NRAO Synthesis Imaging Workshop

2008 June 19

Last week, I was at the eleventh NRAO Synthesis Imaging Workshop. It was pretty long and covered the field pretty extensively, from what I could tell. The lectures were generally of high quality, which was impressive given the number that were delivered. I felt like I learned some important new ideas and solidified many others, though even now my memory of what happened is fading a bit. I tried to take good notes so hopefully those will help preserve things a bit longer.

Last night, I observed HAT-P-7 again. Weather and equipment were once again very cooperative, so I’m optimistic that the data will turn out to be good. Preliminary analysis seems to be promising.

Today, I tried to jump back in and make progress with BBS analysis. Got a few small things done but mostly I refreshed my memory of what the data look like. Right now, I’m trying to keep my eyes on the prize — churn out good data points in whatever way I can, and figure out the best way to get more good data. Looking at the telescope logs, I’ve noticed that the ATA hasn’t done science observing all month, so the short-term prospects aren’t good, but that’s OK. I think I could still spend some a lot more time with these data before really needing to get more observations. On the other hand one gets a bit tired of the same problematic datasets day in and day out …