Resonant Constellation

I spent last night at the 61″ Kuiper Telescope for the fifth and probably last time this summer. Monsoon season is fast approaching, and Steward Observatory telescopes will be practically inactive for the next month or two. Since this is my last real observing trip this season, my mood was pensive. Throughout the night our observations were dogged by clouds, oftentimes thick enough to completely obscure our target. We closed the telescope early and started on our way down the mountain at 5 AM.

This turned out to be a fortuitous choice. The sun had not yet risen, but it was light outside (thanks to Rayleigh Scattering), so that we could see. I’ve driven down in both pitch dark and brilliant sunlight and I must say, the pre-dawn blue glow that we experienced on our drive down was far preferable to either. I remarked to Jared (my co-operator for this current observing season) that the view seemed to be a lot nicer at this time of day for some reason. Perhaps it is the quality of the light, giving distant objects a majestic hazy blue cast, perhaps it was simply my reaction to being outdoors after being cooped up for quite a while.

On our way down we saw a young deer standing by the side of the road. Jared expressed a desire to see a huge bear, though I felt that this might not be the most fun experience ever. While we did not see any other wildlife, the views were simply incredible. I’ve been observing at this telescope about fifteen times and I’ve never been so impressed by the view on the way down as I was this morning.

About fifteen minutes into our drive, we rounded a bend headed east and were treated to an amazing sunrise. In the west, the sky was still a dark purple-blue, while over the ridge just to our right it changed gradually to pink, then to copper. The clouds were illuminated from below by golden light, and some of the higher clouds appeared steel-grey in the center with thin fringes of gold all the way around the edges.

It’s experiences like this that make me realize that, no matter how hard (or tiring, ridiculous, or mind-boggling) my job can be sometimes, there are certain little rewards that few people ever get to experience. I feel pretty lucky that I not only get to do this really cool work, but people also pay me to do it.  It seems ridiculous, right?