Mercury in morning twilight

As I was leaving the MMT after a night of observing, I saw Mercury rising in morning twilight over the adjacent mountain Mt. Wrightson. This image was taken on 17 Sept 2004 using a Canon Rebel. A higher resolution version can be found here .



Orion over the Kitt Peak 2.1-m and Coude Feed telescopes

This was taken around 1am on the morning of 30 Sept 2004, and shows Orion over the moonlit Kitt Peak 2.1-m telescope.



Phil's Excellent Trip to Chile '04


The hardest thing about the trip was saying goodbye to Rita.


Emily Levesque (MIT) and the RC Spectrograph at the 4-m Blanco


Weather-wise, the first night did not look promising.




Emily and the 4-m.


Triangular shadow of Cerro Tololo


Oscar Saa cleans the 4-m primary.


Moonrise over the Andes.


Emily checks out the sunset.


The moon over the CTIO 0.9-m.


Say "ahh!"


Orion and the CTIO 4-m


Magellan II (The Clay) on Las Campanas.


The two Magellan telescopes: Baade (left) and Clay (right).


Collaborator Nidia Morrell (LCO) at the keyboard.


The Dupont 100-inch on Campanas.


Nidia and collaborator Kathy Eastwood (NAU) on the catwalk at the DuPont. Kathy's shirt is visited by the Aliasing Fairy.


Nidia and the Swoope 1.0-m, where our images of R136 are being obtained.


Las Campanas MAY be called that because of the beautiful sound that the rocks make. This picture is taken on the **true** Las Campanas, possibly the site of a 20-m telescope some day. I hope they leave these rocks, though.


For some reason, the Baade was always open before we were on the Clay.


Alpha and Beta Centuri and the Southern Cross over the Baade.


The Clay in moonlight.


Collaborators wandering this way and that at sunset.


Kathy checks the telescope.




The LMC and the CTIO 4-m.