As many of my friends and family already know, I have been the webmaster of a number of astronomy related websites these past couple of years.  Initally starting out with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's Winnipeg Centre, I quickly took on the 100 Hours of Astronomy site with my friend Gord (also from the RASC Winnipeg Centre).  This particluar project taught me some very good lessons, that I have since taken back to the RASC Winnipeg Site, as well as my own personal website, Trudel Networks.

Roughly 8 months ago, as the 100 Hours of Astronomy wrapped up, Mike Simmons asked me to help out with his newly redesigned Astronomers Without Borders site, which was intended to be a community site and launching pad for all of the community and outreach programs that he wanted to pursue.

Many of these outreach programs have taken the form of  Special AWB Projects, and include Remote Observing,  Seasons Without Borders, and my personal favorite, The World at Night, a spectacular outreach initiave that sets specatular world sites against the backdrop of spectacular astronomical sights.

Astronomers Without Borders is also in the initial stages of planning an astronomy outreach program, that will serve as a fabulous follow up to the International Year of Astronomy's 100 Hours of Astronomy event.  This event, aptly named World Astronomy Month, will be an event on a global scale, that I hope everybody has an opportunity to participate in.

Stay tuned to the World Astronomy Month project page, as it will be updated frequently with information as it becomes known, and events as they are organized.

Most of our immediate family and friends already know that Janessa and I have been engaged for a few years now.  So long in fact, that I almost consider us married already.  But alas we are not.

But that is all going to change next June.  Our date and venue have already been set.

More details to follow as we progress through the accelerated timetable that is our wedding planning.

Yesterday was a relatively uneventful day, what with sitting on airplanes for the better part of 7 hours. Flight from Los Angeles departed at 12:45pm, and we arrived in Winnipeg just after 9:00pm.

Thank you to all the people we met along the way for their time and hospitality.

An even bigger Thank you to Mike, for helping with the setup/scheduling of many of our excursions.  Don't forget though...Gord and I are still going to take you up on the offer to observe on the Mount Wilson 60-inch!

A huge Thank you to Gord for his efforts as "cruise director" and the wonderful time in California.

Today is the last full day in California for Gord and I.  To culminate the week, we spent the day at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, which was being put on by the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference.  What a fabulous show!  More gear than you can shake a stick at, and wonderful presentations by a variety of people in the astronomy industry.

In the morning, I took part in a presentation by Al Nagler (from Televue), where he spoke about how to choose eyepieces.  I also watched a presentation by David Ho (from Hotech) on recent advances in collimating Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescopes.

In the afternoon, I watched a wonderful presentation by Rusty Schweickart on preventing asteroid impacts and a prsentation by Sean Walker on Planetary Imaging.

After the presentations and shows, we met up with Mike Simmons and Sean Walker, and went for some drinks and bite to eat at Tokyo Wako, which was located across the street from the Pasadena Convention Center where PATS was being held.

Tonight is likely going to be an early night, considering we need to be up at 7am to prepare for our departure flights back to Winnipeg.

Today was a very different day than the last 6 days Gord and I have spent in the Los Angeles region.  The reason?  We attended the Riverside Astronomical Society's second annual Astro-Imaging workshop.  The morning featured a presentation on what makes good astro-images, and was followed up by a presentation on affordable astro-imaging.  Reality though is the affordable part involved at $300.00 piece of software and a $2000.00 imaging camera.

Afternoon was of particular interest since there was a 3-part presentation by an Orion rep about astro-imaging gear, imaging techniques and post-processing techniques.  I must have taken 4 pages of notes (all typed so I can read them).

After the workshop, we met up with Mike Simmons, who was in the area for a presentation/reception across the street from the convention centre where the workshops were taking place, and we had a bite to eat at a local japanese restaurant.

After supper, we went with Mike to the reception, which was, in a manner of speaking, a kickoff for The World at Night, which is a project of Astronomers Without Borders, and also is a Special Project of the International Year of Astronomy.

Many of the people that Gord and I met this past week were there, Mike Simmons from AWB, Stephen J. Edberg from JPL, Alex McConahay and Linda Hoffman from RAS.

Tonight is another 'earlish' night, since the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show is tomorrow and starts at 9am, but also since we both want to start working our way back onto Winnipeg time.

I realized today, that I didn't make a post last night regarding day 7 of the Astro-Geek week that Gord and I are undertaking.  This isn't so much a big deal, other than this probably ranks up there with being one of my favorite days of our trip so far.

You may be asing why what was so special?  The answer is simple; we visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  One of the pre-eminent robotics labs in the United States, if not the world.

Our tour was provided by Steven J. Edberg, a scientist who has worked on the Galileo and Cassini missions.  He gave a very thorough tour of the JPL campus.  From the Space Flight Operations Facility (where we were unable to get past the front reception desk) to the Space Flight Assembly Facility, where we got to see parts of the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory staged for assembly.  We got to see some scientists and technicians working on the Free Spirit operations in a simulated Mars environment, as well as the Mars simulation yard.  Our tour also included an inside view of the "baking" room, where spacecraft are subjected to real-space conditions (such as the vacuum and near-absolute-zero temperatures) while being bombarded with the intense light and heat of the sun. 
All in all it was all very very cool...

