Duxford Girl

I've been dabbling in astronomy for about 15 years now. It started when I was working on my undergrad. I went to the University of Lethbridge (www.uleth.ca), a liberal-arts university, which means that they encourage students to round out their course load with a variety of subjects outside of a chosen major. Translation: I was forced to take science courses. In fact, I took so much Anthropology, I have a minor in it. Anthropology is fun. There's lots of juicy and weird stuff that can keep even the most bored student involved (most of it about ancient cultures and their sexual habits). Then there's Sociology. In some courses, back-dated Hello Magazines could be the required reading. I took one course that was entirely about romance books and soap operas (I was frequently late for that course as Days of Our Lives was on right before the time slot of the course).

Eventually though, I had to suck it up and take a “harder” science to fulfil the requirements of my degree. I originally tried to get into a forensic anthropology course that would have required me to spend time in an autopsy room. My sole motivation in wanting to take this course was to be like my beloved Agent Scully. I was a huge X-Files fan in uni with a giant crush on Gillian Anderson. I had suits like hers that I wore for performances and my hair was bobbed and dyed her exact colour of red. There were a few differences. I'm 3 inches taller than Ms. Anderson and back then I outweighed her by about 7000 pounds (now, it's only about 3000 pounds). In the end though, I didn't get into the course. It was required for nursing students and filled up fast.

Astronomy seemed least threatening, particularly since I'd always had a keen interest in the Canadian Space Agency (www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/default.asp) and NASA (www.nasa.gov). Apparently, I'd forgotten that there's more to test pilots and slow-motion walks out of the hangar because I was soon up to my ears in physics and (gag, gag) math. Still, it was interesting enough material that I soldiered through my assignments with a decent amount of success (failing that, a friend of my boyfriend at the time was in the course and was always willing to let me copy his work). The trips to the uni observatory were cold but informative. My first glimpse at the rings of Saturn through a 14 inch scope is a moment that I will never forget. It was also the year of Hale-Bopp (www2.jpl.nasa.gov/comet) which provided plenty of discussion and good viewing. In the end, I passed the course with a decent enough grade.

A few years later, I leveraged my smattering of astronomical knowledge into a date with an amateur astronomer I met at a cadet band concentration I was teaching at. The first date out to the observatory went well because six months later, I was married to said astronomer (yeah, that's right. Evil Scientist and I met at band camp. Laugh it up). I started to attend Royal Astronomical Society of Canada meetings with the Calgary Chapter (http://calgary.rasc.ca), a group my husband had been with since he was a kid. I attended talks and public star nights and even published their newsletter The Starseeker, for a number of years but did very little gazing through an actual scope. When I started with a shift work job, I stopped having a life and my association with the group faded like a faint fuzzy in the middle of the Calgary night sky.

However, this summer I was able to attend summer star parties and actually join the astronomy crowd in gazing longingly into the heavens. We went to the Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve in Saskatchewan (http://www.ras.sk.ca/lpc/dsp/dsp.htm) for the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party (http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/rasc/starparty.html). The first night I went to bed early and as it turned out, it rained anyway. The next night I decided to try some astro-photography with my D60 on a tripod. Evil Scientist showed me how to adjust the camera and use the remote control. These are shot with a speed of 1600 ASA on a manual setting using a variety of times as I was just kind of experimenting.



My first astro-photo: Constellation Cassiopeia.



Although the park is a dark sky preserve, the road beside it is not. The tent that looks like it's glowing has a new technology that allows astronomers to hook up a video screen to a TV so a person can watch the stars from the comfort of their bug tent.



The Big Dipper or Ursa Major.



Stars tracking around Polaris.



The red line in the sky is an aircraft (or possibly a satellite). It's most likely an a/c given the size and I think the dotted line may be created by one of the nav lights blinking.

I went to bed around midnight. Because of my health problems, it's important for me to stay on a regular sleep schedule so I can't pull all-nighters (even when I want to).

Stay tuned for Got the Bug Part II