Rapids because of all the light pollution from the city and suburbs.

When the night ended we were excited because it meant that we could sleep. My favorite part of the shutting down process is this large red “Emergency Stop” button. This button cuts power to the telescope, the computer which runs it, and the microphones that allow those in the control room to talk to those who are in the dome. It must be pushed at the end of every evening or in case of an emergency in which something goes terribly wrong. When I pressed it I was reminded of all the cartoons and movies which there was the big red button which the hero runs for when some crazy disaster starts to happen.

All in all, these two nights were absolutely fantastic. Luke kept saying how powerful he felt sitting in the chairs commanding a huge telescope to move and take pictures. It was truly rewarding for me as well because I am one of the few people who have not worked for Calvin as an observer running our own telescopes so this was my first experience actually running a telescope.

The 19^th: Sleep day, Sunset Crater, and driving to Tucson.

Post on January 19 2009

Melissa Haegert — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:52:09 GMT

These days, I’m not sure if the sun sets in the west or the east. I only see it about twice every 24 hours; it’s low in the west when I wake up and start my work, then low in the east when my work is finished and I’m headed off to sleep. Completely backwards. Some travelers talk about jet lag… rest assured the effects of sleep deprivation and odd hours are several times more dramatic for astronomers.

Saturday started out normal. We slept in till 7:30 (AM, I suppose I should specify, to avoid later confusion), then worshipped and shopped and listened to a presentation/discussion on galaxy clusters, led by Luke and Prof. Haarsma. Their research group has recently discovered something surprising: the sizes of the largest and brightest galaxies in the centers of their clusters correspond to the rate at which those clusters emit x-rays. They are writing a paper on their work, and they have been excited to point the Southwest’s big telescopes at one of the last of their favorite clusters before they publish.

They’re not the only ones excited for telescope time on these Flagstaff mountains. Prof. Molnar and I (Melissa) are trying to measure the colors of different asteroids in our favorite Flora and Baptistina asteroid families, or groups. This will help us tell these two groups apart in our later research. (Of course, asteroids are pretty much all just gray rocks, but one might turn out to be just a little bluer than the reddish one next to it… etc.)

So, after a couple of days of sightseeing the land, we have jumped head over heels into astronomy. We have asked for and been granted observing time with two telescopes: the 40-inch (diameter) Ritchey telescope at the US Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, and the 40-inch Hall telescope at the Lowell Observatory on Anderson Mesa. These telescopes are massive, powerful, awe-inspiring… and rather un-automated. Which means they won’t work on their own all night long after you turn them on and tell them what to do; no, you must actively instruct them through each step of the night, telling them to take the pictures you want.

We’ve got two mountains and 11 people, so for our first observing night (Saturday) five went to Lowell (Nick, Luke, Anna, Jess and Prof. Haarsma) while the remaining six went to the USNO (Alyssa, Rebecca, Josh, Zach, Me(lissa) and Prof. Molnar). We ate a late breakfast, and a 4:00 pm “dinner,” and brought along a “midnight lunch”… and lots of blankets.

So here I sit, in the control room of the USNO telescope, pulling my first “all-nighter” of my Calvin career. Just so I can say I stayed up all night working on classwork. A few moments of delight: we got to tell the telescope to “do it” every time we wanted to slew to a new location, and we actually got to use the exciting “kill me” button twice.

The sky outside is AMAZING, and the airplane didn’t break Zach’s tripod completely, so we’ve got samples of astrophotography, alongside the telescope data.

Zach’s photography is admirable… not so his grilled cheese sandwich skills. Of course, he must have the benefit of the doubt—he was working without butter, at 2:00 in the morning. Needless to say, we have located the non-existent smoke alarms. And, as ill-starred fate would have it, the refrigerator’s hidden butter compartment. Alas, it was too late to save the sandwich.

Playing cards was a challenge, with a sniper photographer peering over the shoulders of the opposite team. I’ll let you guess the guilty culprit.

I have been greatly encouraged by one thing I have noticed, while observing this weekend in two separate locations: the two halves of our group have missed each other. God has given us such joy in group interaction and shared adventure for the past 1.5 weeks, and when we come back together after our separate “mountaintop experiences,” we can’t resist sharing stories and jokes… even though both sides have been awake for over 24 hours.

Mountaintop experiences… they show me God’s power in two ways. First, the geology that has pushed them into place, shifted and stressed and striated them (ask Anna about process details) until they rise out of the most unlikely of deserts… the geology works to the glory of God. But second, mountaintop experiences bring me to terms with my own power and God’s power, and the lack of comparison between the two. I try to fool myself into thinking that I have power, power to make decisions that take my own life into my hands, power to surprise God. But God brings me to these mountains to set things straight.

On Saturday night—or rather, Sunday morning—Alyssa shared with me Psalm 139. The Lord has searched us, and knows us. The Lord perceives our thoughts from afar, for his thoughts outnumber the grains of sand. We cannot flee from his presence; he is familiar with all of our ways. And of course, the special comfort for the astronomers: He knows our going out and our lying down… even when we try to fool him with “all-nighters.”