In the afternoon, Gord and I decided to check out the La Brea Tar pits, which for all intents in purpose is a single remaining pit, and spent some time touring the associated museum, which is plunked right in the middle of downtown LA.  What a contrast.

Ordered some pizza for dinner, watched the new TV drama 'FlashForward', and hit the sack early, in order to get a good night's rest for Friday's AstroImaging Workshop.

Considering we spent the night in Yucca Valley, last night, it was a short jaunt to the Joshua Tree National Park.  This park, situated where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet and transition, is representative of not only "Low Desert", the traditionally barren and uber-dry that most people think of, but also "High Desert", which tends to be moister and cooler, and thus contains more vegetation.

Afterwards, we proceeded to return to our hotel in Pasadena.  A scorcher of a day driving a little four cylinder car whose air conditioner was unable to keep up.  It was so nice to just enter the hotel room, let alone lie back for a few minutes and catch up email and what not.
In the early evening (before dark), we drove out to Griffith Observatory and met up with Mike Simmons, who gave us a little bit of a tour, after which we checked out a pair of planterium shows.  The shows were so-so, but the visuals were fantastic.

After the shows, we took some evening shots of the LA region, since Griffith Observatory is situated north of the city.  These will contrast nicely with the day time panoramic shots I took in the late afternoon.

Before leaving for the night, we went up to the East Observatory Dome on the site, and had a look at Jupiter through the 12" refractor.  Seeing was poor, but that's not surprising given the amount of light pollution and heat drafts from the city.

Today was a fairly long day that started out with a trip out to Mount Palomar to get a tour of the Hale 200-inch telescope.  Jean, our guide of the facility was extremely knowledgeable, having worked in/around the massive telescope for many many years.  Gord and I got to see everything from the ground floor, the observatory dome, the telescope, control rooms and even the catwalks.

I took many photos, and start the lengthy process of stitching them together and processing them very very soon.

After our 2 hour tour of the Palomar Observatory, we travelled cross-country to join up with the Riverside Astronomical Society and the Southern California Desert Video Astronomers.  There we got a chance to meet Al Nagler (though he'll likely not remember us), and try out his Ethos line of wide field eyepieces.  Very Cool...

Tonight we're bunking at the Best Western in Yucca Valley.

Today was a bit of a slow start, with my not getting up until about 9:00am local time.  Probably a good thing since we didn't have a whole heck of a lot planned for today, since Griffith Observatory is closed on Mondays.

After a breakfast at IHOP, Gord and I proceeded to drive around LA, starting out with Sunset Boulevard, and eventually ending up on Hollywood Boulevard.  Being so cloase, we ended up at Mann's Chinese Theater, and took some shots of the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, although that has absolutely nothing to do with Astronomy, unless of course you consider that it's pretty much the only stars you can see from Hollywood...

Gord suggested we check out Madame Tussaud's wax museum.  Talk about really cool.  Much better than the wax museum in Niagra Falls.  Maybe not worth the $20.00 entry (after a $5.00 coupon), but cool nonetheless.

We met up with Mike after lunch at California Institute of Technology (aka CalTech), where Mike gave us a very interesting tour of things that no longer exist.

The old astronomy and astro-physics building has been emptied and moved into the new Cahill Building.  An architectural disaster that looks like it has fallen apart.  The Athenarium, which is the staff hang-out was gutted (in a manner of speaking) in preparation for a movie shoot.  The book store has given up on selling books (having gone to an online book store model), and really just sells souvenirs and stuff.

For supper, we went to the Thai place next door.  Very good food.  I'll have to take my wife to a Thai place when I get home.

All in all, it was an interesting day with filled with lots of walking and image taking.

Today was another busy day (as will most of the days to come).
Morning started with us getting up at GMARS, after last night's star party with the Riverside Astronomical Society.  Gord and I are still both on Winnipeg time, so not only did we not realize we were heading to bed at 12:30am (rather than what we thought was 2:30am), but we also were up at 7:30am, thinking that it was 9:30am.   We finally realized what time it really was when we got on the road thinking it was 10:30am, only to find out that it was only 8:30am.  Phew!

GPS took us on a different route back to Pasadena, so we got to see some interesting country side while travelling at 90 miles per hour.  The posted limit, apparenty a suggested minimum was 65 miles per hour.

We met up with Mike Simmons, for some lunch at a quaint little restaurant called the Green Street Restaurant.  Very nice little diner.

After lunch we proceeded to the Carnegie Institute for their annual open house.  Talk about history!!!  The Carnegie Institute own/operates a number of large telescopes, many based in Chile, but some are located right in California, such as the 60-inch and 100-inch telescopes on Mount Wilson.

After the open house, we proceeded to a small gathering of astronomy types just up the street.  Here we got to rub shoulders with a few of the administrators of the Mt Wilson, including Dave Jurasevich and Donald Nicholson, as well as a variety of volunteers, amateur astronomers and professional astronomers.

Evening followed with some discussion (on the street) with Mike regarding Astronomers Without Borders, and some planning for tomorrow...

Back at the hotel, I've had a chance to look at some of the images I've taken so far...I tell you...there's lots of images (including the astro-images I took last night)...  I'll run a few through processing and try to post a couple soon...

Anyways...Pizza is on the way...so it's just about time to eat...