Zooniverse at Mauna Kea, Day 6: This is the End

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

I’m not sure if we’ve been especially unlucky or if this is the norm for observing trips, but we once again the weather is curtailing our telescope time. After a few hours of normal observing, clouds started to blow across the top of Mauna Kea, and now it’s raining outside the dome.

The Dip in the humidity (2nd from the top) represents when we were able to observe.

In the meantime, Becky and I shot a short video tour of the dome a couple days ago you can check out:

Tomorrow, we check out of Hale Pohaku and head down to Hilo for a night. Then I’m off to Chicago and Becky and Sandor are back to Oxford. Even with the bad weather, sleep deprivation, and static electricity, this trip has been a really great experience for me. I now know infinitely more about radio astronomy than I did before! I hope the people doing the real work were able to get all the data they needed.

A Few Notes:

This sums up the general mood

• Sandor and Becky took some sick photos around sunset, you should check out all of them.
• When everything is terrible, you just have to let it go.
• Thanks again to all the Galaxy Zoo volunteers, whose work made this observing trip possible for us. You are the best.