A windy night on a volcano

This is my second last night.

Luckily we finished our galaxies last morning, because tonight the receiver broke down in a manner we don't know (the error messages weren't very informative). This is a windy night - the gusts are up to 40 knots (45 mph, or 20 m/s). At 50 mph the dome will have to be closed so the fabric protecting the dish won't tear! I can feel the building rocking in the gusts, which makes me think of the totally awesome Australian movie The Dish (about the Parkes telescope and the moon landing)! I hope the wind will a bit more timid tomorrow night, since I would like to use the light of the almost full moon to take some outside photos. I did already, but it wasn't bright enough for my camera. 60 s exposure worked fairly well, but it could be better!

Bizarre observation: below all of the medium sized lava rocks around JCMT, lie hundreds of ladybugs. So I mentioned it to the operator, and he said that during the spring the entire ground had been covered by ladybugs - a phenomenon he had never seen before.

I'm quite ready to be done the observing run for this time. 7 nights in a row is a bit to chew down. It will be a great memory though! My bone marrow has been rather active producing red blood cells as well - I don't feel like 80 years old moving around anymore, and can even jog around!

Edit: Gusts went up to 49 mph... perhaps I'll get down earlier than expected this morning... I just came up to the control room from the kitchen downstairs. The dome was rotating, and since the control room is connected to it, as are the stairs, I had to be careful as to not touch the bottom part of the stairs when jumping up, since that is a scurity feature that will stop the rotation. The entire building is very cool. The first few nights I got rather jumpy when walking around it, with all the unexpected weird noises behind your back in the darkness and coldness.

1 night down, 6 to go...

This is the view from the mountain this morning. See how cloudy it is? We couldn't measure any of our galaxies with that kind of atmospheric humidity... 12 hours work night, and some cereal, and then I was ready to sleep. 

I managed to get 6.5 hours, which is MUCH better than last time I was here! I am very pleased. Despite the cold, I had no height trouble this time either, which was a relief. I felt so well, that I'd walk up the stairs at JCMT in normal speed, and then I'd speechless for 5 minutes, trying to calm down the heart and catch the breath.

Yesterday was also election day - it was kind of interesting to be inside the US to observe that. People at the astronomer's facility were rather normal about it though, although I could sense perhaps even more smiles than usual. The media coverage outside of the US was insane. Which perhaps might be the one indication of accuracy in a certain sentence I heard on the radio on the way down the mountain, in which the current president addressed the US as "the greatest country in the world". I don't aim to be contentious, but I'd like to have at least a few statistics backing up this idea, before I can agree that that is something that should be said and broadcast over the rest of the world. As far as I have seen, the US is pretty far down in most world statistics on characteristics that countries like to have. Indeed, I see Canada much higher up on the list, and the top is usually taken by a Scandinavian country, hemhem... But, thinking of it (which I haven't had too much time to do as yet, I'll admit), I've found two areas in which it can claim greatness: Amount of media coverage and petrol consumption. It also has the largest mountain in the world! Mauna Kea from base to top is actually 10 000 m, even though the part below the surface usually isn't counted. There is no snow on the summit this time, so my photos aren't as amazing as in January, but the views are still breathtaking. 

Back to Hale Pohaku

I'm in one of my favourite places on the earth right now. I just arrived, 1.5 hours ago, after a magnificent drive up the winding Saddle road. Big island of Hawai'i has 12 different climate zones, and you cross a few of those on the way up. Hilo was humid and warm, and up here it is clear, chilly in the shadow, very warm in the sunlight and fairly low pressure (as an airplane). I'm sitting in a comfy chair with my ibook, after a great dinner at the HP, slightly short of breath, a little bit dizzy. Most of which is due to a pretty nasty cold I acquired the evening before I left (I literally could feel it hit me during the time of about 5 minutes. Nasty. So, I hope it will disappear tomorrow before I start my osberving run. It is so wonderful to be here again!!! I look out the windows, see the flat shape of Mauna Loa, the volcano that pretty much covers half the island, and I feel so happy! Even down in Hilo, at the JAC, I can feel that awesome feeling; it's the same feeling as at the Onsala observatory. Life is good.

