Well, after sleeping in[Yeah for sleep!], we headed to the Bradbury Science Museum for Don's lecture on Radio Astronomy. Radio waves, we learned, travel very well through the atmosphere and can penetrate dust and clouds, unlike light. This provides for 24/7 viewing of signals:o)
Karl Jansky, who worked for Bell Labs found radio waves coming from outside the earth and sun, and a unit of flux strength is named for him - the Jansky.
Don pointed out some areas where radio activity was high - Cassiopeia, Cygnus, and Sagittarius.
He then went on to talk about different telescopes - such as the ones in Arecibo in Puerto Rico being used for SETI:o) [Random Side note: My computer at home has seti@Home running on it - and it's analyzing data from the Arecibo Obs. all the time:o)]
Then, Don gave a spiffy demonstration of interferometry:o) Interferometry is using a bunch of receivers and using the fact that the radio wave will hit it at different times and taking all the data and figuring out what the wave looked like. Anyway, we got to actually see, with the help of some overheads, how exactly the wave would pass through the different receivers and how this amplifies the information we are recieving:o)

Well, after the lecture, we hit the hotel to grab our swimsuits and then went over to Galen's house. Most of us - except Jim and Steve and andy who stayed behind to play chess[what a surprise;)] - then went to the community pool for some swimming:o) We played some basketball in the pool:o) But then it was time for lane swimming or something and we had to get out.
We then headed back to Galen's house for food and some of us then went out to play badmitton:o) This resulted in many birdies on the roof and in bushes and trees....;) It started raining while we were out there and we got a pretty rainbow:o)
We went inside for desert and some playing with instruments:o) Galen had pulld out some recorders, a trombone, a conch, a harp... We tried to play and sing Pie Jesu:o) Christine pulled out her guitar for some sing-a-long - breakfast at Tiffany's, Puff the Magic Dragon, Blowin' in the Wind, etc.

We then started Contact - a nice movie to tie in the the afternoon's radio astronomy lecture and a nice prep for our visit to the VLA:o)

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This page last updated November 13, 2000.