I love my “job.” As one who deals in astronomy education it is my sworn duty to go to any odd corner of the world in search like-minded types. And so I undertook a torturous journey to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, owned by Spain but not too far to the east from Morocco. It was on these islands, that the first Starmus conference was held in 2011. The Canaries were chosen as the organizers live there and due to the large number of...

At the end of May, took another one of my slightly wacky vacations, this time to Chile and Peru. The first week in Chile was dedicated to visiting various observatories and other astronomy related sites. Due to some of the best seeing in the world along with the dry, stable climate in the Atacama Desert, Chile is gravid with observatories. Collectively these sites form the European Southern Observatory, www.eso.org. Besides visiting all of...

Yesterday (June 3) we were able to go up to see one of the largest and highest observatories in the world. The famous pair of Keck 10 meter telescopes at the 13,600′ level of Mauna Kea, a “dormant” volcano. Up until the 80s, the largest usable optical scope in the world was the 200″ Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar, north of San Diego. The “200 inch” references the size of the actual mirror used, in this case, the Hale telescope’s mirror is very...