English Postdoc chases the eclipse

This was sent to me from a Hubei journalist who interviewed me during the eclipse in Wuhan. It's now online and in printed form. I haven't been able to track down any photos from the journalists who were taking photos of my slightly strange setup but I'll see if I can find anything online.

英国博士后跟着日食跑

荆楚网消息 (楚天都市报) “哪里有日食，哪里就会有我的身影。”昨日上午在黄鹤楼公园，英国帅哥Jon.Shock摆 弄着专业相机，一脸得意地对周围人说。“希腊、俄罗斯、土耳其、西班牙，这些国家我都去过，当然，要不是为了看日食，我才不会去，因为我没有那么多的Money。”29岁的Jon老家在英国牛津，目前在西班牙工作，是个物理学方向的博士后。自从去年在甘肃看过日食后，就惦记着今年7月 22日的日全食。“ 这 可 是500年不遇，并不是每个人都能碰到。”他很早就在网上查询最佳观测地点，最开始他选择在上海，并于一周前从西班牙飞到那里。但后来从天气预报了解，22日当天上海的天气不好，所以Jon赶紧更换地点，乘火车于21日晚到达武汉。
Jon指了指身边的几个同行——德国的john、美国的休斯、法国的巴赫、马来西亚的阿罗约，都是在来汉的火车上碰到的。“他们和我一样疯狂。”（记者王进良 实习生胡幸).

I'll write up a full translation when I have a computer at home (still being fixed in the shop). In the meantime, feel free to google translate. The online version of this article can be found here.

Beijing snapshot

The department is virtually empty at the moment, as is the city, and I'm working on a couple of papers which have been dragging on for way too long. The work itself is extremely interesting, but ironing out the numerical niceties is beginning to be rather tiresome. Sadly, without these niceties it's much harder to put across our results. Still, I've learned that motivation goes through surges and ebbs, and I'm not worried that the current situation isn't perfect for the work. We'll have these done soon enough and then be onto the next set of calculations...

In the mean time, to continue the updates from my journey:

On the day of the eclipse in Wuhan I headed to the train station, not knowing where I was heading next. I turned up, waited in the queue and pondered where to go. By the time I got to the front of the line I figured that I could just make it to Beijing and back to Shanghai in time to catch my flight which would give me a few days back home (Beijing home) to see friends and go check out some old haunts. It turned out that the only tickets left were for the next morning, which I took and booked myself into a cheap hotel close to the station. I spent a few hours wondering around Wuhan, reading in cafes and snacking on streetfood before heading back and catching my train the next morning.

Train rides in China are good for either practicing your Chinese or getting a good way through a thick book, but such options are exclusive and I ended up talking to those around me for the ten hours of the journey. I arrived in the evening and took the metro back to my old stomping ground and indeed my old building where I was staying with a friend. Plenty of old faces greeted me and I had a nice chat with the dumpling lady who was still there, still hand rolling the same flavours that had been there since I arrived four years ago, before heading up to meet old friends.

The three full days in Beijing passed very quickly but I had a chance to pop into the physics department and meet with the head of department, my old boss, about the program I'm organising for next year (more on this soon). I also met many of the graduate students I'd known before which is always a pleasure. It's good to see the progress they make when you come back only once a year.

On the second afternoon I walked up to the electronics district (Zhongguancun) to see if I could find a piece of kit for my camera. On the way I passed my favourite restaurant, a simple place with fantastic Hunan food: big fish head, mapo dofu, black bean bitter gourd and spicey pork dishes being some of the best I ever ate in China. Sadly my restaurant was no more and the dozen or so establishments which used to feed me most nights of the week along the same stretch had vanished, the space being readied for another anonymous block of high-rises.

