This week I was fortunate enough to attend the SPIE (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) conference in Yokohama, Japan. This was such a cool experience learning about the instrumentation used for all sorts of astronomy and astrophysics and learning about Japan as well.
The first day of the conference was on Sunday. As it was the first day it immediately broke into smaller conferences unlike the plenaries that took place the rest of the week. The conference itself is divided into smaller conferences based on the type of tools used. For example, my first three days were taken up mainly by the UV instruments conference. I was there about 8:30 to 5:00 everyday from Sunday through Thursday. On Monday and Tuesday at 5 one of the bigger halls downstairs opened up for the poster sessions. These posters displayed everything from new mission proposals to cryogenics. The plenaries that took place were probably my favorite part of the conference. Some of my favorite talks included the discussion of Habitable Worlds Observatory, Nasa’s new Flagship Mission, and a new telescope with a launch date in the 2040’s, and also a recap of Euclid’s, a wide angle telescope that analyzes galaxies, first year at space. In addition, after Monday the exhibit hall was set up where companies that worked in the manufacturing of instruments and other pieces of equipment all had booths advertising their products. I learned in depth about the three giant telescopes with plans to be built around the world: ELT (extremely large telescope), TMT (thirty meter telescope), and GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope).
On Wednesday we explored other parts of Tokyo including Shibuya and my personal favorite part of the trip the ramen museum. In the ramen museum in addition to learning about the history of the dish you could go downstairs to one of several restaurants set up and eat ramen from renowned chefs from across the country. In Shibuya we visited the statue of Hachiko, the dog who would wait for his owner everyday at the Shibuya train station, and we also crossed Shibuya square the busiest pedestrian crossing anywhere in the world.
Lastly before I left on Saturday I visited the Meiji Jingu Shinto Shrine. This was very cool as in the middle of the very crowded city there was a perfectly preserved park and shrine. The park contained plenty of other cool historical pieces like centuries old barrels of sake wrapped in paper art.
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