IOAC Conference Trip, 2002

We left England in fair weather, but that was as far as our luck held. Halfway across the Bristol Channel, our aircraft suddenly splashed down, and I was forced to swim the rest of the way with the unconscious Jim tied to my back

This, as you may have guessed, was the plane on which Jim and I flew from Gatwick to Dallas Fort Worth. It's a Boeing 777, and the distinct paucity of engines did not fill me with a large amount of confidence.

On all the long haul flights, Jim spectacularly failed to endear himself by sleeping like a baby for almost the entire time. I, by contrast, could hardly sleep at all. However, there was the odd compensation - this photo being one of them.

This picture was taken on the leg from Dallas Fort Worth to Santiago. We were flying over the Pacific, and I got to watch the sun rise over the Andes. This is the best of several shots of the sunrise.

Now, given that I was less than enthusiastic about the 777s which had done the two long haul flights, you can imagine my feelings when I realised that this aircraft was going to be taking us from Santiago to La Serena. I believe that the boxes contained the fresh hamsters for the electrical plant, while the guy on the right was waiting to check the rubber bands in the main engines.

Here we have Jim sitting in Santiago airport, and looking on our next aircraft with approximately the same amount of enthusiasm as myself. There are also a few other astronomers hidden in this picture. Can you find them?

At lunchtime on the first day, some of us decided to walk down to the beach. This was based on the firm assurance from Matthew Bate that the beach was no more than a fifteen minute walk away. So, here we are, wending our merry way along the roadside.

We're still going... and you can see that we still have a way to go. By this point, we were beginning to suspect that the astronomer who told Matthew how long it would take us was rather prone to order of magnitude estimates. The lighthouse which was on the beach is just visible in the centre of the picture.

And here we are on the beach itself. Cathie is demonstrating why it was absolutely essential for the conference to be held in La Serena, while Jim prowls around, speculating on the nutritional possibilities of the surroundings. Unfortunately, beaches don't have much of calorific value, unless you are a seagull.

In the end, we got a couple of pizzas from a place on the way back, eating them on the hoof. We arrived no more than about halfway through Richard Larson's talk....

Here by special request - Cathie found this sign rather amusing. Since you can't read it at this resolution, the street names are Arturo Pratt and BDO O'Higgins.

There were some truly spectacular sunsets. Unfortunately, I neglected to photograph all but one. This is a view of the sky, with the hotel silhouetted in the foreground. I'm not sure who the statue is supposed to be, but my best guess would be the town's founder.

More of the same sunset. The church on the left of the frame had some rather noisy bells in the tower.

And a final picture of the sunset. As the car demonstrates, the shutter speed was rather low for this one (it was a 100 ASA film). However, I didn't use a tripod.
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On the Friday, trips were arranged. Making a great sacrifice, two coach loads of attendees forwent a trip around the local vineyards, and went to have a look at Gemini South.

The telescope is just visible on the flat topped mountain in the centre of the picture.

On the way up to Gemini, we passed the telescopes of CTIO, sited (unsurprisingly) on Cerro Tololo. Actually, several of us had thought that these domes were Gemini. It was only when the bus turned away from them, and brought Cerro Pachon (which is where Gemini is located) into sight that we realised our mistake.

This was our first good look at Gemini on its mountain top. However, we still had quite a distance to go.

We've arrived! The buses parked to the left of the dome give some indication of scale. Jim, however, is fed up already....

Now, the burning question I'm sure you've all been agonising over: What do observers do when they're not busy? Here, for the first time, the answer is presented: They gloat over amateur astronomers.

I spotted this in the coffee room, and found it rather amusing. If the owner of the leg wants to own up, I'll credit them....

The staff at Gemini very generously opened up the dome, and gave the telescope a quick spin around. The change in light levels as the side vents (designed to keep the air inside the dome as uniform as possible) opened was very dramatic. The telescope frame is intruding slightly into the right of the picture.

And here we have the beast itself. This is what an eight metre diameter mirror looks like up close. Well, as close as we could get.

I was amazed at how filthy the mirror was. The two dark circles are where the aluminising plant didn't quite do things right. From this, we can conclude that the magnetron in question is just over one metre wide. The mirror was also covered in dust, and had a few specimens from the local avian population. Having said all this, I should also add that the staff at Gemini were preparing to remove, clean, recoat and replace the mirror. However, machines like Gemini tend not to come with instruction manuals, so they were still trying to work out how they were going to achieve all this.

A final view of Cerro Tololo from Cerro Pachon.