Post on January 15 2009

Luke Leisman — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:09:27 GMT

Today was Anna’s turn to talk about our event of the day. In her best teacher voice she gestured around “So guys, this is the Grand Canyon…” Like she really needed to tell anyone. Having just watched the sun rise over a gouge a mile deep and on average 10 miles wide, few words other than grand would describe what we had witnessed. Even the skeptics of the Grand Canyon’s fame among us were impressed. But I get ahead of myself.

While we would all later be glad at sacrificing the sleep, it meant a very early morning to catch the sunrise, especially considering the night of disturbed sleep on the hostel beds (and not aided by the fact that I woke up with “Hot and Cold” by Katy Perry stuck in my head). After we had all managed to roll out of bed, we packed lunches and breakfast, and ate bagels in the van with cream cheese or peanut butter. Relatively awake, the hour and a half ride was highlighted by watching twilight silhouette the hills underneath a tapestry of “summer” constellations and opposite the conjunction of the moon and Saturn.

After getting into the national park for $25, a mere 2.50 a person, we walked out on Mather point just as the first signs of pink on north rim of the canyon. What happened next was almost surreal – the sun’s rays slowly bathed the canyon rocks in more and more light, and then the sun itself peaked its glimmering rays over the edge of the next door cliff. We sat soaking it all in and taking pictures for over an hour.

What was especially impressive was the sheer magnitude of the canyon. It’s average width rim to rim is 10 miles, and its average depth is around a mile. Our eyes couldn’t adjust to the scale.

After a stop by the visitor center, we next traveled down the southern rim of the canyon west to Hermit’s rest. The view from there was if anything, more spectacular than before. We then worked our way east, seeing everything from amazing views to hundreds of millions of years of history in the rock layers to helicopters flying below us to a soaring bald eagle just off the cliff from us (my mom will be so jealous when she reads this J). While ice on the paths resulted in some extra fear and some minor injuries, it added to the picturesque-ness more than anything else.

One stop we made particular fun was the John Wesley Powell memorial. Powell was the first explorer of the Grand Canyon. Legend has it that Powell was rescued hanging by his one arm from a precipitous fall by an assistant who lowered his long underwear to save him. Not only did this inspire some entertaining conversation, but it also gave us a better appreciation for Powell, which we expressed with a star wars esque march down the stairs at his memorial.

We had sandwiches and lunch on one of the overlooks, surrounded by the majestic rocks, awed by the awesome views. After lunch we saw the orphan mine by Hopi point and a couple of more overlooks we stopped by the visitors center, and then continued east along the southern rim. At this point things took quite a turn on the switchbacks. The road to Yaki was supposedly closed to general traffic, so we parked nearby and Professor Molnar and Rebecca chose to stay back and sleep while the rest of us thought we would walk the short distance and go a short way into the canyon. We ended up on a trail of steep switchbacks, which was populated as much by donkey’s (or at least donkey waste) as well as people.

While it offered a stunning view, Anna, our faithful tour guide and planner, started not feeling well with an allergic reaction of sorts which sent several group members hustling back to get the van. While her sudden swoon put a bit of a damper on the day, we still took time to see the Desert View Tower at the end of the canyon, a spectacularly designed lookout tower made to blend with the surrounding environment. Of special note for the class, the tower overlooked an excellent view of an inconformity in the layers, gaps made by rocks tipping and pushing their way up or sliding down.

We ended the day with a large Thai meal right by our hostel, and by that time Anna was feeling mostly recovered, which improved the evening. Words give a hollow sketch of this day’s experience, so I leave our readers with a few final pictures that give only a taste of the true beauty of today.

Meteor Crater and Lowell Observatories

Rebecca Haferkamp — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:47:47 GMT

Jan. 16, 2009 to Jan. 18, 2009 (there are a few updates since the internet situation prevented posting until now anyway, I hope we're not too much out of order, as we are now pretty much posting our blogs as we individually find the opportunity, so some people may not post theirs before the person after them does, etc. I don't know who had the 15th, but hopefully they'll get a chance to post soon for you! Everyone else is catching up on sleep while I post this one).

Prof. Haarsma joined us part way through devotions this morning, and Melissa taught us some Wolaf (the language of Gambia; she may correct my spelling later) words to one of the songs we have with us. It was an amazing way to start a day.

This morning we went to Meteor Crater. Believed to be formed by a meteorite striking the earth (due to signs of impact in the rocks that form it, as well as pieces of meteorite around it), the Meteor Crater is approximately one mile from end to end. Due to being younger than most craters and being in an arid climate without much precipitation to hasten erosion, this crater is in much better shape than most of the “big” craters that people study, so serves well as an example crater for more generic research on impact craters. We were not allowed to go inside the crater, but we did get a guided tour around the edge and learned about the history of the crater.