It's impressive how far out from the mainland Hawai'i lies. I left Winnipeg early in the morning (7 am, in an CRJ200), went to Chicago and pretty much immediately boarded a B777, that brought me to Honolulu. Just for the record, I was only 3 minutes off the winning guess of when we'd reach the midpoint, a little competition United has on the way to HI. The entire flight was 8.5 hours, which is longer than it takes to go to Europe. But, since the flight is domestic, you better bring food or cash, or you'll be hungry... haha! United also have started charging a baggage fee, for every bag that you check, even the first one. From HNL, I flew a 717 with Hawaiian airlines to Hilo. Cool plane, although I was on the wrong side for seeing the Mauna Kea summit (the plane flies on exactly that height, so you see the observatories very distinctly. My ear never really recovered from this flight, and so I've been partially deaf since then, except for a little while on Saddle road, before they popped the other direction. 

Door knobs - ultimate locks or ridiculous invention?

After a longer period of silence, I have decided to revive this place a bit. I'll start with a small rant: Doorknobs. Especially Winnipeg should start using handles instead. Ever tried opening a door equipped with doorknob after having applied hand lotion?
Winter in Winnipeg (not yet here, but it's coming) requires fair amounts of hand cream. It's just not compatible with doorknobs. I just found myself stuck in the ladies washroom on 5th floor (and to turn it more lady-like it is now equipped with bags with all kinds of necessary toiletries, so as to deter guys from using it - I would normally not have a problem sharing the washroom with guys, except for when said guys leave both stench and stains, yuck), trying to turn the stupid doorknob with no result.

Weekend trip to Minneapolis

Swedes might think what they want about IKEA while at home, but if they'd move abroad, they would probably do like me - travel at least 7 hours oneway to the hearest one, and get loads of stuff. And cheese. And kaviar. Flatbread. Dammsugare (aka punschrulle). And at the same time be extatically happy about it. Weekend trips are nice - you get to go somewhere, but still not lose any valuable working time. This past weekend kept a steady temperature of about 30 degrees, so I was enjoying it a lot. An American asked us, upon hearing where we had travelled from: "Travelling south to enjoy some of our heat?" (fyi: Wpg had the same temp, and there's as far as I know no difference in climate between the 2 locations - but Canada has a certain reputation). "Yeah, I asked the neighbour to take care of our pet polar bear, so we could take the weekend off. And it's funny - already at the border crossing, one hour south of Winnipeg, the temperature rises from 30 to 90 degrees!" I didn't say that of course... But it would have been fun... 

Commercial break: Have you visited http://fenomenalarecept.blogspot.com? The site being in Swedish is no excuse, my good friend who is Canadian and lives in Scotland (i.e. very English speaking) uses http://translate.google.com, which seems to be sufficient to create the wonderful dishes on this superb blog. And when not, the translations give a good laugh. Plus, it's a good way to learn Swedish whether you ever had that notion or not. So, go ahead, add it to your rss-reader asap. 

Mark Knopfler concert

One of my favourite musicians came to Winnipeg. David and I went to the concert last friday, which was given in the centennial concert hall. So despite our seats (2nd balcony, last row), the sound was pretty awesome. The seats were decent too, smack in the middle, and straight above the mixer board, which usually is a good sign. You don't get to choose your fellow audience members though, and what first looked like pleasantly empty seats in front of us, were eventually (after the pretty awesome opening number by a single female and her guitar, ressembling swedish singer Anna Ternheim quite a bit - totally great) filled by 4 rowdy individuals, complete with accompanying drinks, and a cloud of alcoholic smell. The most rowdy one sat straight in front of us. Everything about him was big - the shoulders, height, neck, and especially his voice. Another interesting feature of our seats was that the main spotlight beam went straight over our heads to Mark himself. My curiosity as to whether my hand's swift motion through this beam would be visible on stage would soon be stilled. Not by myself (I considered it, but decided against), but by mr Voluminous in front. It was slightly irritating after the first 3-4 times (he apparently didn't register that the effect of it luckily was minor, and had to repeat multiple times), not because if the effects on the scene, but because the massive amount of light reflected off of his toilet lid -sized hands got slightly distracting.
All this was soon forgotten after the music started. I always liked Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler later solo stuff, but after this concert, he's my new hero. The music was excellent in every way. I was amazed by the manner in which Mark, seemingly with such ease, plucks that music out of his guitar(-s - there was a steady stream of different guitars on stage, one following the other). The rest of the band was as impressive - the composition of it(including a totally excellent violinist, who had a prominent role), as well as their capabilities. WOW! During the 2nd song, Why Aye Man, which is one of many favourites, our mr Massive on the front row engaged in a discussion with his fellows, his voice bellowing out his opinions during my absolute favourite parts, so this time I couldn't resist my urge, but tapped him friendly on the shoulder. And, it worked (well, more or less), believe it or not! He was still acting out his stereotype for 'person you want far away from you in an audience', but, seriously, the concert was so great that I benignly could oversee it. If it hadn't been for his smell of course (aftershave applied in proportion to size of the wearer). Ugh. But, also in this area, the location helped - the air circulation in the concert hall is great, and after less than an hour, also this disturbance was as good as gone. Sometimes I envied him his voice. During applause, all I can do is shout in my high-pitched manner, which doesn't carry very far. Mr I-have-no-barriers had a voice that carried. It might have had something to do with the fact that he chose to deliver his sentiments during numbers rather than the conventional inbetween. The audience was really great though. I'd rather have that, than a bored one that can't adequately mirror my own enthusiasm for the performer. This audience were of exactly the same mind as myself. I didn't really need to learn how to whistle with my fingers, as everyone else did it for me.

