Student interns with astronomers in South America

Enjoying sunny, warm weather, sleeping until 10 a.m., walking the nearby pristine beaches and stargazing at night sounds like a fantasy vacation, but for senior Betsy Mills, an astronomy major, it was all part of a 10-week internship at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in La Serena, Chile this past semester.\nMills, however, often had to ignore the gorgeous weather and beaches to work in front of a computer all day and take measurements through a telescope all night. She spent her time studying planetary nebulae, which are the remnants of "dead" stars' atmospheres.\nA typical day for Mills started around 10 a.m. when she would work with data for awhile and then discuss astronomy with her colleagues over coffee. She also worked during the afternoon and some evenings after dinner, and had Spanish lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. \nIn addition to a full day's work, during one week out of her 10 she had to work three consecutive nights in the observatory. There, she took various measurements and looked through telescopes, which were not as advanced as she might have hoped. She had to manually set them and collect most of the data by hand. At times, she said this process could be "nerve-wracking."\n"I would have to say the most high-tech piece of equipment in the control room was the stereo system," Mills said.\nDespite the unfamiliar setting and equipment, the observations still enhanced her knowledge of research and analysis.\n"It was a great experience to do a different type of research than I had been doing previously and to get to work with astronomers that I might work with again in the future," she said.\nBefore her internship, Mills had never been outside the United States, so she was also grateful to witness astronomy from a "different perspective." \nCaty Pilachowski, a professor of astronomy, has known Mills for two years and agreed that the international perspective Mills gained through her internship helped her.\n"The experience of living in a foreign country really gives a person a greater perspective on the world beyond the boundaries of Indiana and the U.S. and also builds confidence and self-reliance," Pilachowski said. "The research Betsy did also gave her a chance to broaden her interests in astrophysics, to interact as a junior colleague with some of the top astronomers in the world and to learn to use different telescopes and techniques."\nMills' internship was part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program which links students to internships in the different fields of research funded by the National Science Foundation. Each year about 700 students apply for the 150 highly coveted summer astronomy internships that the program funds, according to Pilachowski. \nIan Roederer, an IU senior majoring in astronomy and physics and a friend of Mills', had an REU internship last summer.\n"REU programs offer students without the opportunity for research at their home institutions the chance to do research during their undergraduate careers," he said. "For students from universities with established astronomy programs, such as IU, (the REU program) is an opportunity to interact with students and researchers from other institutions while broadening their research horizons."\nMills is especially fortunate because this summer she gets to return to Chile because one of the mentors she works with has observing time at Cerro Tololo. Mills will get to work with some of the same people and she will have another opportunity to sharpen her research skills.\n"Betsy has a knack for these types of research projects," Roederer said. "I expect her to do quite well"