Summer Internship

So this summer I have the wonderful opportunity to work at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. They have the worlds largest refracting telescope. If you don't know what that is, or why it is important to be specific, let me give you a quick lesson.

Refracting Telescope: Refracting telescopes use lenses to gather and focus light. Because of this the colors in images are distorted. It also takes larger lenses to gather and focus more light. And these lenses need to be big. The telescope at Yerkes is a 40" refractor. If this still confuses you, do a little research into the size of telescopes.

Reflecting Telescope: Just like the refracting this telescope gathers and focuses light making a clear and pretty image. However unlike the lenses this telescope uses mirrors. Mirrors have the disadvantage of flipping images, but this is nothing another mirror cannot fix. Mirrors do not distort the image because they let all light through equally.


As I was saying I have this opportunity. I have been working at Yerkes for almost 4 weeks now. There have been small problems and big triumphs but things are going well. Last summer I decided to write about music, even though I have very limited knowledge on that subject. This summer I am going to write on something I know a bit better, my internship. Along with writing the blog for Yerkes (url TBD) I will try to write short tidbits on here about what I am up too. Because then I will have a collection for myself (and my mom suggested it and her ideas are usually aces).

Also... I can't forget. I have a science blog to keep up. If I wasn't so tired I would try writing the post on pH that I am about..... 5 weeks behind on. -sigh- I went from fiddling with this blog about 5 years ago to writing three blogs in one summer. What is life?

-Carollela