Let me continue with some experiences connected to the strong earthquake that hit Chile on 27th of February. Although I personally did not suffer big damage, it was kind of weird to see the rest of the world returning to normality so fast.

Sorry for not posting any update here on the situation after the strong earthquake that hit Chile in the morning of 27th February during the last week. As you can imagine, we here in Chile were quite busy with other things than posting, and as far as pure information is concerned, you could be informed through the media.

I planned to write a post about the work we do at APEX during the altiplanic winter, but sometimes plans change unexpectedly. I suppose most of you have seen the news about the earthquake in Chile.

Would you expect to find a variety of strange animal species close to observatories? No, I’m not talking about astronomers this time ;-). Actually, there’s not so much wildlife around our telescope itself, at 5100 meters altitude. But there’s quite a lot close to our base camp.

The IYA 2009 is over for more than a month now. And it ended rather silently, as far as my posts in the Cosmic Diary are concerned.

I just realized that I have not been writing anything here for quite a while. And now it’s almost Christmas, and the IYA close to its end.

In the first days of APEX, when we had the first receiver running, we were pointing the telescope to strong sources on the sky, and got nice spectra. But we had no idea from which area of these sources the emission came.

Many astronomers live abroad, away from their family and friends. When living in a country different from your own, it is just normal to adapt parts of the foreign culture or habits.

If you wondered why there has not been any post from me lately, here’s the answer. I have been away for more than four weeks for my most expensive vacation ever.

The IAU General Assembly ended in Rio more than two weeks ago, and just now I manage to write something about it.