Every single song was AMAZING. The concert was on the same quality level as the Sting concert I attended in Göteborg a bunch of years ago. Nothing can really ever beat Simon & Garfunkel's Friends tour in 2003 (Washington DC), But Sting is a very strong second, and this concert was extremely close, if not even on the same level. Major goosebump level.

A trunk less ordinary (update on vehicles)

For about a year or so, David and I have been driving around with a bunch of clothes in the trunk, with the intention of donating them at some station for that purpose. Some clothes were from my algerian room mate, that she left when she moved back to Algeria, (and she was tiny, so I had no use for those), and some were David's old stuff. One day, upon opening the trunk, repeating the phrase that always accompanies that action ("we really should get rid of these clothes some time soon"), we discovered a black pair of pants there, that none of us recognized. david thought they were our friend's, that I had borrowed for skiing, but nope. My memory is bad, but I had for sure never seen those pants before (bad memory doesn't mean amnesia, only that reminders have to be firm before recollection can occur. Seeing the object in question is usually a good enough reminder to bring forth memories). Some days later, we were at a party, and it got a bit chilly. David went to the trunk, and sure enough, there was a hoodie waiting there for him, that neither of us had owned or seen before. We have a magic trunk. But, alas, we actually managed to dispose of almost all the clothes last weekend.

On another note: The bike next to where mine got stolen (the one that really should have been stolen instead of mine), was "finally" stolen this morning, and as I predicted only the frontwheel was left, attached to the lock in the fence. So the owner might have been innocent after all... (I feel kind of bad - my plan was to post some notes of caution on the door of our building for the bike owners that it's not safe to leave them out, and I never got around to...

Vehicles

The car has been acting up for a few weeks, with increasingly lower idle, causing me to develop a probably not entirely safe driving style: Left foot for breaking, to keep the car from stalling (and this is an automatic). Picking it up for the 2nd time at the carfixingplace, we found the situation to be the opposite - acceleration to 70 km/hr, without applying gas, and 3000 rpm in neutral. The brakes were smelly when we came home, and the following night I dreamt I drove it around some hilly city, with loads of dangerous situations (such as accelerating down a curved road with mountain depths on the side etc). The next morning, my poor bike was stolen (ARGH!!!), and as I was filming a movie (being an astronomy grad student has its unexpected turns sometimes!), David was updating me with text messages on the situation of the car as he returned it to the placeformendingcars: "here now, they're working on it" "on my way home" "car broke down on Henderson, waiting for CAA" "back again, they had to exchange the computer. twice."

The loss of my bike was rather irritating. Especially since the thief didn't follow normal bike-thief characteristics. There is the petty thief, who takes a bike to use for a bit and then throws it in the ditch. And then there's the organized one who comes with a big truck and takes all the bikes in the neighbourhood. "My" thief chose my bike out of several, and also discarded a newer, probably more expensive one locked much less safely just next to mine, that had been there for weeks... I on the other hand locked the frame and wheel onto a metalfence, and the thief somehow found time to work real hard on the U-lock and twist it rather impressively (it was left on the ground). I only see two possible explanations: Either the thief was extraordinarily dumb (and strong/patient) or it's the owner of the other bike.