Further along, where the demolition has not yet been felt I came across an English academy which I don't believe I'd seen before and one of the most ironic pieces of Chinglish I've had the pleasure of seeing:

Another piece of Chinglish I wish I'd had the piece of mind to photograph was no a T-shirt of a woman selling clothes on the streets of Wudaokou. The T-shirt was emblazoned with a Union Jack, under which in bold letters was written "New York, New York". Sometimes it's hard to tell how much of it is a double bluff. 

On arrival at zhongguancun it became clear that the item I wanted was out of my price range, but one of the enthusiastic salesmen wouldn't let me go before I gave him an hour's English lesson - I'm surprised that I haven't been barraged with e-mail questions from him since, though that may be because I recommended he make his way to Talenty English!

Anyway, after a few short days in Beijing I got back on the train and headed another ten hours down to Shanghai. This trip used to take 16 hours and within a year or so will take just four when a very high speed track (300km/h+) will be finished, linking the two East China hubs. A lot of Chinese infrastructure sure puts that of it's British and Spanish counterparts to shame, though the reasons behind such advances are simple and often sad.

Anyway, I should have the last instalment tomorrow night, and then we're back on dry land in not so sunny Spain.

Wuhan eclipse animation

Just a quick post today, with many thanks to Toomanytribbles who took my photos of the cloudy eclipse and turned them into this lovely animation. I wasn't taking these in order to get such an animation, so the timing is non-constant, but at least the contrast between light and dark is very clear in the couple of seconds between frames of totality and partiality.

Total solar eclipse in Wuhan, July 22nd 2009

I spent a frantic few days in Shanghai trying to find where and when the tropical storm was going to hit the city. Two things quickly became clear: one was that the weather websites hadn't predicted a single day correctly in the previous two weeks, and the second was that the skies of Shanghai sure seemed to be clouding up fast.

Searching for satellite data, other eclipse hunter's predictions and any weather website I could get my hands on it seemed that the best bet was going to be to head West to Wuhan. Wuhan sits around 1000 km to the West but luckily the transport system in China is remarkably good. Catching the train on the afternoon the day before the eclipse gave me not only a pretty comfortable five hour ride to the city, but also the chance to meet some fellow eclipse hunters. John, from Germany, stuck out from the crowd with bags bulging with camera equipment, videos, filters and tripods, making my single camera and solar filter rigged up from a Pringles packet look somewhat ridiculous (I did at least have a Manfrotto tripod to give me a little more credibility). John was travelling with May, who works in Shanghai but is originally from Wuhan. In addition were a couple of American TV producers who were in the country for a week or so hunting for this, the longest eclipse of the 21st century.

We got into Wuhan and all made our way to a hotel right next to Huang He Lou, the yellow crane tower, and what I thought would be a good spot to see the eclipse from. Getting a bite to eat the night before in an outdoor food market gave me a chance to indulge in some stinky tofu and an excellent dish of spicy pork before heading to bed.

I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours the night before, worrying about where I could see the eclipse from, and that night too I couldn't sleep for the expectation of what we may see the next day. Arriving into Wuhan the skies were clear and at night the stars came out, or at least attempted to poke through the light pollution of the city of ten million.

So, a little bleary eyed, but very excited we met at 6.30 the next morning to get ourselves ready for the event with plenty of time to find a position and set up shop.

Walking out of the hotel I looked up to the sun and was greeted by a wonderful morning solar halo, a fine view indeed, but a sure sign of some cirrus clouds joining us for the show.

We walked up to the temple and found a large crowd, equipped with eclipse glasses who had had the same idea. At 7.30 we were all let in and rushed around to vie for the best spots. John, the seasoned eclipse hunter discovered the best place and we set up our equipment, waiting for the first signs of occlusion.

While setting up my kit I was greeted by a never ending stream of reporters, keen to chat to the only Chinese speaking foreigner and I was asked the same dozen question for an equal number of newspapers. At one point I was also interviewed for TV but sadly shied away from giving the interview in Chinese.