We spent the afternoon looking at various telescopes with the Lowell observatories. We saw the very old 24” Clark telescope, which had a gorgeous dome built out of Ponderosa Pine: you may note that it is almost shaped more like a bucket than a dome because the wood could handle it better. It is very interesting to me how a material selection can change the shapes you would build: for example, a dome is the most sturdy shape you can build a roof out of if you are using brick. The dome rotates on 1957 Ford truck tires, and the telescope is run entirely by hand. The kitchen pan used as a lens cap shows the improvisation skills of Mr. Slipher. It was somewhat discouraging that most of the artifacts from the earlier days of the observatory were kept in a locked museum which we could only see during the (more or less timed) group tour.

We also saw the72 and 42 inch telescopes of the Lowell Observatory on Anderson Mesa, a darker site south of Flagstaff. Half of the group will be using the 42 inch for all-night observing tomorrow and Sunday night, while the rest of us go to the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) on the same nights, and each of the two sites will get its own night on the blog.

The skies in Flagstaff are so dark. I find it hard to believe that they have a population of 60,000 because I have never seen the stars so well in an urban setting (Jan 18 note: we see Pheonix better than Flagstaff from the USNO site). Internet at our hostel has seldom lasted for more than ten second intervals during the hours we are there, so we hope you all understand if people aren’t keeping in contact as much as you hoped. Also, as we found out on the 17th, those of us at the USNO site have most email sites blocked (they are technically military computers; so they are a bit protective about information transferal; we’re also banned from using flash drives on them.).

We are thankful for the health of all of our group members, and ask for prayers as we pull all-night observing tomorrow and Saturday night, and that we be given patience in dealing with other guests at our hostel until we leave on Monday. In case the others don't get a chance to blog tonight (the 18th), our itinerary from here is to sleep the rest of the day as we're able, pull another all-nighter, and travel by way of Pheonix to Tucson on Monday (tomorrow), arriving probably late at night and staying through Tuesday.

Let it be known that in this day in history, the “Zacharazzi’s” camera batteries died (Ha!).

~Rebecca

Off To Arizona! January 14 2009

Nicolas Schuck — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:15:09 GMT

This morning I awoke to a temperature and my whole entire body aching. Thank goodness today was a travel day to Flagstaff, Arizona. As soon as everyone woke up, (minus me, I missed this next part), we ate breakfast which consisted of most of the leftovers and then had devotions. After devotions some of our group went to help Professor Molnar put our fixed filter wheel back on our telescope while most of the rest of the group went to the nearby hill to search for petrified wood.

I had found some a few days earlier and had just woken up so I stayed in the dorm and did my laundry for the week. When everyone had returned from either the hill or the dome we proceeded to eat lunch which again consisted of leftovers from the previous days. Rebecca and Alyssa were working on asteroid recovery and Rebecca discovered an unidentified object in which later follow-up observations will confirm if indeed it is a new asteroid. Next on the list was the packing of the van, which as I packed seemed to be slightly larger than earlier on our trip. Fortunately all of our belongings fit with ease with the help of the back seat being removed. Next stop Flagstaff, Arizona! As we left New Mexico and entered Arizona I noticed the scenery changing quite a bit.

There began to be much flatter areas of land on either side of the road and much more wild bushes and small trees. As we continued further west we went down in elevation and the snow disappeared! We then passed by exit signs for Winslow, Arizona which was made famous by The Eagle’s song “Take It Easy.”

Far in the distance further down the road on our right we could see the San Francisco Volcanic field and at one point could see the rim of Meteor Crater which we will visit in a couple of days. Nearer and nearer to Flagstaff the mountain range in front of us became larger and larger and we knew we were almost there.

When we finally arrived at the hostel we would be staying and got our room keys to scope things our we noticed a sticker across from my room that had a note written for someone at Calvin College written on it. When we returned to the parking lot to unload our bags we ran into another interim group from Calvin! Weird huh? They have been rock climbing in California and are staying a week at the Grand Canyon. As we were leaving to go eat dinner after unloading, I ran into a girl I knew from the other Calvin Group. Her name is Jesi Hale and she runs cross country and track with me here at Calvin! She is from Rehoboth New Mexico where we just came from! As we were in Rehoboth I had glanced at the track and field records and looked for class pictures to try and find her and little did I know I would see her in person a few days later! What a small world! We ate dinner at Alpine Pizzeria which was close enough we walked there. The pizza was very good and some of our group played some pool as well.

After eating part of our group ordered another pizza as we underestimated how hungry we were. Meanwhile some of us went shopping for breakfast and lunch items for tomorrow and Rebecca and I went back to the hostile. By that time my fever or whatever bug I have was hitting me pretty hard. And now it’s hitting me even harder so I’m going to call it a night and try to get some sleep before our day tomorrow at THE GRAND CANYON!

