Today we woke up late, and slept much. But, as a result, lunch was postponed somewhat.. We headed to the observatory to make flatfield exposures.
High clouds started to roll in with the looks of wanting to stay fo a long time..
Later in the afternoon, we decided to go eat somewhere, because of the weather. Unfortunately, there is no open restaurants after lunch time within 1400m below us. But as we were finding this out, we met 8 stranded guys on 4 scooters that had run out of gas on one of them. We decided to help them. We tried putting the scooter inside the car to take it to a gas station, but it didn't fit inside. So we gave a lift to three of them, and the guy on the "gasolineless" scooter grabbed our car on the window to take it up-hill. We went to the observatory in search for a hose to get gasoline from the car to the scooter, but hoses were all very thick and long! So we got back to the road and helped them to reach the down-hill part. We ended up taking them to the nearest gasoline station, 30km away through the mountain road. All four scooters dancing happily in front us us, as we descended the mountain road TF-24 in direction to La Esperanza, with the hope of gasoline in mind, reminded me of a Spanish television series a long time ago called "Verano Azul".. I even remembered its music: too-roo to-ro-ro too-roo..
We took this opportunity to buy stuff to eat for our dinner.
We finally got back to the observatory at 21:00 or slightly later..
The sky was cloudy the whole time. We could only see a few blurry stars near the zenith. Not a good time for measurements. This night we did not open the dome..
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
How to ruin simple, useful and mandatory interfaces
Our house has these water taps that have knobs... Well, this description does not exactly reveal how unique they are! Like hinted on the post about TASCS, the knobs are expertly crafted to possess extreme grip when dry, and not so when wetness is present! In the shower the cold water knob needs an initial offset rotation of half turn for water to start running, and then must keep about 3/2 of the rotation of the hot water counterpart so that temperature is kept constant (the water can get really hot, as noted on the post about our "home").
In the kitchen, the hot water knob is hard to turn (imagine your hands full of dish washing liquid). In Usability Design, there is an evaluation heuristic for this: H2-3 "Ensure user control and freedom". This "rule" was clearly violated!
On the shower, you have two knobs that don't have a feature that let you know how much has been opened or closed. The state of the system can only be extrapolated a posteriori based on the burning sensation upon skin contact with the water. If you are not the one taking the shower, you can also get a screaming sound as an indication of incorrect water mixture. The heuristic failing here is H2-1 "Ensure good visibility of system status".
Then on the bathroom sink, the cold water rotates the opposite way! A clear violation of usability heuristic H2-4 "use consistency and standards". So what?! - you ask - Ok, it takes you two iterations to open it, but when you want to close it, you naturally open it even more! Luckily the water goes directly to the fosset and does not ricochet anywhere; however, you now need two turns to close the water tap!
I could point out a few other heuristic violations, such as H2-5 "Design to prevent user errors", or H2-6 "Design to facilitate recognition rather than recall memory".. There are other water taps that only have a single handle to control both water throughputs, this is arguable if it is decent, but it would improve heuristic H2-7 "Provide for flexibility and efficiency of use"..
As someone said, "poor usability is everywhere"!.. Our water taps may not be the best in the world.. But without them, we would either drown or have no water!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Night #7 (2008/12/21) Visitor's night
During the week we had received an email from Jorge Prieto, from the IAC at La Laguna saying he would like to stop by on Sunday night to take a few astro-pictures of the sky using our electricity..
Indeed he came, and we had our first "external" visit!
While he went to set up his equipment we started our observation of WR140, our early night target.
Later when his camera was taking pictures of the Pleiades, he came inside the warmf of our observatory and we talked a bit. He was kind enough to invite us to visit the IAC-80, the 80cm telescope. We were in the middle our exposures of WR140 by this time, so only one of us could go visit. The lucky fellow who went was me! :) Thomas stayed at the observatory to guide our exposures, and make sure the target would stay on the spectrograph's slit.
I don't want to talk much about the impressive IAC-80 now, because it was dark (telescope in use, we weren't allowed to light anything inside the dome) and because this deserves a separate post later when me and Thomas visit it again in daylight. But it was a pleasant visit! Guiding is not done manually there! It is now being used for photometry.. I promise more details later :)
Anyway, I had to go back to MONS before Thomas would end our observation of WR140, so that we could point the telescope to our next target. One can do it, but two people do it better and faster.
So we proceeded to WR 1, and for the second consecutive time, we could find it. Success again! After practicing and knowng our targets, finding them becomes almost easy..
Around midnight our visiting astrophotographer from the IAC had to leave.. These people work in astronomy and need to be in an office during the day the next day? Well, I guess it happens.
We had taken no spectra of Oe stars recently so, after WR 1, those were our zenith-close targets (HD 45314 and HD 60848). These are two of the only eight known Oe type stars... These are special giant stars that have strong emission lines.. But I will talk about them later as well.
Unfortunately, we were so tired that we both fell a sleep while guiding on the last exposure of HD 45314.. On that exposure, the star drifted out of the slit, and very little light made it through to the CCD camera!
