#mt stromlo

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A small study in Contrast

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A few shots of some observatories on Mt Stromlo

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Two views

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This observatory looks like Marvin from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

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Some windows from of an abandoned observatory

[strongcuppatea]

Other Australian Adventures

I didn’t do too much in Australia as I was sick for the whole first week out of my two and a half week trip. Most of it was spent at home with my parents or in Canberra with friends. Did make a few excursions though. One was to the Wild Brumby Distillery near Jindabyne (very lovely landscape)

One was to the Reptile Zoo in Canberra where we met a snake called Dylan and watched a different snake eat a rat. We also saw a Burmese python which was massive (like, 50kg and 10m long massive) and watched a large turtle shred a rat into pieces. I didn’t take photos of the python or the turtle or the shredded rat, sorry.

An additional excursion was to the Tidbinbilla Space Complex (mega cool) and Mt.Stromlo observatory for lunch (do recommend).

[aus-tronomy]

8/7/2017

Those of you who know me well may know that I’m a bit of a stress baker.  I was feeling a little homesick this week, especially because I missed my mom’s birthday on Friday, but at least it resulted in these yummy chocolate chip zucchini muffins for my roommates!

I’ve never actually made muffins before, so I think these turned out pretty well!

Last week I went out to my first bar/clubs with my roommates (they were very excited for my first time out on the town once I reminded them that the drinking age in the states is 21).  It was crazy crowded since it was the first weekend back at school, but still pretty fun!

Things have been pretty busy with school, I’ve already had a few homework assignments due.  I’ve got a really wide variety of classroom structures- one is a traditional lecture with a tutorial/workshop on Fridays, one is a flipped classroom (watching lecture videos at home and working on problem sets and homework during class) with lab workshops, one is an independent research study, and one is sort of self-directed right now because it’s difficult for me to get to class.  

A few differences between UA and ANU:

I have graduate students in a couple of my classes, which doesn’t really happen at UA.  They also have no idea what’s going on, which is reassuring.

My physics class only requires 4 labs for the semester, with a report every after every two weeks of lab.  This is a nice vacation from a 3 hour lab and report every week (though if I were at UA this semester, I wouldn’t have any labs at all :P)

Some universal similarities:

No one teaches profs how to use classroom technology

Everyone hates lab

I have my first physics lab this week, from the photos in the lab manual it looks like their equipment might be newer than the equipment at UA (my lab partner was shocked when I mentioned this to her).  I picked labs that I already knew a little bit of the theory behind (or knew how to work the equipment) so it shouldn’t be too bad.

I also signed up for a “Tidbinbilla” trip which will be on Friday.  We’re going to the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve where we’ll see lots of kangaroos, koalas, and other native Australian species, NASA’s Deep Space Center, and Mt. Stromlo Observatory (so expect lots of pictures)!

I’ll end with another photo from Mt. Stromlo this morning, I saw a rainbow on the way up today but it was too faint to take a picture of.  This is the view from one of the walkways that connects the buildings.

[aus-tronomy]

I've got a pretty nice view from my desk at Mt. Stromlo! (At least until my advisor's partner comes back and I have to move to the other desk that faces a wall 😢). Perk of the job that they don't tell you about: observatories have the best views!