purplecthulhu

ESO requires observers to arrive 48 hours before their run starts so that phase 2 preparations for observations - essentially writing scripts that semi-automate what's to be done - can be completed.

I did most of mine last night so, my support astronomer, I can have the day off.

There are a few more things to do, and I have some phase 2 work to do for colleagues arriving here in a few days, but I'll do that later, once it's dark. Instead I've been resting, catching up on sleep and... waiting for things to get going. There's a lot of waiting in astronomy :-)

The centre of mass for ESO's operations has move north from La Silla to the Paranal observatory and the VLT. While the big three telescopes still operate here - the 3.6m, the 2.2m and the NTT, which I'm using, most of the others are closed, mothballed, waiting for some unlikely project to come along that will get them going again. The sleeping, unused domes, and there are at least 10 of them, make La Silla an odd place, haunted by past achievements and lost promise. It's the kind of place that would be an interesting location for some fiction...