Elliot Cantor: Astronomy/Astrophysics, Week Two

Week two was very good. I have pretty much just been perfecting my program to make it run as fast as possible, as running the entire thing takes around 20 minutes as I’m opening a large number of files that have an even larger amount of data in them. My Python programming skills have been getting better, as I now have all of the extra modules installed and working making everything much quicker and easier. One thing I’ve learned is that programming grants you the ability to be extremely lazy, as you can write programs to do basic things like save files, and open them, which takes usually about a single click or two by itself.

I got lost trying to find my way back to my office when I came back from lunch and found a laser lab and an astrochemistry lab. Exploration of those facilities has risen to the top of my priorities.

This Is Harvard Square. The funny thing about this though is that there are two CVS’s a good 50 feet away from another in the square. Why one when you can have two?

The Fourth of July happened. I got to see the fireworks atop an apartment building close to river, so that was good. The fireworks were timed to start right as the Boston Band was beginning to finish playing the 1812 Overture, so the fireworks would begin in conjunction with the cannons in the song, which was pretty cool. I have been spoiled though, seeing all the fireworks in Telluride, as you can get so close to where they are fired in Telluride, enhancing the overall experience. I was a decent distance away from the fireworks in Boston so they didn’t look as large and magnificent as they did at home.

One thing I thought was pretty funny was how most of the people I would talk to on the street when I would ask for directions were either tourists from Europe, or just had no idea about locations, and often they wouldn’t speak very good English, and just look at me strange. The subway is actually a very interesting place. You get to see so many different types of people, all in one small rectangular box. It’s also a good place to get a good read in, as there isn’t too much else to do.

On another note, I am beginning to create a model for the telescope transfer function of the James Webb Telescope. I have been reading a lot about it and all of the instruments on-board it. Some of the instruments on-board are meant for looking at galactic, stellar, and planetary formation. Because the galaxies and stars are so far away from us and are moving very fast away from us, and have been for a while, the instrument has to account for the redshift that happens to the light emitted by the galaxy or star, which, based on our perspective, increases the wavelength of the light. So some of the instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope are looking for those wavelengths, (the IR spectrum is a lot of those wavelengths) specifically.

The guy in the office across from me gave me a snazzy CfA mug, so that’s pretty cool. He has 50 of them in his office too.

This is a mug advertising the TEMPO project that is being worked on by the guy who gave me the mug. The TEMPO project is an instrument that when put on a satellite will measure the pollution in key places on the Earth every 60 minutes.

The food in Boston seems to be pretty good, as whenever I ate at restaurants I was able to get a good meal for under ten dollars. The ice cream is great as well. Overall, things are going well, and I’m enjoying Boston, but I still am having trouble understanding people with Boston accents.