From: mar@physics.su.OZ.AU (David Mar)
Subject: To wind things up...
Organization: School of Physics, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 07:17:38 GMT

The wind is howling outside Callahan's Place. Whole trees are swaying,
providing a constant background of rustling to the evening's conversation.

The door opens a tiny bit, letting some of the wind rush in. A candle
flame or two are extinguished, some papers fly swirling into the air, and
a few curled brown willow leaves are blown into the fray from the door.
The more observant patrons notice a pair of eyes peering in from outside.

After a slight pause, as if the person outside is steeling himself for the
inevitable, the door flies wide open and, amidst the ensuing chaos of
things being blown around the Place and the shouts of patrons yelling for
the door to be shut, a weary looking figure dashes inside. He pushes the
door hard against the wind and only succeeds in shutting it after a few of
the patrons get up to help.

With the door now closed, everyone takes the time to see who has arrived.

"Hi everyone," says Danger Mouse, for it is he. After the chorus of
greeting responses, he continues, "I'm back from the telescope. And in the
finest tradition of travellers everywhere,it looks like my final postcard
didn't arrive until I did. I found this in your mailbox out front, Mike."

DM holds up the postcard. It shows a picture of the Horsehead Nebula on
the front.

"OJ please, Mike," he tosses a dollar across the bar, "and I will take
over in reading it out for everyone. Thanks for filling in for me while I
wasn't here."

DM takes a sip of his orange juice as it is delivered, then reads:

DM's Telescope postcard - 5. Saturday, 29 August, 14:24

Hey folks,

I woke up this morning (if you can call 12:30 morning) to the sight of an 
overcast sky. The local forecast is for rain developing, which means we 
probably won't get any observing done tonight. An early night would do me a 
world of good, but it's always disappointing to have time lost because of 
weather. Between now and dinner I'll do some more work on the data 
collected over the past few nights.

18:45 - Jason and I decided to watch the evening news instead of coming up 
here to start working straight after dinner. The weather report said rain 
in all cities except Darwin. To that you can add Siding Spring Mountain. We 
won't be lucky if we get any observing done tonight - it'll simply be a 
miracle.

Sunday, 30 August, 03:25 - Where has the time gone?! I have been reducing 
all of the data so far into final spectra. I have just finished, and the 
results look pretty good. They will make a nice addition to the data we 
collected last year. In the brightest part of the spectrum we have about 90 
photon counts. That is the total of over 45 000 seconds of integration; an 
average rate of roughly one photon per ten minutes.

We aren't observing tonight. The weather has, if anything, gotten worse. 
Two astronomers, Chris and Cathy, who are here to get ready for their 
observing tomorrow night, reported sleet when they came in to the control 
room. And the wind gauge in here says 40 km/h.

DM stops reading. "That's as far as I got that night, I'm afraid. I went
to bed soon afterwards, then got up for 1pm breakfast and drove back to
Sydney.

"The trip back was uneventful. I stopped a couple of times to take photos
of the developing storm - it was raining by the time I reached the Blue
Mountains. I also stopped in Mudgee to grab a bite to eat, before
realising that I had less than two dollars on me. The only teller machine
I could find wasn't working either. So I had to wait until I got home.

"And that just about winds up the story of my observing trip." He looks
around the Place. "Ah, it's good to be back."

- Danger Mouse.