{"id":4006,"date":"2012-05-07T01:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=4006"},"modified":"2012-05-06T19:12:48","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T05:12:48","slug":"astroday-2012-and-a-vis-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=4006","title":{"rendered":"Astroday 2012 and a VIS Lecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not had a bad cold in quite a while. Wednesday last week I felt the first symptoms, a sore throat beginning. I expected it, Deb had been suffering for a couple days by then. Thursday morning it was inescapable, I called in sick to work. I hoped it would be over by the weekend, I had promised to help out with Astroday and present a lecture on behalf of Keck at the Mauna Kea VIS. This would be the second run across island to Hilo in as many weeks, after almost a year without visiting Hilo, funny how that works.<\/p>\n

By Saturday morning things were better, but not great. So off to Hilo I went, a good dose of decongestant improving the situation. I may not have been at 100%, but I had commitments to keep.<\/p>\n

\"Astroday<\/a>
David Lynn manning the Keck table at Astroday 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>Astroday<\/a> is always fun, everyone from the astronomy community setting up tables and educational exhibits throughout the Prince Kuhio Plaza Mall<\/a> in Hilo. At this point I know so many of the folks there, even the guys from Hilo I only meet a few times each year. The event is really designed for kids, with plenty of activites and a little education mixed in.<\/p>\n

I manned the Keck table for a couple hours until David relived me. We did the Astro Haiku contest again. Not bad, but it was a repeat of last year. We really need to get some science experiment bling for our table next year. I have some ideas for that.<\/p>\n

Leaving the Prince Kuhio Mall I headed up Saddle Road to the Mauna Kea VIS. Promised to arrive by 4:15pm. At least a dinner would be waiting at the exclusive Chateau Hale Pohaku cafeteria.<\/p>\n

The lecture went very well. I talked about Keck behind the scenes, what it takes to keep a couple big telescopes on-sky. I used it as an opportunity to celebrate the great crew I work with on the mountain, to showcase their skill and dedication. I started by running Keck in Motion<\/a>. This nicely set the scene for a talk about telescope maintenance, segment exchange, schedules and the other tasks that make an observatory function.<\/p>\n

It is always gratifying when the audience is engaged, good questions, lots of banter back and forth. I respond to that sort of exchange by presenting an even better talk. I got a lot of feedback and thank-yous afterwards, a great payback for my efforts in putting the talk together.<\/p>\n

Then it was back down the mountain, descending 8,000ft… decongestant losing effect despite a new dose. I am still paying for the run, with a head feeling as if it is stuffed with sponge all day Sunday. I was scheduled to go up to the summit Monday. There is stuff in AO that really needs attention, there is just no way my sinuses will permit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not had a bad cold in quite a while. Wednesday last week I felt the first symptoms, a sore throat beginning. I expected it, Deb had been suffering for a couple days by then. Thursday morning it was inescapable, I called in sick to work. I hoped it would be over by the … Continue reading “Astroday 2012 and a VIS Lecture”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41,20],"tags":[424,2102,79,425],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}