Cerro Tololo, Chile

In mid-November, 1999, I got to go to Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory as part of an astronomical observing program. The reason for my sudden inclusion in the trip was that Chris Howk, a post-doc on the project had broken a finger pretty badly and thus couldn't safely operate the telescope. Normally in this modern age, telescopes are entirely computer controlled and can be operated by anyone. But we had time on the Curtis Schmidt telescope which must be manually pointed and requires two good hands and a good deal of strength as well. Thus I was brought in at the last minute to act as the braun to Chris's brain.

A street scene in La Serena. Note the ubiquitous campaign posters.

Fri, 12 Nov 1999
To say that today was a leisurely day would be an overstatement. I arose at 11:30 after an evening of conger eel and pisco (a local liquor) at La Pica de Lupa. Tito, an amiable taxi driver took us out there regaling us with stories all the way. Nice beachfront place with shells and marine parts all over the walls. Beautiful city lights across the water from Coquimbo and La Serena. Then Chris and I retired to the lounge to watch the Chile/Peru football match which (we think) Chile won 2-0.

Chris in a courtyard at La Recova. Souvenirs were found. Money changed hands.

After about 11 hours of sleep, I awoke at noon and wandered around a bit. Lacking breakfast, I checked my mail, and photographed the city from our high vantage point. At about 2 Chris awoke and by 3 we were headed back to the beach with Chris Smith, a permanent (or at least long term) staffer and Pete from Harvard who happened to come by. A scrumptious crepe crocodile (which is filled with chicken and cheese) with Chris, Pete, Lou (a grad student down here for a couple years) and Lou's girlfriend Corrola. It seems to be a common thing for male astronomers to move down here and aquire Chilean wives. Unfortunately, say some female astronomers, it doesn't work the other way around...
Stuck my feet in the Pacific which was pacific and warm and then headed back to town. Chris and I got out at La Recova, the central market and walked around many of the places we were yesterday, this time with cameras. Went by the Supermercario and picked up stuff for dinner. We'd been invited to come to a volleyball game Lou was playing in in preparation for the Inter-Observatory Olympics (Tololo vs La Silla vs Las Campanas), but elected to husband our strength for tomorrow which promisses to be very long. Also to watch Los Simpsons at 8:30. Very interesting indeed. All the voices are voiced over (except for musical numbers) and they even voice over prominent signs and written stuff.
Anyway, we're getting up and getting on the carryall tomorrow morning at 8:30 to go up the mountain. Then probably 24 hours of awakeness as we transition to night schedule. Should be fun.
That's all the news for today. More later.

Sat, 13 Nov 1999
Wow! I wish I could describe the view up here. It's like the view from Mt. Washington (on the few days a year it isn't cloudy) except with cacti and much MUCH taller mountains in the background. With snow. We had an interesting trip up. The weather in La Serena was cool and foggy, not what you would expect for such an astronomical mecca. We headed out in the carryall; total population seven.
The first 30 km or so was through farmland mostly dedicated to growing papayas. Eventually, the papayas gave way to robust-looking grape vines on rolling hills. All of a sudden, the fog cleared and we were surrounded by these very jagged barren slopes full of tall, thin cacti and lots of watermellon sized boulders. The road cruised along beside the river until we passed a large dam they're building whereupon it took to the hills and wound back and forth very entertainingly.
We reached the turnoff for Tololo and Cerro Pachon (home of the Gemini project which they are still building). At this point, the road became dirt and the turns sharper. Observatories stick out and Tololo could be seen 30 km away as we wound up and around and back and forth to finally get there.
Like I said, the views are astonishing. The dormitory and cafeteria are down the slope perhaps a quarter mile from the domes which are all clustered right on top. I'm in room 4 and Chris in room 5. I have car #288 and he gets #299. That's right, they give us these sporty little cars to drive around up here. It doesn't seem all that necessary, but what the heck.
After a brunch of marmalade, steak and bread, we went to our separate tasks. Chris is now asleep but I am too keyed up to do the wise thing. We're going to be trained in using the telescope (which I am now sitting downstairs from) at 2 so I have some time to kill. I want to take lots of pictures right away, but I know the lighting will improve when the sun is lower. Plus I'll be here for five more days.

Me with my trusty Toyota #288	The ubiquitous desert fox.

The morning fog would roll in to the lower vallies to the west. You could also often see the shadow of the earth (dark band in the sky) and the Belt of Venus (pink band above the shadow; backscattered sunlight).

Sun, 14 Nov 1999 (After Night 1)

Chris and I with our intrepid telescope.

OK, now I'm tired.
We just completed our first night and it was quite a chore. Sure, we're only taking 5 minute exposures, but there are a lot of them. Nice night, warm and very clear. The Magellanic Clouds are just that. They look like clouds. Orion was upside down which wasn't as weird as it could have been. Mostly I was running up and down the stairs hauling the telescope around. The scope itself is probably 20' long and about 5' in diameter. The way you move it is to grab the rail on the butt end and release the clutch. Then, depending on your strength to weight ratio and ability to anticipate inertia, either the telescope is moved into position or you end up dangling by your fingertips five feet off the floor. Minor adjustments can be made from downstairs, so I only had to go move things every hour or so. Chris did the bulk of the work and I sat around being bored.
Some exciting events of the evening were refilling the dewer with liquid nitrogen, having Edguardo (one of the techs who taught us the ropes) burst in every two hours with "HOLA CABALLEROS!", and having an airplane fly directly over one of our images. There were two parallel, and very bright trails and a fainter trail from the nose light. Right in the middle of the frame is where the plane's strobe went off giving us a very bright star and symetrical reflections off the aft engines. Now we're taking sky flats and getting ready to close up shop. Venus is extremely bright in the east and birds are chirping. I am ravenous and looking forward to breakfast. Amy, you wouldn't like it here as there is nothing without meat. Even the rice has shrimp (camarones) in it.

