www.thegilmours.co.uk

Yesterday I went clothes shopping, which is always a trial and requires psycological preparation, and the promise of chocolate afterwards. It was not made much better when I asked the assistant, in my best spanish, which size she thought would fit me. I couldn’t believe her reply, but sure enough, I fit XL! Extra Large!! In a land full of 5-foot women, I am officially a giant. I can’t even find a normal T-shirt that reaches my waist. I have the choice of a cold stomach, or wearing a sack.

Maybe not the worst of my problems at the moment, but it snowed on the mountains last night and I’m starting to get scared. Maybe I should just stay in bed to keep warm.

a fly!

Almost. I just spotted it in time, floating around in my cup of tea. Previously I have considered flies to be rather unintelligent, but I think I’m going to have to reconsider.

The (ex)fly in question was in the middle of a desert, 8645 and a bit feet above sea level. He (all flies are male, a well known fact) was the first fly I’ve seen in 6 months of working here. There’s not exactly an abundance of typical fly attractions in Paranal. We’re rather short on dung, rotten food or anything green with rotting potential. What possessed the little fellow to come all the way up here? Where did he come from? And then why, when he had the whole desert to buzz around, did he choose to land in my tea?

It was a good cup of tea, and the only one on the mountain (my european colleagues drink solid expressos, bless them). It was a million-billion to one chance. Trust me, I’m a scientist.

The question is, was this just an incredible co-incidence, or did he deliberately seek out the only cup of tea within 100 miles? Did he spend his little fly life seeking out the perfect scent, using finely tuned tea-sensors, before finally ending it all by diving headlong into my cuppa? Why?

Luckily I had almost finished it, so it wasn’t the end of the world. For me at least…

Wahaaay! Some fool has certified me as “trained”, so I’m now in control of a multi-million pound telescope. As far as I can tell, the only difference from last week is that now I’m responsible for the mistakes, of which I’m allowed 5 min per night. Great.

At least the computer is intelligent enough not to let me point downwards. Yes, I have tried that one. I got local time, local siderial time and universal time muddled. One is in greenwich, one is the fixed “hour” of the heavens, looking straight up, and one is on my watch. Simple enough you’d think.

Seriously though, it’s nice to be fully trained. I have two more shifts in the next month and a half to make sure that I don’t forget how to work the beast, and then I can have a proper break (in the office).

It’s disturbing what happens to the mind after a string of 13 hour night-shifts. The biggest problem facing me and my workmates at breakfast/dinner (whatever we eat at 7:30 am) is how to say “goodnight”. After all, it isn’t the night, nor will it be until it is time to go back to work again. Equally “see you tomorrow” doesn’t work, and “see you today” sounds rather wierd and doesn’t exactly conjour up visions of a nice long sleep.

We’ve toyed with various combinations - todayrrow, good-sol, …but we’re distinctly lacking in ideas when it gets to this point in the night/morning/day. Suggestions on a postcard will take 3 weeks to arrive, by which point we probably will have forgotten what we were talking about.

I’m off to have a meal. Good-day.

Hi all, I’m up at the telescopes again. It’s 3am and I’m trying to avoid doing some science, which would send me to sleep.

In between starting the observations I’m trying to learn some stars in the southern sky, so that when someone says “oh, you’re an astronomer, show me a constellation” I don’t have to look for Orion every time, especially as he is standing on his head and goes to bed just after sunset! The sky here is fantastic, as you’d expect, but the constellations I’ve seen are rather naff. At the moment I can see:

The imaginitively named southern cross, kind of small and cross like. 10 points.
Corvus - better name, but it’s basically a random quadrilateral. It could be any four stars in the sky. One point.
Triangulum australe …. no comment, no points (well 3 actually)

So my conclusion is that the southern folk are distinctly lacking in dot-to-dot skills. On the other hand the milky way is incredible, and I can see both the magallenic clouds (nearby galaxies which look, surprisingly enough, like small clouds), so it’s still pretty awesome.