I’m back and the new year has started and there have been some exciting things going on. Here’s a few of those things which could’ve been paragraphs from my diary, if I had one.
Some day at the end of August or the beginning of this month – I would’ve written that I had a lovely last get-together with my friends in London. We met in The Union for drinks in the garden and had agreed to stay for lunch together. I love those English pubs and it’s a real shame we don’t have them here. We even had such a good time that we were still there for dinner and ice cream and we watched the day turn cosy dark. Geoff made friends with the nice waitress and Tommy made friends with Ruby – a friendly and funny dog enjoying her day too. Edd and I stayed in London that night and even the hotel messing up our reservations couldn’t spoil our good mood. On the last day of my holiday we walked along the beach together, where I took this picture. Thanks again all of you guys!
On September 9th – there was some big astronomical news: Hubble opened its new eyes on the universe! After the space telescope had a successful service mission and was completely updated, it is now officially ready to take some incredible pictures (from which we can learn a lot of course). As said before, Hanny’s Voorwerp will be in one of those pictures soon, which is very exciting as this is what the first four beauties looked like:
Yesterday – I was invited by the wonderful people from CAMRAS, of whom I met a few when I was in Dwingeloo before, to give my lecture for them in Eindhoven. We were at a nice place to give lectures in and they were a lovely interested audience. One of the guys brought his parents and his mum came to tell me afterwards she really loved the galaxy font. I hope the guy with the camera is reading this too and – if he took a nice picture – that he will send it to me.
Today – I announced on the Galaxy Zoo forum that I’m organising (after ‘subtle’ hints from some of my friends in the Union the other day) a get-together in the Netherlands! And actually, this idea started a year ago, when general director of ASTRON, prof. Michael Garrett invited me for a special tour of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. Mike and his team sure know how to throw a party and make you feel important by thinking of everything! It’ll happen next month, but I’m already very excited.
And besides being busy with replacing other teachers in different schools again in between, I also got a new job in the United Kingdom! I can’t say a lot more about it yet, but I don’t have to move for it… *to be continued*.
4 Comments
Hi Hanny,
I want to be the first to order a poster of 50 x 80 Ft from Hanny’s voorwerp made by the new Hubble!
Great pictures very detail full.
good to have you back
Dear Hanny,
Those pictures are super beautiful! It’s exciting to think about what might be ahead.
Happy 15,000