AAS

I spent the last week at the annual American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C.  Though I haven't seen final numbers, this was supposedly the largest gathering of astronomers ever, at over 3,000. (While this is a lot, it also gives you an indication of how small the community is.)

A lot of astronomers

I gave a short talk on some research from my dissertation, mostly so that I could add it to my dossier for tenure.  I think that it went well, but I was a bit disappointed by the low numbers in the audience compared to some other sessions I had been to.  An interesting development is that the talk right after me was on a project very similar to mine that my former advisor is apparently doing with some other people, unbeknownst to me.  The speaker was somewhat disparaging of my results, though in talking to him afterward I came to the conclusion that he has no idea what he is talking about and was just the monkey chosen to speak.  I should probably ask my old advisor about it, though!

As usual, this meeting was mostly good for catching up with old friends and networking.

Playing with an IR camera at the Spitzer booth.  Can you guess who we are?  

Speaking of booths, the shwag was a little disappointing this year, though I did get some posters for my new office and for a friend who teaches high school physics.  And this year I actually liked that textbook companies were there, and I went around signing up for all kinds of lists.  I even got to take home two textbooks to check out.  However I also learned that the publicity people they send to those things have no idea what they are talking about. (As in, they couldn't answer whether a given book was intended for non-majors, majors, or graduate level.)  Oh well.

There also were some good workshops on things like teaching and outreach.  I might be inspired to start up think-pair-share this semester.  I was weary of having to make up all the questions, but I learned about a new resource at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that provides a lot of stuff.  Unfortunately I teach a second-semester astro course and there are always giant holes in the resources for galaxies and cosmology.  They do have some great new lab simulators that I will probably use in my astro lab class next semester.  Another good workshop was on writing strategies.  The main idea was to write a little bit everyday, but not force yourself to keep going for marathon sessions.  Leave yourself wanting to write more the next day.  The idea of it sounded good, though I haven't implemented the techniques yet.

Proving that astronomers are giant dorks. (I have no idea who this is - it was posted on the general bulletin board.)

I find that the research talks are somewhat pointless, except perhaps as a way to find things to look up later.  I did enjoy a big talk on the evidence for water on mars.  But my favorite talk of the conference was by astronaut John Grunsfeld about his journey on the last mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.  He showed videos and pictures and talked about their emotions throughout.  I confess that I even got a little teared up.  And at the end he got a standing ovation from the full room of astronomers - quite a rare event.  I definitely can't wait to see the Hubble 3D IMAX to see more great footage from the mission.  Unfortunately I will probably have to take a trip into NYC to find an IMAX theater.

John Grunsfeld gives his talk

And lastly, the big party at the end of the conference was a blast as always.  I learned perhaps the most interesting thing of the conference, which is that tonic water glows under black light.  How did I not know that before?

Cheers!