A New Job at the YTLA!

So, it's been a little while since I posted last, and that's partly due to the fact that I accepted the job offer with the Yuan-Tseh Lee Array (formerly known as the Array for MIcrowave Background Anisotropy, or AMiBA), started work last Thursday, and have already been up Mauna Loa twice this week and will be going up again tomorrow. I love the view up there, but I can't deny it's pretty exhausting!

Mauna Kea with scattered clouds about its head, seen at quitting time yesterday. Pau hana!

So yes, I'm once again working full-time, and I'd forgotten how tired that tends to leave one at the end of the day. My job title is YTLA Telescope Test/Operator, and there's a chance I might start doing night-time operations on Mauna Loa as early as next week (though for the moment my work hours consist of a mixture of helping out up on Mauna Loa during the day and being in the office down in Hilo).

A panorama showing Mauna Kea with the YTLA on the right; the telescope is inside the tan fabric shelter while the white shipping containers are the control room and the operator quarters.

There's lots more I could say about my new work, but it's getting late and I need to be up early again to prepare for going up tomorrow, so I'll keep this post short. Though I just realized I can now truthfully tell people that I work on an active volcano. Awesome. A hui hou!

(You know you work at an amazing place when you can seriously ask your supervisor, “So if the volcano suddenly starts erupting, is the preferred course of action to get in the car and gun it down the mountain, or stay put and wait for the emergency evac helicopter?”)

Edit 3/23/17: Just a few more pictures I took today. It was cloudy and foggy today for the first time, and I got a nice picture of Mauna Kea brooding beneath the clouds:

Mauna Kea seen on a more cloudy day.

I also had the bright idea to take a panorama inside the YTLA enclosing structure, allowing me to better capture it in its entirety:

The outer structure looks weird because the panorama distorts it, but you can see its exterior two photos up.

I also learned today that there's a large empty cavity beneath the telescope, inside the white cone structure beneath the platform in the picture above. It has a hatch to enter that looks a lot like an early space flight capsule door:

The telescope is not actually secretly a spaceship, sadly.