The curious thing about sleeping, is that when you wake up, you wake up! Indeed we woke up and were still able to point to the second Oe star. Of course, at 6:00 am, as soon as our priority target list was finished, we wanted to go to bed!
Still, this was again a succesful night, because we images the only 2 Oe stars visible at this time from our location. We had not pointed at them because of bad weather, that have cut our night down to half.
Indeed he came, and we had our first "external" visit!
While he went to set up his equipment we started our observation of WR140, our early night target.
Later when his camera was taking pictures of the Pleiades, he came inside the warmf of our observatory and we talked a bit. He was kind enough to invite us to visit the IAC-80, the 80cm telescope. We were in the middle our exposures of WR140 by this time, so only one of us could go visit. The lucky fellow who went was me! :) Thomas stayed at the observatory to guide our exposures, and make sure the target would stay on the spectrograph's slit.
I don't want to talk much about the impressive IAC-80 now, because it was dark (telescope in use, we weren't allowed to light anything inside the dome) and because this deserves a separate post later when me and Thomas visit it again in daylight. But it was a pleasant visit! Guiding is not done manually there! It is now being used for photometry.. I promise more details later :)
Anyway, I had to go back to MONS before Thomas would end our observation of WR140, so that we could point the telescope to our next target. One can do it, but two people do it better and faster.
So we proceeded to WR 1, and for the second consecutive time, we could find it. Success again! After practicing and knowng our targets, finding them becomes almost easy..
Around midnight our visiting astrophotographer from the IAC had to leave.. These people work in astronomy and need to be in an office during the day the next day? Well, I guess it happens.
We had taken no spectra of Oe stars recently so, after WR 1, those were our zenith-close targets (HD 45314 and HD 60848). These are two of the only eight known Oe type stars... These are special giant stars that have strong emission lines.. But I will talk about them later as well.
Unfortunately, we were so tired that we both fell a sleep while guiding on the last exposure of HD 45314.. On that exposure, the star drifted out of the slit, and very little light made it through to the CCD camera!
The curious thing about sleeping, is that when you wake up, you wake up! Indeed we woke up and were still able to point to the second Oe star. Of course, at 6:00 am, as soon as our priority target list was finished, we wanted to go to bed!
Still, this was again a succesful night, because we images the only 2 Oe stars visible at this time from our location. We had not pointed at them because of bad weather, that have cut our night down to half.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Night #6 (2008/12/20)
Another night started off quite good!
We pointed again to our daily early-night target, WR140. Then we revisited HD14134.. But the most important step of the night was our first spectra of WR 1 (HD4004). This is a tough target to find, because it is a faint star, with little visual clues around. This was our second real attempt at pointing at it, and we finally made it!
Our plans for the second half of the night were to image Oe type stars. I am yet to talk about these stars, as I promised in early December.. But for now, just imagine there are only 8 of such stars known on our galaxy!..
Unfortunately, humidity rose, and we had to close the dome. But, it dropped to 50% and we decided to open the dome and try again, but it came again, managed to get one 20-minute exposure of HD45314.
The weather is really not favoring our targets of this type. They only reach a good observing position with our equipment at the end of the night (after 02:00 am). And for the last 2 nights, weather did not allow any observation.
After that sole exposure of the Oe star, we were forced to cose the dome again, due to - you guessed it - humidity. 5 minutes later, we were inside a cloud again. It was time to leave the camera making Darks (calibration exposures) and head "home"...
We pointed again to our daily early-night target, WR140. Then we revisited HD14134.. But the most important step of the night was our first spectra of WR 1 (HD4004). This is a tough target to find, because it is a faint star, with little visual clues around. This was our second real attempt at pointing at it, and we finally made it!
Our plans for the second half of the night were to image Oe type stars. I am yet to talk about these stars, as I promised in early December.. But for now, just imagine there are only 8 of such stars known on our galaxy!..
Unfortunately, humidity rose, and we had to close the dome. But, it dropped to 50% and we decided to open the dome and try again, but it came again, managed to get one 20-minute exposure of HD45314.
The weather is really not favoring our targets of this type. They only reach a good observing position with our equipment at the end of the night (after 02:00 am). And for the last 2 nights, weather did not allow any observation.
After that sole exposure of the Oe star, we were forced to cose the dome again, due to - you guessed it - humidity. 5 minutes later, we were inside a cloud again. It was time to leave the camera making Darks (calibration exposures) and head "home"...
Casa Solar
Our home for these days is amicably called "Casa Solar". Solar house, in English. Why so? I suspect of two reasons. The first is related with the observatories that surround it. Two of these are dedicated to Solar observation, and among them is the largest solar telescope on Earth, the Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT). So this neighouring solar hospitality may have given the name to the house.. There is also another reason for naming our house that way: All heat, and hot water is energized by solar action! The roof of the house is covered with water heating solar panels. There is a small (1,5x larger area than our house) solar water heating system nearby as well.
I am amazed at how, after two days of cloudy weather, there still is hot water. But you can still note the temperature of the heaters go down on the cloudy days.
I am amazed at how, after two days of cloudy weather, there still is hot water. But you can still note the temperature of the heaters go down on the cloudy days.
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