Happy 2008 everyone!
So in true Aries style, my hobbies have expanded this year.
After putting my Masters in Astronomy on hold for a while, I thought I’d get back into more observational Astronomy. It’s been a long time since I was an active observer. After acquiring a nice pair of 10 x 50 Nikon binoculars over […]

This last weekend we spent the day north of LA at the famous Griffith Observatory, reportedly the most visited observatory in the world. The original building was built in the 1930’s, for public use, on land gifted by Colonel Griffith J. Griffith. Recently the city totally renovated it and constructed a host of new exhibits […]

We recently got to name our own star! We decided to name if after our wedding date and chose to make the name sound authentic, as if part of an established stellar catalog.

For our 2nd wedding anniversary we spent the weekend up at Big Bear lake. Just getting there was an adventure. On the Friday it started snowing up on the mountain and the status of the two roads up the mountain changed to snow chains required. There being no need for snow chains in San Diego, […]

Semester #4 ends tomorrow. This has been the toughest semester so far, but also the most enjoyable, I think. Galaxies and the cosmos is a fascinating and broad subject. I finally understand all the different types of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) now, whereas before I didn’t realise there was a unified model to explain quasars, […]

Semester #3 of my course is over today, and it felt really good to submit my final project paper last night. I have some results and hope to have the rest in the next couple of weeks.
So today I am enjoying my new freedom, and think I’ll spend the day doing nothing in particular - […]

Being a mature student is tough.
As each semester nears I get excited and eager to start. After about 3 or 4 weeks I succomb to the work and get bogged down in keeping up with everyone else who seems to spend 24 hours a day studying! They don’t of course, but it feels like it. […]

Semester #3 is just under 2 weeks away from starting and so I am in preparation mode: Scanning my textbooks, gathering my thoughts, etc. This semester is “Tools of Modern Astronomy”, covering observation techniques such as optical telescope types, radio, x-ray, CCD photography, high energy particle astronomy, etc.
In other news, my novel is progressing nicely. […]