-Nick Schuck

El Morro and El Malpais (1/13/09)

Alyssa Massey — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:54:11 GMT

Greetings, all, from Rehoboth, New Mexico! Despite having to wake up at an hour during which no human should ever be conscious (6:30 AM), we have had an exciting and action-packed day! After a sweet breakfast of banana pancakes (yes, like the Jack Johnson song), we learned a new worship song, got in some essential playground time while Professor Molnar picked up helmets, and then hit the road for the Zuni reservation, El Morro, and the El Malpais lava tubes.

On the way to El Morro National Monument, we took a drive through the Zuni reservation to get a better sense of some of the surrounding communities and life on a reservation. It's a very poor and small community, much different than the life we lead (but it still has a CRC church there!). It put things into perspective and helped me to remember that there are people struggling all around me, even when I'm having the time of my life. After driving through Zuni, we arrived at El Morro National Monument.

El Morro is a cuesta, a gentle sloping rock formation that drops off suddenly at one end. What is special about this cuesta, however, is the pool of fresh water at the bottom of the cliff face (formed mostly from fresh water, but there is also speculation that there might be a spring that feeds it - it was iced over when we got to it) that has attracted thirsty travelers for years.

These travelers (Spanish conquistadors, governors, armies, American railroad workers and passengers, to name a few) would often carve an inscription into the sandstone which is now called Inscription Rock. (There was even an inscription from a man from Baltimore, my home town!)

We took a hike around the part of Inscription Rock that wasn't impassable because of recent snow, and then we hiked up to the top of the cuesta, which gave us a breathtaking vista of a box canyon and the remains of Atsinna Pueblo.

After we had explored El Morro as much as we could, we headed to El Malpais National Monument ("El Malpais" is Spanish for "badlands"), which is the site of several lava flows that have overlapped each other throughout the ages. First we learned about the different types of lava (the most amusing being 'A'a lava, so named by Hawaiians because when you try to walk on it you shout "ah! ah!"), looked at some sweet lava rocks, and then we set out for the lava tubes, a cave system made many years ago by lava draining out of the Earth's crust and exposed by a cave-in. First, we had to put on our oh-so-stylish helmets, provided by the amazing Mr. Mike DeYoung, and then we descended into the cave.

Many of us had never been spelunking before, and we were not disappointed! We descended eight stories into the belly of the Earth, and, at the very bottom, we turned off our flashlights. What surprised me was that the complete and utter darkness was not frightening, but peaceful. Without the possibility of sight, I experienced my world, and the presence of its Creator, in a new and full way. As we sung "Father, we love You, we worship and adore You/Glorify Your name in all the earth...", the words "all the earth" took on a richer meaning... and I knew that truly neither the heights of mountains neither the depths of the Earth can separate us from the love and the presence of God. It was truly incredible. On the way back to the surface, we explored nooks and crannies of the cave that we hadn't noticed before, and got to look closer at the cool volcanic rock of which it is made.

(thanks to Jess for this pic)

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for hiking and exploring. After Jess and Rebecca made us a wonderful meal of stir fry, Rebecca and I did some work trying to recover asteroids (basically, looking for asteroids that have already been seen so we can verify their existence, properties, etc.). We both were able to spot some, and one that Rebecca spotted had never been seen before, and could very well be an asteroid that was previously undiscovered! It was quite exciting.

Thank you all for your prayers, and for following our escapades so faithfully. Until next time!

~Alyssa

Below: Us (minus Nick, who took this picture), looking rather like the Fellowship of the Ring, on the trail at El Morro.

Tomorrow: we say good-bye for a while to our lovely town Rehoboth and head out for Flagstaff.

Update

Unknown User — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:42:17 GMT

I've added some pictures to my post for Saturday, January 10. Check them out below!

-Josh V.

Adventures from Monday, January 12 of 2009

Unknown User — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:43:51 GMT

Today was a rather laid back day--laid back in the sense that we had no plans that were absolutely necessary to be completed, but not in the sense that we didn't do anything with our day. In fact, first thing this morning was exciting in one special way: we had the internet back (however briefly) for the first time in several days. Everyone, myself included, took the opportunity both to send and recieve emails during that time, as well as to update the blog for several recent entries (check some earlier ones for additional pictures if you missed them). As evidence, you can see that all of the available computers have users at the moment this picture was taken.

Of course, this wasn't all that we did with our day. After breakfast we participated in something we've done every day since arriving here: devotions and prayer. After that, we were able to tour the campus here in Rehoboth (http://www.rcsnm.org/), including their new athletic complex. But before we got there, we toured through the middle school building, including the library. Their library was dedicated to the Navajo Codetalkers, and included both artifacts and displays. There was a full World War II uniform from a Codetalker, and a drum and radio set.

