Apache Point Observatory (APO) is located on a 9200 ft. peak near the town of Alamagordo, New Mexico. The famous White Sands are also nearby. I arrived on the mountain Sunday evening with four undergraduate students in tow. We traveled all day to get here from Hamilton, NY, leaving the village at 3:30am for a 6am flight out of Syracuse. After stopping for some authentic Mexican food in Albuquerque, we made the roughly four hour drive to a Wal-Mart in Alamagordo where we stocked up on food for the next three days. After a mostly successful grocery stop in which we loaded up on orange juice, milk, bread, salsa, chorizo (including the soy variety), corn tortillas, Tostitos “Hint of Lime” corn chips, and fruit, we turned on to Rt. 82, which took us UP into the Lincoln National Forest toward the little town of Cloudcroft. We arrived at APO just before sunset.
After unloading and hydrating, we moseyed on over to the control room for the 3.5 meter telescope where my students and I would be observing on Monday night (Tuesday morning really). We arrived just in time to be treated to a plate swap on the 2.5-meter Sloan telescope by Howard, the most prolific observer in Sloan’s history. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III program APOGEE was collecting data. APOGEE is a program I’ve always felt tenuous connection to through my former lab at the University of Virginia with Mike Skrutskie, John Wilson, Matt Nelson, Ricardo Schiavon, et al. With that said, it was a treat to get a first hand look at how the APOGEE instrument and survey has been conducted. APOGEE, like much of the Sloan work has been extremely successful at mapping the motions of stars in the Milky Way and obtaining chemical abundances in order to understand the dynamical and chemical history of the Galaxy.
After a short night’s sleep, we had a few breakfast burritos and walked to the National Solar Observatory that sits atop Sacramento Peak on a ridge adjacent to Apache Point. After being tourists for a few hours, we made our way back to APO to plan our observations, get another bite to eat, and take a short nap before we went on the telescope at 1:10am. My students, two from Colgate, one from Wesleyan, and one from Vassar, had done an excellent job preparing for the observations having put together detailed finder charts that made finding our sources, which were in crowded fields quite easy. While the skies were clear, the atmospheric conditions we not great. Astronomical seeing was two to two and a half arcseconds. Meaning that the refraction of the starlight by turbulent pockets in the atmosphere would cause the apparent size of the star to be twice the size it would appear on an average night. Regardless, we still obtained good data on a number of the targets we were looking forward to observing.
During the afternoon of our second day, we took a short ride into the small nearby town of Cloudcroft. We made our way into a small independent bookstore called Imaginary Books & Collectibles. The store is “Open most days 11am-5pm.” I started a conversation with the owner, Ed, and told him what we were doing in Cloudcroft. He pointed out some of the original buildings in town and how integral the railroad was to its existence. The railroad was shutdown at some point and the rails were removed and sold for scrap metal. So, nowadays, if you want to visit Cloudcroft, you have to drive up the mountain. Our discussion of the timber industry turned to a discussion of West Virginia and the clear-cutting of the state that had occurred at the turn of the 20-th century. Ed, a former elementary and middle school science teacher, said that all he knew of WV was Coalwood. I said, well, you know a lot about where I am from then, as I described that Coalwood was one of the many coal camps that encircled my hometown of Welch. Then ensued a discussion of Homer Hickam’s books about Coalwood and the movie October Sky, which Ed used to show his students. He had a hardback copy of The Rocket Boys for sale. You don’t see those much anymore.
I also caught a glimpse of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. He hadn’t recognized that her story also took place, partly at least, in Welch, but he was familiar with most of her books, noting the southwest connection with her mother. After buying a few books from Ed, we were on our way back to APO to get in a little nap before our second night of observations started at 1:22am. While some high cirrus clouds rolled in around midnight, we were still able to collect our data with no issues. We made it to bed around 6:30am having completed two successful nights on the telescope. Our plan was to get a few more hours of sleep and head down the mountain around 10am so that we could stop by the Very Large Array and catch an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game that evening.
We made the long drive to Soccoro, stopping for the best green chile burgers on Earth at the Owl Bar and Restaurant for lunch. We made the 50 mile drive out to the VLA and arrived at the welcome center with Bohemian Rhapsody blaring on the radio and everyone singing along (Galileo, figaro…). The telescope was currently in one of its more extended configurations with the 27 antennae extending nearly 17 miles out in each direction. We entered the welcome center and sat down for the introductory video. A 23 minutes production narrated by not-surprisingly, Jodie Foster. What was a big surprise was that the astrophysicist that was featured in the movie was Amy Reines. Amy and her husband David Nidever (also an astrophysicist), were graduate students at UVA while I was there as a postdoc It was a little surreal to sit down in a theater that seemed to be in another world and see such a familiar face pop up on the screen. I’m constantly reminded that it’s a small world, but the astronomical community is truly a “small world.”
After much “oohhing and awwing” over the VLA, we hopped back into the car and made the final 2-hour drive from the VLA back to Albuquerque to see the Isotopes. The entire trip had gone so well up to this point and we were on time to see most of the game. We checked in to our hotel and caught a hotel shuttle to the Isotopes field. My only knowledge of the Albuquerque AAA baseball team, besides knowing that they are in the Pacific Coast League with my former hometown team, The Nashville Sounds, came from my former acquaintance, Richie Hebner. For some, you might recognize the name. Coach Hebner was a major leaguer for a number of years spending most of his time in the “Bigs” as a third baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He won a World Series on a team with Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Bill Mazeroski. We met on an airplane ride from Dallas -Fort Worth two weeks after he had taken over mid-season as the manager of the Nashville Sounds. The team was on its way back from Albuquerque when they (and I) were delayed for three hours. Evidently Coach had spent most of the three hours at a bar in the airport before they allowed us to board the plane. I was already in my window seat when Richie made his way on to the plane and took the middle seat next to me. He was wearing a white polo shirt with the Pirates logo on it. I immediately asked if he was a coach for the Sounds. He said, “Yes!” I said, “Which one?” He, “The manager.” My response, was measured. I knew that they had yet to win a game since he had taken the helm two weeks prior. “So, where are y’all coming from?” “Albuquerque, the asshole of the earth!” He responded. “How did you do?” “11-1! It was like the other team’s players were on a merry-go round” Referring to the other players constantly advancing around the bases. Still winless. What followed was a three-hour conversation about coaching, playing in the majors, The Great One, hitting, hitting behind Willie Stargell, visiting colleges and universities, prima donnas with 0.088 batting averages,… Richie Hebner was part comedian and part crusty old curmudgeon. Coack would leave me tickets at the Will Call, whenever I wanted to come to Sounds game the rest of that summer. Of course, he didn’t return the following season as the Sounds would finish with the worst record in their history that summer.
Back to the Isotopes: A Dodgers affiliate, the Isotopes were hosting a Texas affiliate from Round Rock. The game was quite exciting with 39 hits, 5 errors, and 23 runs scored. There was even a grand slam in the top of the ninth. The Isotopes were on the losing end of this slugfest. But I see what coach meant about the merry-go round analogy!!!
The next morning we visited the University of New Mexico campus, discovered a closed meteorite museum, and then headed back to the airport for a 1pm flight back east. Now we are back home and ready to analyze some data!!!
The Hillbilly Astrophysicist 