Cheetah Encounter: Sunday afternoon, heading towards the harbor, I was walking with a few other people and we decided to take a bit of a shortcut, that they had taken earlier. It was early enough in the week that we didn't actually know the long way around, in fact - I was just following the crowd. But our way was blocked off, by, of all things, a Cheetah. Yes, there was a live cheetah blocking our path. Sitting on a table, on a leash, held by 2 handlers, looking quite bored, and possibly tranquilized somewhat. Apparently there was another conference going on, and they had a live cheetah as some sort of entertainment, and they were holding an event right in the hotel plaza where we wanted to cut. They eventually let us by, holding the cheetah back, but I got within about 2 meters of it. NOT what I expected to encounter in the Cape Town harbor...
Kicked out of the Aquarium: The conference reception was held Sunday evening at the aquarium in the harbor, and we had a great open view into the shark tank, and around the lobby. There was also a set of unlocked doors that led into the rest of the building. So I, and several other astronomers including my advisor, naturally wanted to explore the rest of the aquarium. And it was super cool - the lights were all dim, including in most of the tanks, and we could wander around the floor looking at giant crabs, jellyfish tanks, and so on. Until we were informed that no... we weren't actually supposed to be in there. Oops! Who knew a closed door meant "do not enter"?
Local Cuisine: There has been a surprising lack of distinct South African cuisine around here, though I've had a few things that are apparently local. The dried fish that I've mentioned, a couple desserts (a gingery pudding, brandy sticks), something called Bobotie, which is like a shepherd pie only with a egg custard top. Probably the most different thing I've tried, however, is a local meat that has popped up several places. It's generally not cooked in any particular style, but the meat itself is local: Springbok. I'd never HEARD of springbok, so naturally I ordered it at first opportunity. Its a (very cute) type of antelope, which are very common in the area. I haven't seen any live ones, but they're pretty tasty. The meat is a little tough, so they tend to be braised or roasted for long periods of time. Kind of like a tough venison, is the closest taste I can describe. Not bad, certainly worth a try. Hopefully I'll find some other local cuisine soon - there are some local curries, for example, which I've been wanting to try... but haven't found any place that serves them.
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| Robben Island |
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| Countryside in the Winelands |
Boschendal: For the conference dinner, we went out about an hour outside the city to the wine country, to the vineyard/restaurant Boschendal. Beautiful countryside, lots of tasty food, and some VERY excellent sauvignon blanc - I may have to buy some at some point before I leave, if I see it again. But most awesome of all - I hadn't actually thought much about what kind of sky I would see in the south as far as specifics go. I don't know the southern sky very well at all, in fact, so I just thought "oh, I'll learn some southern constellations" and didn't think much more about it. We'd been to tour the SAOO (South African Optical Observatory), but we had to leave before it got truly dark, and that was much closer to the city anyway. But when we went to Boschendal - that's over an hour outside Cape Town, so you could actually see some LOVELY night sky - the Milky Way, for one thing, which is a baseline for how good a sky you've got - if you can see that, it's got to be a pretty decent sky (at least, that is what I think, having lived in NYC and Baltimore). But I ALSO discovered how Large and Cloud-like the Large Magellanic Cloud actually IS. It hadn't crossed my mind, but of course, it IS in the southern sky, and it was known before there were actual telescopes, so it's quite visible by eye down here on a sufficiently dark night. It had to be pointed out to me, because it is very easily be mistaken for a cloud, but it was a little taller and at least 3 times as wide as the full moon would be (though happily it was a moonless night). It's undoubtedly even larger on a darker night, as it gets even more diffuse around the edges. Super cool. I also had some other constellations pointed out to me, most notably the southern cross. I commented it looked more like a small square than a cross (since I'm used to the northern one, which is quite a bit larger and has a central star which serves as a crossing point), but I can pick that one out now. The only constellation I could recognize myself was Orion, which was upside down to what I'm used to seeing! This weekend I'm going to be going on an after-conference tour to SALT (South African Large Telescope) in the Sutherlands, where I hope to see even more of the southern sky, maybe even the SMALL Magellanic Cloud. It will be a lot further from the city, so I have high hopes for a clear and dark night sky.
Actual Astronomy: Of course, I'm at this conference for a reason, not just to play tourist. It's the first all-novae conference in a decade - one of a series, this is the 4th such conference in ~40 years. I'm meeting scientists from around the world, all of whom work on the same type of object that I do. I'm introducing myself and my work to the community, meeting people who may become future collaborators, exchanging ideas, and absorbing all the science I can. And of course, it's my first international conference - I gave my first ever talk at a conference, on radio observations of the nova V1723 Aql, which seemed to go pretty well. I even got several compliments on it! Certainly an interesting topic (in my completely unbiased opinion!). This is an object which by all appearances, when it first went off in 2010, was a completely typical classical nova (at least in optical observations). In fact, the reason our group (see blog post "The Astronomer's Day On") started observing it was in the hopes of getting a good "baseline" for radio behavior. While the late time observations fit predictions pretty well, there was an early time 'bump' in the light curve (here this means the brightness of the nova over time, when observed in radio at various frequencies) which one can't explain at all with the simple model. So my talk described our speculation about the nature of the bump, in addition to the late time fitting to models which estimates the total ejecta mass and showing off our observations in general. Our radio group had quite a good showing at this meeting, and in fact I met people who I've been collaborating with but hadn't physically met before. In addition, I got to talk to many new people, from people whose papers I have read, to those working on topics I didn't know much about at all. About 90 people, from 22 countries, were in attendance; the various venues, activities, and schedules were all well organized; and the talks were by and large quite interesting - all in all, a very good conference!
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| Me, giving my talk (taken by Allen Shafter!) |
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