Extragalactic Journey

IAU -Rio de Janeiro

2009-08-21T20:07:00.007-04:00

I had the opportunity to attend the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro last week. Rio is a great city although a bit too polluted for my comfort. My hotel room overlooked Copacabana and I really enjoyed waking to the sunrise over the beach. I went to the dinner at Pâo de Açucar which was a wonderful view at night. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera, so no pictures. I danced the Salsa and had Caipirinhas until late. I visited the Botanical Garden. Below is a picture of the fountain at the entrance and an orchid from the orchid house.

I went to the Christ the Redeemer statue at Corcovado and met a great guide who took us several places along the Corcovado mountain. Here is a picture of me holding the Christ!

We hired him to take us to the Tijuca Rain Forest, which I highly recommend. It was much better than the city, and we hiked up to Tijuca Peak which is a pretty steep climb. Here is a picture of me at the top. I highly recommend this guide. If you want his information, send me an email and I will give it to you. He speaks English, Spanish, and French (and of course Portuguese).

I am currently in the middle of completing my thesis, so I doubt I will have much time to post in the near future. I have a post-doc at UCLA with Ned Wright to work on the WISE mission. No more trips until after I start the new position. Tchau!

Is God a Mathematician?

2009-04-30T09:07:00.004-04:00

Mario Livio gave a talk at CUA about his new book Is God a Mathematician? He is a really great speaker and the book is a page turner. Dr. Livio is an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (home of Hubble Space Telescope operations) and has published hundreds of papers. I just wanted to post some images that I took from the talk. They did not come out that well.

In this picture, he is discussing the notion of mathematics being an invention or discovered. He uses the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio as examples.

Long Beach

2009-01-22T20:52:00.006-05:00

I went to the AAS in Long Beach, CA to give a dissertation presentation. Wow, that was stressful, but I got a lot of great feedback and questions. I presented my results for taking nearby galaxies and making them look as if they are much further away. This helps astronomers find out if distant galaxies have the same properties as nearby galaxies.

One plus side of my visit to Long Beach was the extra days I spent as a tourist. So I present here a few pictures....

You can actually see the Aquarium in the background of this beautiful ship in the sunset.

This fish (Bird Wrasse) at the Aquarium was showing off for me. I called him Dancer, because he was so showy and seemed to be dancing for me.

My mom and I went on a whale watching tour and saw some dolphins. I like the way this picture came out with the dolphin shimmering under the water. No whales though....

The Onion

2008-12-22T10:12:00.004-05:00

This is the best Onion article. Ever.

Holiday Dinner '08

2008-12-18T09:55:00.005-05:00

Well, this blog has come full circle. I started with a post of our holiday dinner last year and now I present this year's holiday dinner. Same restaurant, more people.... We took two tables. I don't have pictures of the remaining part of the night. We went dancing at the Black Cat, which had a DJ doing an 80's mix. He was great and we all had a good time. At least, those that went. And, yes, Chris (top picture) is showing his special finger. Happy Holidays to anyone who reads this blog!

Martinique

2008-11-24T09:31:00.004-05:00

We had a meeting in Martinique: When the Universe Formed Stars. I met a lot of great people, had some fun on the beach and at the Clement rum distillery. The picture here is of a rainbow adjacent to Mt. Pelee (active volcanic mountain). This is the view from our room. I guess I am continuing the rainbow theme. I hope to add more pictures later.

Rainbow Over Kitt Peak

2008-09-30T23:10:00.003-04:00

Well, with the rain sometimes a beautiful sight can be seen. We may not be able to observe, but at least I got to see the above. It has been rainy for the past two nights. Maybe some luck will be with us tomorrow.

Kitt Peak National Observatory

2008-09-29T06:02:00.003-04:00

I know it has been awhile since I posted. I am at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, observing with the WiYN 0.9-m telescope. We had some bad weather at the beginning of the night, but that made for a great sunset with rain in the distance. The telescope on the left is the WiYN 3.5-m. I hope to add more pictures soon.

Haiku

2008-03-05T11:32:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I enjoy writing haiku poetry. Here are a couple about Linux and Windows --this does not refer to astrophysics, but I use a Linux OS to do my research. I think you can guess what each is referring to:

Haiku 1:

open source never go back
use shell script command
chmod, cd, whoami

Haiku 2:

menu leads to little choice
unceasing updates
reboot ten times, perhaps done?

These were inspired by Travis's post.

The Vatican, Chile & Astrophysics

2008-02-22T12:06:00.004-05:00

This week we had two visitors to the physics department: Dr. Jose Funes and Dr. Leopoldo Infante. Dr. Funes is the director of the Vatican Observatory and Dr. Infante is an astrophysicist from Catholic University in Chile. Dr. Funes gave a great talk Wednesday, the 20th, at our dept. colloquium. He discussed the evolution of local galaxies and HUGS a survey of galaxies with a distance less than 11 Mpc. Afterwards, we had a nice reception and poster session for the graduate students to discuss research with the guests.

Thursday, the 21st, Elysse (pictured in posts below) and I were invited to dinner with the two esteemed guests along with Dr. Duilia de Mello (my advisor), Dr. Steve Kraemer and Dr. Fred Bruhweiler from the department. We went to a place called Poste in D.C. The chef prepared a special vegan three course meal for me. It was very delicious and I felt included, which is rare at fancy restaurants for a vegan.

What a momentous event for me and the department. I apologize for not having pictures at the moment. I will attempt to get some and put them up later.

Blue Blobs & the Smith Cloud

2008-01-22T15:42:00.003-05:00

Just a quick update.

While at the AAS 2008 meeting in Austin, TX, my advisor got a press release interview, concerning "blue blobs" that exist in the intergalactic medium between the M81/M82 interacting galaxy system (see image below). If you Google "blue blobs" (quotes inclusive) you get this, which is substantial publicity for my advisor!

Furthermore, a previous advisor, Jay Lockman, back in 2000 when I interned at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV is in the news with his presentation at the AAS meeting as well. He has discovered that a cloud, called the Smith Cloud after its discoverer Gail Smith, is merging with our galaxy the Milky Way. If you go here you will find the NPR report.

Austin AAS 2008 Meeting

2008-01-14T16:56:00.000-05:00

We went to the Austin Texas American Astronomical Society meeting. This is a very large meeting encompassing all topics of astrophysics in the form of small talks and poster presentations.

Above is a picture of my poster presentation, myself (left), and my advisor Duilia (right). Many people stopped by to inquire about my poster, which was very helpful. If you click on the image (and get a hand lens) you can get more detail of the poster.

We got a picture of the CUA graduate students in front of Lynnae's poster. We are (from left to right) Sara, Elysse, Lynnae, and Marcio. Bryan was also at the meeting, but we could not find him in time for the picture.

I apologize for the lack of pictures of Austin, but it was a quick and busy meeting. Austin is a very nice city. Lynnae and I attempted to go on a horse and carriage ride, but it did not work out. I do have an image of the hot sauce I brought back.

Holiday Dinner

2007-12-16T19:22:00.000-05:00

Here are pictures of our holiday outing, including CUA physics grad students (+one NMSU student --Ryan), my advisor Duilia, Travis, and David (a post-doc at the Goddard Space Flight Center). We went to a Chinese place in Chinatown in downtown DC. They have a large vegan/vegetarian menu and it is good....