Our afternoon was filled with a hike up Pyramid Rock (http://www.stateparks.com/red_rock_mckinley.html). This rock actually appears on the logo for Rehoboth, and is a very visible landmark for the area. It stand some 7500 feet above sea level, and it is quite the hike to reach the summit. For our group, the hike alone just wasn't adventuresome enough--we did a little geocaching on the way. For those of you who do not know what that is, essentially someone hides something and then publishes its GPS coordinates on the internet. Those who wish to find it can look up these coordinates and attempt to locate the box, at which point they can sign the log and may be able to retrieve or place small items in the box. (Check out http://www.geocaching.com/ for more info)

One of those sites happened to be along our selected hike, so our group attempted to find it. After following the trail to near the given coordinate, we let Prof. Molnar's GPS guide us to the general area of the cache. We then fanned out and began searching. This would be somewhat difficult in normal circumstances, but we had the additional (and rare for New Mexico) challenge of searching through the snow to try to find it. After quite a bit of searching the decision was made to give up, but as we were all in the process of clambering back to the main trail, Alyssa spotted it! The whole group signed the log, and we hid it right back where we found it, for the next adventurer to uncover.

We quickly moved on and continued up to the summit of Pyramid Rock. It was very beautiful up there, the height provided an amazing view in almost every direction. You could see Church Rock in our direction, Mount Taylor in another, and Fort McKinley in yet another. We spent quite a while taking pictures up there, and I myself took about 1/3 of that days pictures at the summit alone. Among the many pictures people took is this one, looking up at us all from slightly further down.

Unfortunately we have things planned for the rest of interim, so staying at the top wasn't really an option we could consider. The hike down was timed well with the sunset, and we were treated with a view of the reddening light slowly receding over the adjacent rocks. We reached the bottom well before the light was gone, and people took some wonderful pictures of the sunset on the rocks.

After an afternoon of hiking we were all ready for dinner, and it certainly did not disappoint. We had bratwurst and what I refer to as "Molnar burgers." It wasn't just because we were hungry that all the burgers were gone at the end of dinner. Afterwards we headed into town to visit Baskin Robbins, because today was Jess's birthday! We celebrated with ice cream for everyone, and sang the Happy Birthday Song to him in what I believe was four part harmony.

By the way, it is already wiped away in this picture, but Jess had ice cream in his beard just before we took it. I told him about it, but immediately regretted it, so I thought I'd just share that here instead. (Happy Birthday, Jess!)

What's on the agenda for tomorrow? Here's a brief rundown:

Drive through Zuni
Visit both El Morro and El Malpais
Visit lava flows
Hiking/Caving/Spelunking inside genuine lava tubes

Stay warm out there--we sure are!

-Zach

Sunday, 11 January 2009

Unknown User — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:40:42 GMT

Greetings, dear readers!

I'm Jess Vriesema, a senior physics major and computer science minor, and I'll be sharing a little about our activities on Sunday, 11 January 2009.

We began the day with blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled eggs.

We went to church at Rehoboth CRC, located in the Rehoboth community. Here's a quote I liked from the service:

If you want to show your faith, volunteer.
If you want to test your faith, recruit volunteers.

The afternoon seemed easy compared to the previous days in which we hiked for hours. After lunch, Luke Leisman's uncle came to talk for an hour or so about his career as a government aerospace engineer. He also gave a brief testimony and talked about being a Christian in his field. Afterwards, some of us scoured a nearby hill in search of petrified wood, while others worked on baking pies to bring to Mike and Gail DeYoung's house for dinner. Both groups were very successful, as the rock-scavengers came back with three bags of fossils and petrified wood, and the pie-bakers made excellent apple and cherry pies.

That evening, the three student teachers living with us to their house joined us at the DeYoung's house, about half a mile west of Rehoboth. Tacos, nachos, authentic tamales, citrus fruits and grapes, were all served buffet-style. Mike examined some of the rocks found that afternoon. We played Catch-Phrase, a team party game in which teammates must guess a "catch-phrase" and pass an electronic disc to the next player before time runs out. As there was an almost-even number of men and women, we divided into teams by gender. The guys won the first game (by a landslide), but the guys won (by luck, of course) in the second game. :-)

When it was time to go home, several of us, myself included, decided to walk back to the dorms along a trail rather than go with the others in the van. Moonlit snow still covered the desert and mountains, and the stars turned around the Northern Star, Polaris. In the distance, we could see traffic moving slowly along the highway and an occasional freight train passing through Gallup. Along the way, we saw many human and animal footprints following paths of their own, merging and splitting. We forged our own path over mounds and around sagebrush, enjoying ourselves, seizing the moment, and ignoring how soaked our shoes, socks, and pants were getting. At about the halfway point, there was a piece of land that had no shrubs, and we decided to take a few pictures.

We sung a few songs together as we continued, and finally arrived back at the dorms. We had hot chocolate, laughed at the pictures we took, checked to see if the internet was working (it wasn't), and went to bed. It was a good day.

Blessings to all of you!

Keep praying for safety and learning for all of us. We are doing well.

