MKOOC

Hanging out at the monthly Mauna Kea Observatories Outreach Committee meeting. It's... well, it's a committee meeting. But it's about Mauna Kea outreach. Those two things kind of balance out.

Playing tour guide

One of the nice things about working at the Subaru Telescope is the opportunity to occasionally show family, friends or VIPs where I work, and explain what I do there.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to give a tour to a group led by Dr. Stephanie Langhoff, a molecular chemist who's Chief Scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center.

I hope someday I can get over to Ames for a tour.

Title change

I am in my final day of work as a Night Operation Assistant, and will become a Subaru Observation System Associate on August 1.

Astronomy fans are everywhere.

I run into astronomy fans in the strangest places. Here's the gift shop wall at Uganda's equator crossing, north of Masaka. Unfortunately, the guy who actually breaks out little telescopes and does star tours was in the city that day, but I explained to the guy on duty that I worked somewhere with a primary mirror about the same diameter as their gift shop building. :)

Greenmarket

I like Wednesdays at the UN, because the Samascott Orchards folk come down from Kinderhook in their truck and sell apples and cider and berries and apple muffins and apple oatmeal raisin cookies and so on, at the Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza Greenmarket. Yum. 

Mills Observatory

Have to send a shout-out to the Mills Observatory in Dundee, Scotland - the first observatory in the United Kingdom built entirely for public use, and the only observatory I've visited outside Hawaii.

Check out the observatory's page on Facebook.

UH 88-inch

 Check out this fan page for the telescope I used to run.  It's 40 years old this year.