Episode 3 - "Roughing It as an Astronomer‪"‬ Receding Horizons

Episode Notes
Our guest this episode is our collaborator, colleague, and friend, Moises Castillo. A Brownsville and Los Fresnos native, Moises attended university and earned a bachelor of science in physics from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, during which he also worked as lab manager in the Physics Department. Moises earned a masters of science in physics from UTRGV in 2019. He's been the assistant director of the Cristina Torres Memorial Observatory, where he observed and studied eclipsing binary star systems, as well as a researcher for the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at UTRGV working under Mario Diaz. Currently he's stepping into his role as the Event Coordinator for the Space and Science Team of the South Texas Astronomical Society. He's a curious explorer of the world, a talented engineer and astronomer, the authoritative MC voice, and a great travel partner and friend.

Recorded on 12 March 2021.

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:14 - Mate

00:12:42 - Excerpt from Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture"

00:15:52 - Moises Castillo

00:33:33 - Like a swimming duck

00:42:02 - Moises Castillo

00:46:00 - Nompuewenu

00:56:37 - Farming telescopes

01:09:01 - A new way of teaching astronomy

01:21:23 - CTMO

01:32:30 - Spectrographs and lasers

01:46:30 - Greek mythology

01:48:42 - Eclipsing binary light curves

01:54:04 - Sharing an observatory

01:59:18 - Astronomical protocols and platforms

02:13:37 - Can stars change colors?

02:31:57 - What is space?

02:49:57 - Cool space facts

02:54:20 - Wrapping it up with Texas

02:56:32 - Outro

Related material:

Mate, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink)

S. Carroll, "The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself", Dutton (2016), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26150770-the-big-picture

M. Castillo, "Pipeline for Variable Star Detection and Eclipsing Binary Characterization", Master Thesis, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (2019)

Southmost Library Observatory, https://starsocietyrgv.org/projects/southmostobservatory/

Burke-Gaffney Observatory, http://www.ap.smu.ca/pr/bgo

Raspberry Pi, https://www.raspberrypi.org/

KStars, INDI, and Ekos, https://www.indilib.org/

The AStronomy Common Object Model (ASCOM), https://ascom-standards.org/

J. Bell, "The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission", Dutton (2015), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22571516-the-interstellar-age