Hard at work at the telescope.

After dinner last night, I saw a fox. Lots of interesting cacti and small birds that come out near sunset presumably when it cools off. Although it's pretty cool most of the time. Shirtsleeve weather. Not what you expect for 7000' up a mountain in the middle of the night in the middle of November.
And now it's time for breakfast and bed. In that order. See you tomorrow night.

Mon, 15 Nov 1999 (Night 3)
Well, we seem to have developed a routine here. Here we are on our third night and everything is running smoothly. On the first night we took about three hours focussing and aligning and doing non-science observations. Tonight it was about half an hour. Most of the bugs are out of the system. And the program is going pretty well. I point the telescope by hand, Chris takes the pictures and processes them the first part of the way. Then I take over and coadd them and do a bit more work. All the processing could easily be done later, but we have time now and the telescope is never wanting for attention.

Several telescopes at CTIO at sunset. From left to right we have the 16", 1.2m radio telescope, the Swarthmore telescope, the Yale 1 meter and the Curtis-Schmidt.

Let's see, what has happened.... Took a walk after the first night and it was a great success. Thus, this afternoon (that is, after the second night) I got up at 1 pm, ate "breakfast" of roast chicken, and headed out with the aim to hike out this promentory visible below the main peak. I took a radio with me in case I got lost or hurt on the suggestion of several people.
Distances and vertical relief are very hard to judge here in this desert terrain. There are no trees the height of which allows me to judge distance. Just lots of bushes and rocks which come in all sizes. Plus, in the middle of the day, everything is colorfully washed out and appears fuzzy and flat. It's only with the long shadows that the steepness of things becomes apparent. Anyway, with water, snacks, and radio, I set out and climbed down the slope. No real trails, but vegetation is sparse enough you can set your own course. Sort of like hiking around up on Mt. Washington in many ways. You can see where you're going and where you came from for hours. Hence everything looks close and it seems to take forever to get anywhere.
Well, like I said, things were very steep and full of loose dirt and skittery little flat stones. Plus desert vegetation tends to be pretty prickly so I was soon moderately scratched about the lower portions. I followed a pipe down the mountain until I discovered that what I had thought was a smooth shoulder was separated from the main bulk of the mountain by about a 20' cliff and a steep notch. Eventually, I made my way up the secondary peak which probably has a name, but not on the meager maps I've been able to find, and looked around. Level with big brown rocks and these nifty 5-gallon cacti shaped like slightly prolate spheres. A nice deep green with two-inch long thorns pointing in all directions. Some were in bloom with big red flowers.

Some desert vegetation. If anyone knows the names of these plants, please drop me a note.

The impressive thing was the silence and peacefulness of the scene. Occasional buzzing insects and a faint breeze, but nothing else. All the birds and animals were likely hiding out the heat of the day. Lots of color, too. Interesting red and yellow flowers and some delicate purple blooms as well. And the views were, of course, astonishing. Cerro Morado and Cinchado (named becasue it has a belt of white cliffs around it's midsection) were imediately visible. Today must have been clearer than other days because behind the 3000-meter range was a higher, toothier range with snow. I've been able to identify a few mountains around and I think everyone is getting tired of me constantly pestering them about it.
Coming back was interesting. I discovered that steep climbing at 2000 meters is tough on the lungs and I didn't put up any kind of record-setting pace. Also took a spill when a large rock rolled under me and scraped up my hand pretty badly. I made my way back up by a different route and hit the showers.
Socially, things around here revolve around dinner. The Spanish speakers occupy one table, the English speakers the large one by the window and the telescope operators another up by the drink machine. I've met a number of interesting folks from Malcom Smith, the director of this place to Eric, Julie, Lou, Nick and Mike; other observers. Quite a sense of camraderie has developed. We talk about geeky things like how the seeing is and whether our instruments are behaving. Probably similar to scientific outposts anywhere.
The food is what Malcom describes as "Chilean housewife cookery" and seems to consist predominantly of meat (tonight was steaks deepfried in something) with occasional veggies (cooked, but cold) and occasionally rice or pasta. Desert is usually some sort of very fancy jello or flan. It's pretty good, but I've eaten more meat on this trip than I have in several months at home. By the way, apparently other South American countries eat even more meat Argentina and Brazil being the worst. Vegetarianism has not caught up here yet.

Thu Nov 18 04:26:26 (Night 5)
Well, the meteors are definitely doing their thing down here. It's fairly cold and the moon is finally down. I'm outside taking pictures and inside finishing up the observing program. We've gotten quite a number of satellites/meteors in our images today. Probably meteors as they are so numerous. Saw one go right through the place my camera was aimed with the shutter open that was two parrallel trails. Possibly it split in half earlier. Should be good photos.

...later...

Well, I took 16 photos some of which ought to come out. The night has ended. We got lots of great images tonight including the Orion Nebula in three colors. I smell a three color image coming on! I also whacked my head on the counterweight which, while being padded, is very stationary and now my neck hurts. Also tripped over the walkway and whacked my beleaguered camera into the ground. Chris is busy writing tapes and I am cleaning up the stuff. Should go up and put the telescope to bed (fill with liquid nitrogen, cover all lenses, aim straight up, close dome, turn off lights and close the 'midget door').
We leave today at 2:30 on the carry-all for La Serena. We have planned a celebratory dinner at Donde el Guaton ('where the fat guy is') and then lots of sleep. We leave La Serena again tomorrow evening and I'll be back in B'more by noon on Saturday.
It's been a great trip, but it's time to go home. And sleep on a normal schedule. And in great excess as well.

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