I can't not have a bike. So David and I went looking, first in our friends store where David bought his bike - a real bike store with good stuff. Then to the big sports chains, where they sell really cheap stuff. And heavy, bulky, weird gearswitch-device etc. Went back to our friends place to the bike I had fallen in love with, and brought home the precious. It's the same kind of bike as David's, only in brushed silver, and one extra gear on the back wheel. It goes like the wind... Barely any friction, supercomfy, large wheels, and the previously so annoying wind in the face has no impact any longer. D and I took a long bike ride in the evening to Assiniboine park, and the speed was exhilirating. Best bike ever. We also started up a conversation with a tiny prairie dog, while watching the planes on final fly over our heads.

Victoria on Victoria day

I forgot the cable to my camera, so all awesome photos - later. I'm in Victoria, British Columbia, for the 2008 version of the CASCA conference (I arrived on Victoria day, hence the title). It is great. The location is great, the inspiration, the people. The nature here reminds me a lot of Sweden. The inner harbour is like a mini version of Göteborg (but prettier), and has a wonderful walk. No ugly malls, but stores along the streets, like home. Humidity - works wonders for the hair, as always. But best of all: the Pacific. Real ocean, with salt and waves and immenseness. The gardens are very Dutch (i.e. beautiful) - I was thoroughly impressed as we drove from Oak Bay along the coast back to Victoria.
So far: have had some amazing fish & chips (almost as good as the greek place in Halifax), learnt loads about all canadian telescopes and dreams of telescopes, and attended the high redshift session (it is still my favourite area of research). Since next year is going to be the IYA - the international year of astronomy - lots of the conference is aimed towards getting us inspired to contribute to that. It is indeed very inspiring... Lots of the magic in astronomy comes back to me. I hope I will be able to keep it.

A gulp of air...

Oh my. Barely had time to feel happy about having the annual review talk (and questioning) behind me, before I realised that the time to finish my research for the poster (and said poster) I'm presenting at a conference, is SHORT! Then it doesn't help that the stupid photometry comparison makes no sense, and that work just seems to go nowhere, despite all those hours spent in the office... Having a perspective is good, but for once it seems to be much better to concentrate on the details, one at a time, and try not to see the big picture. Really? you ask (can't even believe I'm writing that, since I'm always extremely fond of perspective in everything). Yes, there is one case: if you have one year left of your PhD-studies and intend to publish 4-5 papers during that time. The mere thought makes me sweat and hyperventilate a bit. They are all more or less planned (ahem, more less than more, really, outlined is probably the word) though, I just need to get hold of the results for each of them, and work, neverendingly, so I can spit them out, one by one...

My usual weather rant could come in here too, I guess: What's with this May? cold and nasty. Although, I'm really just happy it's above zero.

On a fairly uninteresting note: the left back blinker on the car is broken. Since I'm an avid pro-use-of-blinker person, I find myself planning all driving carefully, so that I won't have to make any left turns. Adds a little bit of interest to the driving.

And on a sad note: I'll be missing eurovision song contest this year... (I'll be in Victoria, last day of conference, so it's not a bad deal. But missing ESC is sad. )

Spring time

Some signs of spring:
- Snow melting. Not a minute too soon
- A flower outside great west-life 2 mornings ago! Granted, it was by the warm air outlet, but still
- The intriguing sensation of walking outside in beginning of April in below-zero degrees. At this southern latitude, the sun is strong, and thus the illuminated side of my body is melting while the side in shadow is freezing. Bizarre.
- Canada geese flying north. Intriguingly, they started coming early, apparently led by daylight rather than temperature. Dangerous, I'd say...
- 2 days ago I took out my bike, and went to the Forks and back. I thus sprayed my new amazingly awesome spring jacket with mud.
- Best of all: General conference, always first weekend of April. If anyone ever doubted the suitability of the new president of the church, the talks he gave at this conference really showed that he's the right person.
- Not as much fun: end-of-PhD- (timewise) -stress, emphasized further by upcoming advisory committee meeting (beginning of May) and conference (end of May) for which the abstract I submitted includes promises of things I have yet to accomplish.