-Jess Vriesema

Bisti Badlands

Unknown User — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:20:22 GMT

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear here in Gallup, New Mexico. In the high desert (Gallup's elevation is about 6000 feet above sea level), temperatures can vary by as much as 40 or 50 degrees Fahrenheit between night and day. Friday night it was below 15 degrees as we were out looking at what stars we could see around the full moon, but Saturday was forecast to be in the high-forties to mid-fifties. (As a side note, if you haven't had a chance to see the moon recently, go look tonight. Friday it was full, and Saturday it was at perigee, the point in its orbit where it is closest to earth, making this the brightest moon you'll see for a while.)
After breaking our fast with pancakes, we left for the Bisti Badlands (say "Bist Eye") at around 9:45 AM mountain time. Along the way, we picked up our guide, Mr. Mike DeYoung, geologist and technical support guy for Rehoboth School and all-around renaissance man. He's been exploring the wilderness areas in the Four Corners region for the past 30 years and knows Bisit well. We drove for two hours north-northeast towards the Colorado border. The drive was punctuated by views of stunningly carved buttes, long, flat mesas, and distant snow-capped mountains. When we arrived at Bisti around noon, I was amazed at how desolate it was. This is technically a National Wilderness Area, not a park or monument, so we were greeted by a mere dirt parking area; no visitor center or bathroom to be seen.

We piled out of the van and headed off into the wilderness at Mike DeYoung's heels. As we marched "farther in and further up" along the course of an arroyo wet with snow melt, strange, alien landscapes greeted us. On the west as we walked north we saw hundreds of low hills capped with eroding red rock. Mike told us that in the distant past, there was a clay layer covered by coal. The coal had ignited and baked the clay into a fractured brick-like rocks locally called "clinkers."

To the east was a strange landscape of eroded limestone formations. Underfoot was mud and snow. The Navajo name for Bisti means "the place where you wander around and get lost." We would have quickly discovered the truth of that name were Mike there to guide us. All throughout the day he led us through the twisted landscape without map or compass, never once faltering. Soon we crossed the arroyo and headed east into the sandstone. There we came across our first of many "hoodoo fields." Here, harder sandstone protects the softer clays below it. Erosion weathers away most of the unprotected clay, leaving dozens of pillars two feet to ten feet tall, each capped by a flat piece of sandstone. These "balancing rocks" were in some cases so precarious that it was hard to believe they formed naturally. In one place, prevailing winds had eroded the hoodoos in the same way, leaving formations called "the crocodile heads."

After forty-five minutes of hiking we stopped for lunch. Mike took us to an island of eroded sandstone standing up off the plain where we passed our lunch around. Mike next showed us what he called "the onions," which were rounded boulders that erosion had caused to look like peeling onions.

As we walked along the edge of the mesa, we wound our way in and out of canyons of sandstone. We soon came across our first petrified wood. Mike told us that Bisti was full of petrified wood. Later we saw huge logs of petrified wood. Some were supported by thin sandstone pedistals or sunk halfway into a cliff. Interestingly, all the major logs were pointed in the same direction, indicating that some major event (such as an asteroid impact, major flood, or wind storm) had knocked them all down.

Mike then showed us the dinosaur bones. I was struck by the nonchalant manner in which he said, "Let's go see some dinosaur fossils." He showed us bones in three separate locations: a bit of bone sticking out of a hillside with teeth lying nearby, a Hadrosaur shoulder blade in the rock, and a Hadrosaur jawbone. Bisti is a protected area, but it's unlike other national or state parks. It is a wilderness; there are no marked trails, and people can just wander wherever they want. We couldn't take anything, but we could go right up to the petrified wood and dinosaur bones and even touch them. Even in a museum, you only see plaster casts of dinosaur bones. Here, you can touch fossils that are millions of years old.

The last stop was a visit to a tall butte showing the boundary between the Cretacious and Tertiary periods. This gap is supposed to mark the time when an astroid struck the Yucatan and killed most of the dinosaurs. A long hike back to the van marked the end of our visit to Bisti Badlands. As we left the dirt road out and met the highway, we noticed a tall butte on the horizon. Mike confirmed that this was the famous Shiprock that was a landmark for settlers moving west. A rising moon followed us back to Rehoboth.

Sunday we planned to attend Rehoboth CRC, then hear a talk by Luke's uncle Gregg Leisman, an aeronautical engineer from Sandia Air Force Base.

Post on January 10 2009

Anna DeKievit — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:49:19 GMT

January 9, 2009

We woke early this morning, and the first wonderful news of the day was that our telescope is working! We seemed to have smoothed out the problem by slightly adjusting the position of the motor which moves the dome by tweaking some bolts which were holding down the motor. We got ready and went to Grandpa’s Grill at 7am which is a tradition for Mike DeYoung and some of the workers at Rehoboth School on a Friday mornings. At the restaurant seven of us got the famous breakfast burritos which I hear were very good, while the other three, including me, decided to go for a breakfast a little nicer on the stomach.

After this scrumptious meal we returned to our dorm at the school, threw some meat in the crock pot, and packed some sandwiches. While packing sandwiches Melissa and Alyssa graced us with their music.

We then paused to have a time of worship and devotions which I have been enjoying every day so far this trip, and then headed out onto the road towards Chaco Canyon.