As the time grew closer, the clouds moved in and it was clear that we were not going to have an easy ride. Indeed as we approached the moments before totality the clouds thickened and we were left with only a few glimpses through the patchy cloud of totality itself. I managed a few photos of the sun as the moon gradually moved across the face but it turned out to be very hard to find the sun with a zoom lens and a strong solar filter when the sun is partially blocked by clouds. The solar filter is so strong that only an unobscured sun is clearly visible. Still, I got a few shots and these were perhaps the best couple.

For totality itself the crowds around cheered as the sky darkened completely, lit only by the horizon where totality was not apparent. They seemed happy enough with the darkness and were not sad at the lack of the spectacular corona. I did my best and got a couple of shots with the zoom before changing lenses and taking in some wider angle shots to include the temple itself. I have a series of 20 or so shots which I will make into an animation as soon as possible. In the mean time, here are my efforts from the moments of totality, clouds included. These were from the clearest ten seconds or so of the five minute totality.

It was a strange mix of excitement and disappointment, mixed with not a little amusement, knowing that I'm probably one of the few people in the world who has seen three cloudy solar eclipses in a row. I will of course keep on hunting, and though I may not make it to the next showing in the Easter Islands, I'll be on the case before too long.

Wuhan beginnings

A ten hour train ride, four hours juddery sleep, a stationary traffic jam and a definite lack of coffee has seen me safely, if tired from Beijing to Wuhan where I will be talking in a couple of hours. Wuhan is at 32 degrees and climbing fast so we're all inside, trying to cope with the high strength air-con. No videos from this workshop, but Scitalks continues to add to the now impressive catalogue. I'll report back when I have more eyelid strength and another talk finished off.

The many degrees of Wuhan

This evening I'll head off on a ten hour train ride to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, famous for being one of the four furnaces of China and also for having some excellent spicy duck's neck (superb as a snack with a cold beer). There is more to Wuhan than this, though last time I spent more time on the plane and road getting to and from the university than actually seeing it or any of the researchers.

This time I'm staying for a three day workshop on quark matter and again presenting on QCD from the AdS/CFT correspondence. I hope to see a bit of the city as well as discussing with some excellent researchers, both from China and the US, who will be at the workshop.

I spent most of yesterday stuffing myself in the all you can drink for 18 kuai (a little more than a pound) cafe near my flat while working on a current project and getting my talk for tomorrow polished off. I do find the buzz of a cafe inherently conducive to good work and almost without fail have more breakthroughs in these relatively noisy places than in the rather sterile environment of my office.

After spending all day in the cafe, a few of us headed over to Sanlitun in the East of the city, went to Kokomo (up on the roof of one of the taller buildings in the area), ordered a beer, sat back and watched for the Perseids. A strange sight for the others in the bar perhaps but we wanted to take advantage of the fact that Beijing is pretty cloudless at the moment (I speak a little too soon, I fear) due to last week's artificially induced storms and reduced traffic. We saw a few throughout the night, coming from the East, though you really need to be up in the early hours of the morning to catch the height of the showers, as the part of the Earth you are on is travelling towards the patch of dust and rock.

(The Bad Astronomer on watching the meteor shower)

Anyway, for now I'll leave some photos from last weekend, when I took a good friend for a birthday meal at Haiku, one of Beijing's top Japanese restaurants. Well worth a trip for the atmosphere and service. The food is good but sadly by my sushi standards which have been permanently affected by my stay in Tokyo, the food was excellent but not mind blowing.

The first photo is of the Beijing national gallery, currently housing an exhibition of works from the Prado. An excellent collection from Titian to Goya, with lots in between. Well worth a trip (though check online if it's still on). We went there in the afternoon before going for dinner.

I attempted to get a good view of the new, amazing structure which will be the CCTV headquarters. These two, leaning towers which will meet in a tangle at the top should be great for photographing, but from our position we could only get a hint of them.

and some photos from Haiku:




OK, got to go finish getting ready for the train ride ahead.