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National Optical Astronomy Observatory of Japan
May 22, 2012 Just a few kilometers down the road from JAXA where I’d spent the summer of 2011 was 天文台通り, “heaven language hill avenue”. By some combination of my lack of kanji comprehension and the...
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Matsushima: pine-covered islands
May 23, 2012 I’d spent last spring reading news reports and watching footage of 東日本大震災 (“the big earthquake disaster of Eastern Japan”), especially of the tsunami that traveled six miles inland in...
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A week at Arecibo Observatory
A little over a week ago I arrived at the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world. My boss picked me up at the airport and drove me up into the hills of Puerto Rico’s karst country where I...
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On Friday’s holiday, a postdoc and I trundled down to the beach to go swimming. Protected by rocky arms, this tiny cove remained still as giant waves broke over the brown barriers. I swum out in the...
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Into the telescope
If you visit Arecibo Observatory, you’ll probably see the suspended platform from the visitor center. It’s a great view. Better is the view from the cable car, or the platform itself. Best is from...
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Guiding out the waves: engineering planetary radar
I spent last week observing of asteroids from the telescope: our first night was just another 8-4 workday night, where we looked at space rocks in our neighborhood and out beyond Mars for eight hours....
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Sailing on the seas of Titan
It’s past 3 am and we’re observing asteroids with the Arecibo planetary radar system. In the lulls between experiments, Twitter conversations covered everything from the Russian bolide explosion, 2012...
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Scoping out the rowdy neighbors and baking Apophis cake
It’s been a pretty exciting week to be an asteroid researcher: you’d think the sky was falling! Really, it was just a confluence of some rowdy neighbors checking in on earth asking, “How’s that space...
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Temples of Matsushima-kaigan (松島海岸)
May 23, 2012 I left the islands of Matsushima and turned inland to the town, Matsushima-kaigan (松島海岸; pine island shore), home of a Zen Buddhist temple. With no guidebook and just a map, I decided to...
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Date-san, Daimyō of Sendai
May 23, 2012 Dan-chan, graduate student in forestry who does research in the jungles of Malaysia and Borneo and intrepid Fuji-san climbing guide, met me at the train station in Sendai. Who was this...
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ADS: How to find author names and affiliations
The astronomy and planetary science communities have a fantastic tool for finding scientific papers previously published: the Astrophysics Data System, or ADS, supported by NASA and run out of the...
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Kappabashi, Kitchen Town (合羽橋)
May 24, 2012 My last day in Tokyo dawned hot and dry. I thanked my generous host Hitomi profusely and headed out for some errands. I stashed my bags in a coin locker at a central station and headed...
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Leaving Tokyo: vegetables, electronics, kimono
May 24, 2012 My last night in Tokyo I wound up at dinner with Yuka, Yuki, Yumi, and Salvador (spot the outlier) at my favorite restaurant that Yuki found: 野菜の王様, King of Vegetables, in Hibiya. We’d...
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How planetary radar works at Arecibo Observatory
We know Arecibo Observatory for its 305-meter (1000-foot) diameter telescope and its appearances in Goldeneye and Contact. Aside from battling Bond villains and driving red diesel Jeeps around the...
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Boat and Beach Camping on Tomales Bay, 2013
August 17-18, 2013 Arriving at a beach on Tomales Bay by boat and spending the night must go back to the time of the Miwok. Inverness Yacht Club members have sailed, motored, paddled, and rowed to...
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Culebra (do not take the ferry)
July 25-28, 2013 I’d heard Culebra described as one of the “Spanish virgin islands”. A tiny dry island off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico with beautiful beaches and lots of snorkeling… what better...
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She had some horses (Part I)
October 4, 2013 I traveled to Denver for the 45th Division for Planetary Sciences conference in October, conveniently located three hours east of a dear friend of my mother. I drove west from the...
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She had some horses (Part II)
October 5, 2013 No horses in these shots, just afternoon light in western Colorado when snow melts off mountains and other animals say hi as horses graze. Drive a little bit east and you wind up in...
View ArticleTransmitting to the ISEE-3 spacecraft from Arecibo Observatory
“I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE” is what Dana must have heard. We were talking about the ISEE-3 spacecraft during lunch at Arecibo Observatory some day in early June, just another day on the job. The...
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