As I was cycling the other day, there was a guy standing underneath one of the bridges over Assiniboine, playing his baryton saxophone (totally amazingly), and 2 geese were listening swimming in one of the few open parts (despite the warm temperatures now, there was still loads of ice) of the river. I don't know how winnipeggers can stand the long winters. It's as if one walks around in hibernation, and when spring comes, I wake up with all the nature, and things are real again. I do like the intensity of the winter, but the length...?

Birthday-tag

I'm quite resistant about doing tag-posts like the one below. However, I never did a new year-review, and today just happens to be my birthday (which, for the record, should include small spring flowers outside and no snow (although, apparently it did snow in my home town today - first snow of the year..!)), which is kind of suitable for this kind of exercise. So here you go, Jess ;)

1. What was I doing ten years ago?
I'd need my photo albums or diaries for this..! Although, I have a fairly good idea. Listening to BeeGee's, Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel on my LP player until late in the evenings, spending lots of time with friends, studying 2nd and 3rd year courses at Physics Engineering, anguishing bigtime over said courses, feeling like Sisyfos, and, finally slowly beginning to realise who I was and what I needed to do. Although, that happened really one year later.

2. 5 things on my to do list today.
1. TA
2. Finish my extra check of NGC 3556 to figure out if I need to include its bulge or not in the mas smodeling.
3. Do taxes (hm, perhaps I should reconsider)
4. Find some twigs for the cage I imported so Merry and Pippin can start enjoying their new home (if I know them correctly, the first sentiments will probably be highest suspicion...)
5. Buy flowers (strict orders from my mom)

3. What snacks do I enjoy?
Chocolate, dark, expensive.

4. What would I do if I suddenly were a billionaire?
Hm. The same as now, I suppose: Save, travel, hopefully not get used to having lots of money and spend too much, and spend too much time doing that... But yes, I would get rid of CSN in my life, once and for all (i.e. student debts). Pay my brother for the Ibook with a suitable interest :) If time, build a summer house on Tjörn or perhaps buy Staregården in Onsala.

5. Three bad habits
Oh, public self examination? Procrastination of whatever reason. Just repeat 3 times.

6. Five places I've lived
Winnipeg (Canada), Göteborg, Onsala, Sweden, Tofta (or Varberg), Stockholm, all in Sweden.

7. Five jobs I have had
1. Teaching Assistant in physics and astronomy
2. Commercial hot-air ballooning retrieve driver
3. Dairy slave (in the fridge)
4. Observatory guide
5. Packaging stuff at a nuclear power plant (much less exciting than it sounds)

8. Five things people don't know about me (this is worse than the bad habits! there'd be a reason for them not knowing it, eh? Let's see if I can dig out some more pleasant skeletons from my wardrobe, pink ones or so...
1. Collected stamps (as well as everything: erasers, chocolate papers, letter paper, little stickers that smelled yummy)
2. ...
No. I can't come up with anything more than utterly silly things. People who know me, know me fairly well, nothing unknown that is worth writing about, I think.

9. 8 Fears
1. Losing hope
2. Losing love
3. Losing faith
4. Pain inflicted upon family members and other loved ones
5. Turning apathetic (probably same as 1, but I ran out of scary things)
6. Seeing as I was being chased by zombies in a dream last night (and saved by my mom driving the volkswagen van! the rest of the family was there too, but I found it interesting that she was driving it. I normally refuse to interpret my dreams, but this particular scene I think represented security), I can fill out the rest with less probably items, or silly ones: Zombies
7. Anything that would suck my blood (excluding mosquitoes, they are just annoying)
8. And, anything that brings out anger, and inability to stop the anger (that's part of the first more serious category though)

End of tag.
I won't tag anyone, but, I'll invent something back for Jess in the future, I think...

Interim report

Reading week was spent with my family in Onsala. I'm back now, and I miss the humid air. All of a sudden it's hard to wear contacts and my lips became chapped in an instant. Photos will come, but first, let me give out a warning to potential travelers: On the list of airports to avoid, add O'Hare after Heathrow. O'Hare doesn't have the high taxes and fees of Heathrow, BUT, they cancel flights on a whim, and blame it on the weather. This problem is most likely less if you travel to an important destination, in heavier planes. Winnipeggers however, risk facing endless waiting at the airport, standby flights or detours, and of course bags will take at least 2 days extra to arrive. In my case, I got to greet my poor cheese yesterday evening. Luckily it seemed to have taken no damage, and I enjoyed some Hushållsost on knäckebröd for breakfast. Aaaaah...

