NMSU Astro Blog – Day 23

Salutations bluzz (blog reader huzz [yes I copied this from someone else’s blog that I read before]).  

I woke up today feeling like a spider had released an egg sac in my stomach, and that the sac had ruptured. I was so nervous to check my AP scores that I wished I could be eaten by such a pack of rabid spiders so that I would never have to log into the godforsaken website known as CollegeBoard ever again in my life. However, despite my anxiousness to look at my scores, I was pleasantly surprised by them. Relieved that all was well, I walked to lecture in the scorching 105 degree heat. I was not wearing sunscreen. 

Our first lecture of the day, Method of Gauss 3, was difficult—yet still intriguing. Dr. Rengstorf started off by explaining the concept of fixing times of observation for each iteration of the Method of Gauss (another formula that we now have to add into a loop in python 😭). Afterwards, he explained the Newton-Raphson Method for improving the accuracy of our E values, which would thus make our eccentricity values more accurate (I think). The lecture got progressively harder over time, and culminated with the most massive, terrifying matrix I have ever laid eyes on. Here it is:

In the afternoon, we had a lecture from Dr. K on chaos theory and the three-body problem (which, quite honestly, is still difficult for me to grasp). After the lecture, we went to dinner. The food was alright; I ate a slice of (rather dry) pizza and some of the melon slices that perpetually inhabit that one metal tray in Taos Dining Hall. Inspired by An’s addiction to sugary cereal, I tried one (1) bowl of TASTELESS fruit loops for the first time in probably over a decade. Compared to An’s four bowls of frosted flakes, this was nothing, but to me it was a lot. 

After dinner, I finished my ephemeris generation code, attended my team’s research meeting with Dr. K, and completed astrometry for our first observation (This didn’t all happen in order, by the way; there were several crashouts over code and prolonged phone breaks that took place in between, but I don’t really want to talk about those 🙂). 

Overall, it was a good day at SSP. We’re more than halfway through at this point, and the grind is definitely starting back up again. It’s fun though!!