While on the road we enjoyed seeing the Entrada Sandstone which is the bright red layer of rock which can bee seen all around Rehoboth.

After a little more than an hour on the paved roads we turned off onto the dirt road that leads us Chaco Canyon. This road was very exciting. It was very bumpy and slightly muddy and there was one particular hill in which we were unsure if we were going to make it up the slope or not. We made it just fine though and arrived at the visitor’s center a little before noon.

Melissa presented some interesting points about Chaco Canyon and its people, including the ancient people’s interest in astronomy. This interest can be seen in their famous Sun Dagger. This is a structure of three rocks next to wall of the Fajada Butte (the Butte is pictured below, but the Dagger cannot be seen). On the summer solstice, equinox, and the winter solstice a dagger of light shines through the rock onto the wall and lines up on a spiral which was carved into the wall. This is similar to the idea of the stone hedge, though more sophisticated because of its ability to show a dagger of light on four different occasions each year onto a very specific and small location.

We were not able to go up to this butte to see the dagger, but we were able to walk around some ruins near the visitor’s center. We all became very photo-happy and at many points throughout the trip we got at least 10 different angles of the same feature.

The Chaco people not only had petroglyphs (pictures carved into the wall like the Sun Dagger), but they were a pueblo people and they built large 3-5 story high stone cities. We were able to walk around in one of these ruins, Pueblo Bonito. This supplied many, many more photo opportunities:

Calvin is having a picture contest for the off-campus interim trips. We were trying to be clever with this one below and thought that this would be a possibility for an entry. We would love it if you could submit a possible caption which could go along with this photo by adding a comment to this blog entry.

At 4:30pm we depart Chaco Canyon so that we would be back to Rehoboth in time for dinner. After dinner we went out to look at the constellations. I did not know very many constellations so this was a fantastic learning opportunity for me. We then made use of the Rehoboth telescope which is much smaller than ours and is just meant to look through the eye piece instead of taking pictures like ours. We were then able to see the Orion Nebula which was very interesting.

All in all we had a wonderful day! Preview to tomorrow: Mike DeYoung will lead us on a tour of the Bisti Badlands and Alyssa will present some information on the K-T boundary.

~Anna DeKievit

Post on January 9 2009

Melissa Haegert — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:22:04 GMT

Being one of the few among us that has actually had a semblance of a healthy amount of sleep in the last few days, I (Melissa) was up early to watch the sunrise. The sun found the tips of the western Hogback ridge first, and I (along with my cold, battery-power-starved camera) watched it slip down past the craggy ridges to find the frosty domes on the lower ridge. The early morning and late evening are the best times to watch the shadows move through the mountains, slipping in and out of hidden crannies amid the piñon trees and sagebrush.

Piñon trees, sagebrush and rabbitbrush—I learned their names from Mike DeYoung today, after I’d tramped all over them trying to find my way through the snow to the top of the nearest ridge. Mike, the local geologist/information technology go-to man for the city of Rehoboth, also told us that these ridges are covered with petrified wood and raw uranium ore. I climbed through all of this geological history to get to the top of the nearest ridge, from which I could see the sunlit layers of the nearby Pyramid Rock and Church Rock.

The layered ridges impress upon me a multi-layered understanding of God. I know the God who painted the landscape in front of me, who dazzles my eyes with the sparkles of the snow, who puts my favorite color in the western sky forty degrees above the ridge thirty minutes after sunset. But at the same time, I know that the yellow strip of rock inside the raised ridges is uranium, and the whole city of Gallup was a “beach town” hundreds of millions of years ago when the Southwest was covered by sea, and there are fossil layers on the tops of the Sandia mountains… And I’m deep in between layers of a God who calls me to explore further, to climb higher, to learn more astronomy and geology, and to know him and love him more completely each day.

Now you might not think of fighting with a dome motor as real astronomy, but it is; to me, it’s a great example of the real science that I often forget about. Real science is pushing the limits of equipment that is all too often just a little tired of doing its job; real science is poking and prodding said equipment until it divulges all the secrets of its operation; real science is head-scratching and flashlight-probing and quite a bit of clunking and clamoring.

All that to say, we believe we are very close to solving our dome motor problem, the one that makes our telescope take pictures of the inside of a dark, blank wall at 3:00 in the morning when all good little telescopes should be happily gazing at the starry sky. A lot of progress was made today, on our catch-up-on-sleep-and-fix-up-things-at-Rehoboth day. Most of the dome motor progress was made by the people inside the dome; however, a mix of boredom and over-enthusiastic artistic ability created a most delightful snowman right next door. With hat and glasses and sagebrush-arms, it adeptly resembled our dearly loved fearless leader.

The sunset crew (of which I was a member) left the dome motor problem this evening at a summons from the kitchen, and returned to find a gourmet meal of chili and pasta and salad and avocado and orange-pineapple-apple juice. No need to fear our starving; with Jess and Josh and Alyssa as cooks (and Anna as catering service) we’ll be enjoying fine dining for this trip.

