Construction Continues and so does STUDYING...

You know those mirrors at the fun house...

And this was done with my point and shoot digital camera and a photo stitching software, I think I am feeling a little dizzy, but I am having fun.

At least with the photos I am having fun, I am taking my next ARE on Wednesday and am not feeling very ready for it (I am not sure how to change that, I have almost finished all the reading for it (I will by tomorrow). Then I have a day or two to go back and look over some of the things I do not feel very comfortable with, oops all of it.

I think with all the reading and studying for this exam I have definitely learned why architect hire mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) engineers to do this work for them; IT IS BORING AS HECK!! (Sorry to all you MEP engineers out there, but you must be crazy.)

After this exam I only have two more to do (or re-do in my case), I am so close to the end of all this study stuff; except fro helping others, oh yea and then studying for the new LEED exam, will it ever end?

Still putting up Steel...

New Tech High School (NTHS or NexGen Academy) is still under construction, well it will be for another 9 months or so. I am assisting Bob R. in our office with the construction administration on the project so I have the opportunity to visit the job site each week for the weekly construction meetings and I have been doing some photographs for fun of the building as it is being constructed. I will be posting some of these photos as we move the construction moves on and we start to see the building take on its final form. It is a lot of fun to see the building growing from the ground up I am looking foreword to opening day.

Mr. President...

As of last Saturday (01.09.2010) I am now the President of The Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS). I have been a member of TAAS for quite some time and before going back to school in 2000 I was very involved and active in the organization. After starting back to school full time I did not have as much time to commit to TAAS so I all but disappeared fro the next 6 years or so, but after completing school in December 2006 I decided it was time to get involved again and now look what I got myself into.

I am looking foreword to the experience and happy that the members of TAAS have enough confidence in my efforts that they voted for me (a lot of it is that I was the only one foolish enough to say yes when asked, I have to work on that). Seriously though, I am proud to be a member of such a wonderful organization and very proud of the work that TAAS does to bring astronomy to the general public of all ages, we are one of the larger amateur astronomy clubs in the country and by far one of the most active ones and it is a great honor to be one of the leaders of this organization.

Wish me luck and look for some more posts regarding this position and astronomy in the future.

Construction, Construction, Construction...

It has been some time since I posted anything...well its a new year and I hope to get better about being a little more regular with my posts. I am fortunate enough to be fairly busy at work at this moment as we prepare for construction documents for our Del Norte project to be released very soon. I am also helping out with construction administration on the New Tech High School (NextGen Academy), this is Phase I of the Del Norte project and is scheduled to be completed later this year. Here are some of the construction photos taken during my weekly construction meeting at the job site, it is very exciting to see the building going up and I am looking foreword to the coming months and seeing the building take on more of a finished form.

And the wonders continue...

Did you ever have one of those practically perfect days, that seem to start well and just continue to get even better as the day continues into the night, a day that will not be forgotten in some time, well that day was Saturday, October 17, 2009 and it was an amazing day. I woke up to go to a class I am taking at CNM, that was a very good and productive class for me then, I then went to work for a few hours that were very productive making me wish I had more time to spend there but I needed to get ready to head out to the observatory for what I was hoping would continue to be a great evening.

I arrived at GNTO and began to set up my telescope and look over my sky maps to see what I was going to be looking for that evening as the sun set and the sky darkened more and more people began to arrive filling the observing field to capacity. The night did not disappoint, it turned out to be a wonderful evening with some very clear good skies for observing the wonders of the universe. I saw a couple of things that I had never seen before and some of my favorites I spent some time staring at through the eyepiece. M13, M57, M31 are all regulars for me when observing but 'WOW' this time observing they were all much more spectacular than I had ever seen them before, I think with a little more magnification on M57 I might have seen the central star. Jupiter was putting on quite a show this night looking spectacular even at low power and holding its own at higher powers, at about 10:30pm I looked at it again with a 6mm eyepiece and was very clearly able to see the 'Great Red Spot' and some detail in the edges of the bands around the planet. I also saw Neptune in Kevin's scope and was very impressed with the turquoise colored disk of the planet evident in his scope, I tried finding it in my scope but after spending only about 10 minutes looking went on to other things.

I also took a look at M27 and M15, both have been seen before but not as regularly as the others and they looked amazing last night the 'Dumbbell' very clearly showed the structure that gave it its name. I also saw the 'Saturn Nebula' NGC 7009 for the first time and it was spectacular, a very small object but it definitely looked like Saturn with its rings (in this case not rings) and the bluish color was amazing. Another first for me was Epsilon Lyra 'Double Double' I was not able to split the second double but was clearly able to see the 1st double and the bright (in the eyepiece) pair of blueish stars were quite spectacular against the background of stars.

All in all, it was quite a good day ending in a very good night. I look foreword to the next spectacular evening of observing and only hope that it will begin with a spectacular day to start.

The image above is a couple pages from my sketch and observing log, I actually took the time to sketch and note all that I saw this night.

The Road to GNTO...

I went out to GNTO last night to take advantage of the spectacular skies we seem to be having the last couple of nights, I decided to take the more scenic route driving through Isleta, Los Lunas and Belen and I am very glad that I did. The trees along the bosque are turning colors now and it is spectacular, what an amazing place we live in that we have this wonder of nature just outside our back doors. I have lived in New Mexico my entire life and it never ceases to amaze me how beautiful our little piece of the world is and how wonderful it is that we are blessed with the changing seasons and the cycles of life seen each season. I am not sure that the picture above gets even close to the amazing colors I was seeing on my drive out to GNTO, but what a wonderful way to begin an evening that would prove to be absolutely spectacular.

The Moon After...

Just kidding with the previous post, I really did not see anything either (NASA please do not start calling me and asking for my negatives or something).

This was an image I took early on in the evening (October 8th) as the moon was rising prior to the LCROSS mission, but trust me the moon looked the same when I put my telescope away at 6:00am on Friday. I was out at GNTO with 5 others and we had 3 telescopes equipped with video cameras, a 16" Dob with my camera attached to the eyepiece (5mm) set up in video mode recording and I was looking through the eyepiece of my 13" trying to see something with my own eyes, but to no avail. It may have been a somewhat disappointing event but I did have a lot of fun with the people there and look foreword to the next time we decide to throw something at the moon, I will be there with my scope to look again (I just hope the moon does not decide to throw something back).