Georgia College and State University Astrophysics Day 19: Surprises, Stars, and Phun (Fun)
Today was a very special day at SSP, one because it marks the day that we have exactly two weeks left until SSP ends and also because it marks the day Maia turned 17 (happy birthday Maia!!!!).
To start off the day, we ate a continental breakfast, which here means fruit, croissants, and some muffins. It wasn’t EINSTEINNN (Bagels), but little can compare to the awesomeness of Einstein Bagels.
We then went to class, and Dr. D was teaching the first lecture. The first thing we notice when we go in is a movie screen on the projector: Don’t Look Up. We watched the first few minutes where they found the comet, and the purpose was to show how we could actually understand some things. From laughing at how they did the Method of Gauss in one night and how image processing was done with one click to understanding the severity of the situation when rho equaled zero, it was a peak way to start off class.
Today was a Saturday, so we only had morning lectures, which was Method of Gauss Part 3 (or MoG because Dr. D was so MoGging during that lecture), followed by Belonging Series Part 3. Honestly, both lectures were really fun and a great way to start off Saturday.
Lectures also ended early today!! So before lunch, me, Sophia, and Sofello meandered around campus, which was basically us walking around, dying in the humidity (it’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity fr), me getting scared by bugs (Sofello: “it’s not that deep”), and just yapping. Overall a very peak way to spend the morning.
Oh, also Sofello’s bandana kept flying forward because of the wind, and it was so funny, especially because everytime I tried to get a picture of it, it would go back to being normal. I think this is probably some type of sorcery.
After a nice snack at the MAX, me, Sofello, Aanshi, Ashna, and Nayana went back to the Barn to make our own Indian food, partly because we didn’t want to eat cheese again and partly because our parents sent us too much food that we’re trying to eat. Anyway, we had pulav (vegetable rice) with potato curry as well as maggi (noodles!), and it was highkey so good.
After lunch wasn’t too eventful, just hanging out, chilling, and later working in the classroom and computer lab.
Then, for dinner, everything was going perfectly normal, when suddenly at the end, TA Megan and Mrs. Patel walked in with a cake made out of cupcakes for Maia! We took a break today from singing happy birthday to TA Anu today to sing happy birthday to Maia (which, by the way, is the only birthday during SSP at GCSU this year; Maia is just too goated). Anyway, the cake tasted really good and Maia was mogging fs. She also got a small cow for her birthday (on theme!) and a card from us all!
(P.S. Irfan in the background does this everyday; he’s lowkey pretty good at it too. Among other things, like integrals.)
After dinner, we had our usual TA work session, where we continued our Orbital Determination (OD) coding assignments. OD1 wasn’t too bad, but OD2 was a bit more challenging (those darn percent errors).
Afterwards, our group had observing tonight! Yay! We had the 12-1 AM session today, which usually is pretty sad, but I honestly don’t mind too much (more so today because tomorrow was Sunday so we could sleep in, and also because we can shut the dome down which I find really fun, especially with all the red light in the dome area).
Anyway, this wasn’t unexpected: our asteroid is best seen during this time frame out of the three we could choose, so my group was pretty accustomed to it (despite Jayvin and Donovan crashing out when I told them we were observing tonight and what time it was too 💔).
But anyway, 1984 AB supremacy (only other asteroid I will accept might be better is 16 Psyche). Cowsmic Thinkers is peak as well; we’re just too cool.
We were observing with TA Anu tonight, which started off with him accidentally(?) scaring TA Amy and the group before us (Aanshi, Shirley, and Dara).
Tonight, Jayvin was the one sitting in the middle controlling the computer (we rotate each time), and I had my computer. We were able to get our observing pictures relatively fast; after changing the time to account for the lag at the observatory and actually finding our asteroid (software, am I right), we took our images and darks.
We also wanted to take a fun picture, because even though we took one of the Whirlpool Galaxy last time, the color filters weren’t working or something, so we took it in black and white. Today we wanted to take a color image of something, so we tried to find something to take a picture of (easier said than done).
Long story short, after much back and forth (just deciding which cool thing to take a picture of out of all our cool options), we chose the Cheeseburger Nebula (spoiler alert, it did not look like a cheeseburger). Because it was so bright, we got scared we wouldn’t be able to see it and took another one of the IC1396 Nebula.
Then, we just went about our shut down procedure for the software and telescope. Closing off the dome went nice as well; it’s always so pretty, and today I got to do the remote control! We also got some nice pictures (Jayvin was highkey smart to bring his digi to the observatory).
Overall, another day done at SSP. Honestly, it feels like it’s going by super fast now, but I’m just glad to be able to do all of this. Anyway, enough of this blog now; it’s time for me, a super sleep-deprived teenager, to go back to bed. 16 Psyche out (iykyk)! 🙂
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Aditi P.
SSP Astrophysics Participant @ GCSU ‘26
Hello everyone! I am a rising senior from DFW, Texas (yeehaw 🤠). I love physics and engineering, and hope to pursue these interests in university and life in the future. In my free time, I like to read and write. Overall, I’m so excited for the rest of SSP! 🙂
