Astro-ph Today

(1)
Tomo-san introduced a paper concerning the possibility of a quasar as a standard candle. Standard
candles are a useful tool in astronomy since we can use them to estimate the distances of celestial objects and even use them to explore the expansion of the Universe.  It has been and interesting issue in astronomy.

(2)
Jimmy introduced the Green Bank Telescope and its current state. If anyone intend to conduct an observation with the telescope, it may be a good choice to apply for.

(3)
Kevin presented a paper concerning AGNs and Reionization of the Universe. A model was discussed  that an AGN-dominated scenario will satisfy the some observational constrains and considered that AGNs may mainly contribute during the epoch of reionization than the active star-forming galaxies.

  

Amazing old town Jiufen

Tetsuya and his family went to an old historic town, Jiufen (九份). The name of ``九 (nine)'' originates in nine families living there in Quing dynasty. The appearance of buildings is amazing and nostalgic.

Unfortunately it was rainy but there were still so many people in spite of weekday. We saw a lot of foreign tourists, especially Japanese students. If the ancient nine families saw the current town like festivity, they should be surprised.

Jiufen is famous for tea. We enjoyed Taiwanese style tea. Our baby was looking at tea but she can not drink yet.

This is my favorite famous dessert in Jiufen, ``芋圓'' which is made by a kind of potato. They have a lot of foods and souvenirs in Jiufen. I really recommend to go to Jiefen if you have a chance. Please do not forget to take an umbrella!

 

Tomo presented his latest results from HSC data at Subaru conference in Hiroshima. He had useful discussions with renowned astronomers around the world.

Tomo again won the 3000m race on the NTHU sports day. Hope students will join him next year.

Trip to Taipei

Moto, Justin, and Tetsuya took an excursion to Taipei.

’三重’ bus bound for Taipei is quite comfortable. Wi-Fi is available on the bus.

Our trip started with a celebration of Justin's graduation in a beef noodle restaurant.

The amazing National Palace Museum. The museum is huge and they have so many exhibits.

These are only small part of items. Chinese cabbage made by jadeite. Taking photos is basically allowed as long as we don't use flash.

Learning 'Kanji'. This is the origin of '保'.

Ancient painting. Not only painting is wonderful but also Kanji is quite beautiful. Moto sometimes reviewed scores of Kanji written by hand with respect. He has ability to judge them from B- to A+.

A photo of taking a rest. The museum has nice cafeterias! There were so many people in the museum.

What is this? It is very interesting to imagine that ancient people also needed a massage tool!

After the museum, we enjoyed delicious shaved ice! Ice on November. It is not crazy because we are in Taiwan! But, of course, we got much colder. Unfortunately they don't have mango flavor in this season.

Beer always makes our body warmer. We went to an excellent Germany style restaurant in the central area of Taipei.

'Taipei 101' is the highest building in Taiwan, which has 101 floors! It was too late to go up to 101. Taipei is a big city. We don't have enough time to see everything in a day. Finally I really thank Justin for his perfect planning of this trip.

Tomo took a 2am flight to participate the AKARI workshop in Tokyo. A busy schedule, but very fruitful, with useful discussions on Kevin and Ece's work. With the new release of ver.2 of the all sky catalog, AKARI's science is heating up. Fun never ends.

Cosmology Class Review

We had Tomo's cosmology class this Tuesday.
Our weekly practice in this class is:
to have someone review on the topic discussed in the previous week.

This week I am the one responsible for the review.
And my topic is:
Comoving, Angular Diameter, Proper Motion and Luminosity Distances, and their relations.

Nowadays people usually prepare slides for presentations.
But I am not used to inserting all the Greek and mathematical symbols on the computer,
so I came out with this idea:

To write down the notes beforehand and do the review in 10 minutes.

Luckily, other students taking the class didn't find it too hard to follow.

And my job was done! :D