Eight years ago this month I had the happy privilege of doing an observation run at the University of Hawai’i 88-inch telescope on Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai’i. For eight nights I explored comets and asteroids with a small team of UH astronomers. It was a giddy experience, partly because it was my first “Big Astro” esperience, but also because we were working at 13,792 feet above sea level—a rarefied environment indeed! The image above is a great view of Mauna Kea from the space shuttle, and a wonderful reminder that no matter how high up we go to use our observatories, there’s always a higher vantage point.

At the time I did my observations, the Gemini North telescope was still under construction, so we could go out on the catwalk on our telescope and look down on the site as the workers were knocking off for the day. In fact, two of us (James Bauer and I) managed to get our picture taken by a web cam that snapped images of Gemini as it was being constructed. If you look closely at the image below, you can see two dark dots on the far right limb of the catwalk girdling the 88-inch facility (the horn-shaped building up the hill from the Gemini site). That’s us, waving at the camera about 30 minutes before sunset and the beginning of our “work day” on the mountain.

Well, life moves in interesting cycles. Today, the Gemini North Observatory is a complete, functioning facility, cranking out good science every day, along with its twin observatory in Chile. And, I’ve moved on from my comet research days. Nowadays I’m working as an astronomy writer, bringing the wonders of the cosmos to my audiences (whether they’re reading my books and articles or attending planetarium shows that I’ve written). In a most wonderful development, I’ve also been working closely with the Gemini Observatory public relations office, helping them get the word out about all their achievements. Sometimes the cycles of the cosmos are logical, indeed!