cross country skiing

I just turned into a Canadian. Or even into a *real* Swede. For the first time in my life, I've been skiing. And - I really liked it! Best were the falls when in a penguin-like manner striding up the slopes (and since we're in Winnipeg, it's safe to say that the incline of said slopes were not in any way intimidating...). My friend Lindsay is an excellent teacher, and I am happy she had a good time too. Luckily (?), there are no photos of my falling technique (although, according to L, I was falling the least amounts compared to the others she has been teaching), since my camera is still broken. I have given in after a serious attempt to fix it, which rendered it even more broken, and decided to buy a new camera. It's fun doing research on which one to buy (I'm trying to apply that kind of fun to the research I really should have been doing at the time), and I think I found the one. I still have to find some time to buy it though. But next time, there will be photos. Meanwhile, here's my latest webalbum. It was made while enjoying the vilest flu I've had ever since I was little (still working on a cough from it), so the photo comments aren't entirely coherent or informative either for that matter. I can't wait for having the new camera, I feel somewhat crippled without one.

In other news, I watched the funeral of President Hinckley today on my trusty Ibook (D's new Dell that has been working wonderfully the 2 weeks he's had it, is starting to show the backsides of its flashy microsoft equipment, and refuses to connect to my wlan... pc:s...). It was a beautiful event, and the Tabernacle choir sang something in the middle of it making all the hairs on my body stand straight up, but I don't know what it was. GBH has been the prophet ever since I became a member, and there are loads of quotes in my diaries of things he has said. He came to Sweden for our stake conference once, when he was a counsellor in the first presidency (before I was a member), and hearing him talk then, gave a huge impact on my life after. What I remember most was the sweet things he said about his wife, and how it choked up my then bishop who was translating for him. It was so simple and so fundamental, and I remember thinking that he would make the greatest prophet. Which he did... (and he always reminded me a bit of Yoda!)

Last night at the summit

After 2 nights of engineering, I'm about to start my last night of observing, together with some new observers, and another operator. They seem awesome, so I'm up for a fun night, I think! Also an exciting one - Since my flight leaves unfortunately early the next day (noon), I'll have to drive down one of the cars, which I'm not allowed to do unless I get some sleep first. So I'll have to leave the summit a bit after midnight. that will be an interesting experience... Driving 4WD UP the other evening was awesome enough (done as exercise for this upcoming experience, and luckily I passed ;)
My camera is broken, and I haven't been able to take it apart yet, so no more photos, I'm afraid...
Anyways, Hawaii, byebye, I wonder when I get a chance to come here again...

Notes from Hale Pohaku

There's of course loads to write, so this is just a very quick report! I finally slept longer than usual this morning (6 hours), which was great, but even though this location (Hale Pohaku, the mid-way facility with lodging and food for the owls (astronomers)) is not as high as the summit of Mauna Kea, it is still high enough to make you lose your breath if not moving slowly. So now, time for a quick dinner, and then going up to the summit and JCMT for another night (12 hours!!!) of observing. This is my 3rd night, and it's been amazingly fun to learn so much at such a short time (and to actually grasp it as well - feels very efficient). A funny thing that I didn't know before, is how projects (to be observed) are scheduled, depending on the weather. First night we actually had too good weather for our galaxies in the start of the evening! And last night, we started up with totally excellent weather (i.e. too good), which deteriorated in a rapid speed and became too bad for our project (!). This is governed by the amount of humidity in the air, and the more there is, the harder it is to get good data. Anyways, since I am starving, I'll just post a few pictures. Could you ever imagine this much snow on Hawai'i?


The lodging at Hale Pohaku. And in the bakground is the slope of Mauna Loa, the huge flat volcano in the south


On our way up to the summit, with the setting sun in the background. Obviously these photos can't really make justice to how it really looks like... :) It's rather grand, to say the least!


Upon leaving the telescope building the morning after the first night of observing... the light was just divine!


The sun is happily trying to keep you awake! And with great success - I had no wish to go to bed anymore when being blinded like this.


Here's a view a little from above, showing JCMT in the middle (the white cylinder - it contains a 15 m antenna)

If anyone wants to see JCMT observing in action, check out this camera (apparently it has won price for most boring webcam in the world - can't see why though. Especially not now when I'm in it...)