Laboring on Labor Day Weekend
No one can predict the weather. That’s even true for world-class astronomers and astrophysicists. As a result, the world’s premier facilities for collecting astronomical data, such as Kitt Peak National Observatory, are staffed year-round regardless of weekdays or holidays, so that we can take advantage of clear, stable skies whenever they occur. The only exception the observatory makes most years is Christmas and Christmas Eve. This year, one of my shifts happens to fall over Labor Day Weekend. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Kevin off the coast of Baja California is also pumping lots of moisture up here, so we’re spending some of our time waiting, watching and hoping the skies will clear.
Of course, even with clouds, it’s not all waiting around, doing nothing until the skies clear. Over the course of the summer monsoon shutdown, a new Telescope Control System was installed at the Mayall 4-meter telescope. All indications are this new control system had made great improvements in the pointing and tracking performance of a 45-year old telescope, getting it ready for a new world-class spectrograph that will be installed over the coming years. Still, it means I get to learn how to drive the telescope all over again, and it’s best if I do that on these cloudy nights so I’m ready to go when the skies clear and astronomers go hunting those photons that may have taken thousands, millions, or even billions of years to reach us.
Keeping busy right now is good, since my editor dropped me a note at the beginning of the week, saying that she’s started editing my horror novel, The Astronomer’s Crypt. So now I’m at that nail-biting stage of wondering which scenes she’ll like and which ones she’ll want rewritten. Her note mentioned that I better not give her nightmares. I can’t help but wonder if my horror novel fails to give her nightmares will I have have succeeded or failed! Seriously, though, these dark and stormy nights that we’re having at the observatory right now are not a little like the one described in the novel. Stay tuned for more news!
Working Labor Day Weekend also means that I have the following weekend off, which means I get to display my books in Artist’s Alley at Las Cruces Comic Con. You can find more information about the event at: http://lascrucescomiccon.org/. I’ll be in the vendor hall all three days of the event. For all my friends in Las Cruces, I hope you’ll drop by the table and say “hi!”
