[live blogging] astronomy field camp by Fatima A. '25
sky stalking in tenerife
14/01/2025 20:00
this IAP, i am in Tenerife for 12.411 (astronomy field camp), which is an observational astronomy lab intensive class that satisfies the thesis requirement for astronomy minors and some unknown requirement for course 12 (earth and planetary science) majors. as part of the class, we work on various research projects, taking and reducing our own data. usually, we take projects various people are working on and obtain the data they need as part of a larger project. the class ends with final presentations and write-ups to the PI that explain the data taken and results deduced. today, i am observing at Artemis, which is a 1m optical infrared telescope part of the SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) program which hunts for exoplanets around cool stars (Jan T. ’26 disagrees). i am here with Jayna E. ’27 and since both of us are driving this for the first time, Jensen (TA) and Amius are teaching us how to use it. the procedure for running Artemis is fairly automated so I will be heading over to IAC-80 (80cm telescope) at some point and then, the observing shall continue until some point in the morning. Wahoo.
14/01/2025 22:01
we had to wait until around 8:40p for one of the exoplanet targets to become high enough to be visible because we were unclear on the exposure times. the way Artemis works is that you write a small operating plan for each of your targets with details of how you want it to be observed: filter, exposure time, binning etc. These files are chained together and input to a script which runs them automatically. So, you can let it run on its own once you have all the input files and leave early (wahoo). Dinner happened around 9-10p, then back to the grind!
notable things that happened during dinner: i got bullied by Prajna N. ’25, i was asked to publicly apologize to Prajna for bullying her, i dropped my fork, we learned that Jensen is a elder sibling, Jayna was bullied for being young (“i am 19” she screams).
14/01/2025 22:40
after double-checking scripts for the night, we headed over to IAC-80 (for the vibes, we didn’t have to). here, we joined Prajna and Zimi, the drivers, Artem (!!) (father of Artemis and one of our instructors), and Kaylee B. ’26 (who observed with me on IAC-80 and was teaching the others) and Matthew.
here, we learned that Jensen has watched Dhoom 2 and knows the song Amplifier (??), which was not on my bingo card for Tenerife. now, we are listening to banger Malayalam songs. i am not actually on observing duty for IAC-80 today, so i will be locking out and maybe fix my life and work on this blog.
15/01/2025 2:22
in my attempts to “fix my life,” i decided to look at graduate schools that require fall grades, which led to a long series of crying over graduate school applications, where i stressed out over grades, not having a focus, etc. among other things. in this time, Prajna submitted her last graduate school application (wahoo!) and the rest of us swam in a sea of anxiety while Jensen provided his wisdom.
some Ws that were had: Matthew put his best score on Minesweeper by 10 seconds (to 120 seconds)!! we found a supernova in a nice, big galaxy! we added another Koronis asteroid target! Jensen had a conversation in Spanish with the telescope operator which was very impressive. other than that, a lot of unhinged content was produced. the drivers want you to know that the seeing has gone up to 2.2, tragic.
driver quotes:
Prajna: “my mom thought i would never learn to drive but if she could look at me now”
me: “she would be like you still can’t”
Zimi: “i hate when the machine learns more than i do”
the science.
today on the IAC-80, we are observing multiple supernovae and Koronis targets, which are (Prajna, Jayna)’s and (Zimi, Matthew)’s projects respectively. here is a bit about their projects:
Matthew: One of my projects is focusing on the Koronis asteroid family. It’ll be part of a long-duration project tracking the rotation vectors of asteroids in the asteroid belt. It’s hypothesized that the Koronis family was once one larger asteroid that broke apart (possibly from a collision). By observing the current motion of the asteroids, we can go backwards to hopefully discover how the asteroids were formed :3
Zimi: The axes of rotation of the Koronis asteroids are all aligned in one of two directions, which is also strange (since over time, the directions should have randomized). If we observe an asteroid for 5 years, we can determine its axis of rotation! Some asteroids on our list will be observed for their 5th year this month :000 so exciting
Prajna: We are working on categorizing recently discovered supernovae using photometric data! Basically that means we hunt for transients that were discovered in the last couple days in large online databases, and try to observe their change in brightness using our lovely telescopes here. To be able to categorize supernovae, we need at least one week of continuous observations. The challenges are that 1) supernovae can either brighten or fade in the few days past initial discovery and if we catch them in the fading part of the curve, they may be too faint to see in our images for a full week of observations 2) sometimes supernovae get eaten by gigantic space monsters and we can’t see them period (paraphrasing Jayna’s words here)
15/01/2025 3:15
we are moving to Tampere, one of the Koronis asteroids. we tried a new supernova target but the moon was working against us as per usual. i tried to turn Jensen back to the dark side, that is theory, but to no avail. the attempts will continue though :sneaky:
sprinkled between running in to make sure everything was running all well, there was conversation about things one could do over a gap year. it seems reasonable to do something related to one’s field or just go out into the woods and become a park ranger.
14/01/2025 3:53
we lost Jensen. Kales and Matthew are also finally gone because according to Kales, “it is just not as fun without Jensen.” Prajna has officially “lost it.” i have been working on one of my last remaining graduate school applications.
15/01/2025 4:36
humidity went up from 0.9% to 7% (which is not a problem at all, but still a jump) and wind speed went up to 31 km/hr, which could be a problem if it keeps rising. the telescope closes at wind speeds around 45 km/hr, which happened yesterday. fingers crossed.
15/01/2025 5:43
everything is going well and quietly at the telescope. i am heading back now, but the drivers will stay until about 7 when they will close up the telescope and return. more updates when i wake up!