The Morehead-Cain

I can’t possibly overstate how thrilled I am to be here!

My project is awesome — basically I’m investigating the interstellar medium, the “stuff between the stars.”

I live in a cabin at the top of a mountain, walk to work down a tropical trail full of geckos and iguanas and little singing tree frogs, and my track for after-work runs is the 1000 meters around the dish of the telescope.

Neither “Contact” nor “Goldeneye” nor any picture I’ve ever seen can do justice to the enormous scale and stature of the telescope.

Last week, we got to go out on the catwalk to the receiver!

Very few people get to do this (which I understand, because you’re really, reeeeaally high up and there’s not much between you and a several-minute plummet).

My short list of awesomest-things-I’ve-ever-seen-in-my-life is comprised entirely of places I’ve been on Morehead-Cain summers. This definitely made that list.