Our afternoon was full of an hour of prayer, scripture and singing, then a presentation by Mike DeYoung on the geology of the Southwest. Mike had an extensive collection of rocks to pass around, each with features to supplement his tale of the area’s dynamic history. In the days to come, we’ll be able to trace this history through the landscape around us as we explore the area.

Layers… layers of a God we can touch and see, layers of a God who wants us to explore. The heavens and skies are proclaiming the glorious works of God, and the ageless, shifting land is ceaselessly echoing their praise for our listening ears.

Melissa Haegert

Taste of Tomorrow: Delectable breakfast bright and early (7 o’clock) at Grandpa’s Grill, followed by the prehistoric astronomy of Chaco Canyon.

Arrival

Rebecca Haferkamp — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:12:59 GMT

Jan. 8, 2009

Rebecca here. We are currently without internet, so I hope you forgive me if this entry repeats some stuff from the introduction.

We flew into Albuquerque (ABQ) yesterday with minimal snow delays. Baggage also came through just fine, and while Prof. Molnar got the rental van we all found a big sunpatch to wait in. We had lunch at a House of Bread that one of Prof. Molnar’s friends has recently opened, then visited the Natural History and Science Museum for two hours before they closed. The sun was setting as we left, and gave some very good pictures of the Sandia mountains (though with power lines in front). I’ve been spoiled growing up in the Southwest, and have some high hopes of still better sunsets while we’re all out here, but better sunsets usually mean clouds and worse observing, so there are mixed sentiments to the idea. But either way, whatever you see from our cameras is nothing compared to actually being here!

The trip to Rehoboth was a two hour drive, accompanied by John Denver, LOTR, Veggietales, etc. which we transmitted to the car radio from Luke’s ipod, which was plugged into the cigarette lighter. On the way we got a phone call from the observing team in Grand Rapids. They were having trouble accessing the Rehoboth computer, and it turns out that the internet was down for the whole complex at Rehoboth.

After getting settled into our dorm rooms (They have a dorm set up for visiting college students; mostly from Calvin), we all went out to see the observatory dome here. Most of us have personal experience using the internet to run this telescope from Grand Rapids, but few of us have ever actually seen it before in person, so it was a very special occasion.

This telescope is different than the telescope that we use at Calvin, because we usually just give it a computer program telling it what things we want to see during the night, and then it takes pictures without anyone having to stay awake to tell it what to do. However, the telescope has been having some trouble as it follows objects to the west late at night, so when we got here we checked it out a little bit as a group, and then after supper Prof. Molnar and Melissa stayed up even later doing more in-depth debugging. The current theory is that there is some trouble with the teeth of the motor skipping as it pulls the dome around, and it is probably related to the cold weather. The main problem resulting from this is that the telescope will be facing the right object, but the window of the dome will be facing a different direction so the telescope can’t see through it, and just takes pictures of the ceiling instead of stars. Hopefully it will be easy to fix once diagnosed so we can run our plans reliably again! We know that some of you are praying for us, and we would like you to remember this as well.

Some of us early risers were fortunate enough to check email this morning before the internet went down again: it has usually been quite reliable when we connect to the telescope from Grand Rapids, so this is abnormal and will probably be fixed soon. I am currently writing this just on a local computer, so by the time we post this so you can read it, we should have internet again. In the meantime, today is a day to sort out logistics and to catch up on sleep after a roughly 20-hour day for most of us yesterday.

12/Jan/2009 update: Actually it turned out I posted this during a five-minute internet window (currently Google and Calvin's page both work, but not much else: half of Gallup has been down, so we're not sure what's up but I'm posting quick before it dies again). Pictures were not available at the time, so are now included below. Hold your mouse over them for captions.

Introductory Remarks

Larry Molnar — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:04:06 GMT

The interim course "Astronomy in the Southwest" will approach our topic from several directions at once.

1) We will visit a variety of observatories, and see firsthand how the southwest is a base for state-of-the-art astronomy.

2) We will do astronomy directly in a variety of ways. We will do a little maintenance on our own observatory in Rehoboth, New Mexico, and we will use it for a variety of observing projects. We will also use some of the larger telescopes in Flagstaff, Arizona, to do real research projects. And of course we will do some "eyeball observing" with binoculars and telescopes to enjoy the crisp, dark southwestern skies.

3) We will look at the Earth as astronomers, visiting geological sites that exhibit the history of the planet, and especially the history of impacts on the planet.

4) Finally, we will visit some historical site, from which humans have viewed the heavens over millenia.

In this blog, we plan to have one student post each day a synopsis of our day, along with some photos.

We are all excited about the events that are planned. We also know to expect some surprises and alternative plans. Since much of what we will do depends on weather conditions, things may be rearranged a bit, some things may be cancelled. This is a natural part of doing real science, and will give us a greater appreciation of the things that work as planned! As a teacher, I am looking forward to working as a team with all the students and making the most of our opportunities together. We hope you friends and family reading along will find this blog helps you to share in our experience.

Larry Molnar