A night in the life of an astronomer

Time-lapse of a night observing with the Shane-3m telescope on Mount Hamilton at the Lick Observatory.

Background music from shutterstock: Central Park Chilling by Mattijs Muller

Featured songs that I clearly don't own the rights to:

In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins
Hooked on a Feeling - Blue Swede
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) - Beyoncé
Shake it Off - Taylor Swift
Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
Space Oddity - David Bowie

[tekvax]

(00:27) and she nails every drum location perfectly!

[celtgunn]

Dr. Becky has just as an eclectic taste in music. Love it and the Data was great to see. Thanks everyone who helped Dr. Becky.

[hebl]

Air drumming to In The Air Tonight - how can you not love a person that does that?
Also - oooh, shiny data!

[mikgus]

i can just imagine him sitting like that the whole night looking disapprovingly

[iagmusicandflying]

I'm a little weirded out by your clock only advancing when you're in sped up time, but in real time it's completely stopped, including the seconds counter. WHAT EXPERIMENTS ARE YOU REALLY RUNNING, DR. BECKY?? :D

[martinpickard]

Thank goodness, Led Zeppelin & David Bowie, you are redeemed (bit of Pink Floyd would not be amiss).

[rey]

I've been around a while and this has got to be one of my favorite videos of all time!

[edwin]

Thanks Dr. Becky, Rebecca, for giving us the universe in a beautiful, funny and informative way.

[vaderdudenator]

Dr. Becky singing Taylor Swift is my favorite thing I’ve seen all day

[DylanODonnell]

Just discovered your channel, really great stuff :) love the academic updates and looking behind the scenes like this. And Led Zep 😆🤘🏼🔭

[rickmavrovich]

Loved it! I do not think any other Astro-youtuber could have pulled off "Hooked on a feeling" flowed by synchronized lipstick application. Give me a call if you ever want to do drunk karaoke in NYC.

[innertubez]

What a great video!!
- The slow jam music fooled me - the video slowed down for those great rocks and pop songs.
- Led Zeppelin at 4:00 am - is that like coffee for you?
- 5:08 am - 5:10 am looks like a two-minute nap lol.
Thanks again. More people should watch this video who think astronomy can't be fun.

[janernn]

That's the best air drumming I've seen, and I totally approve!

[OhAncientOne]

Ohh.. this is way better than
"A day in the life..."
If I'd been told back in '73, that I could work nights, on top of a mountain, AND
rock out to Zeppelin, all while getting paid?
I still remember visitors night for students at the CU Boulder observatory and really seeing Saturn for the first time. Seriously thought about switching from Engineering Design.
No wonder you are such a happy person !
I am totally happy seeing this, well deserved 👍🥳

[TraneFrancks]

I kept looking at your screens trying to determine what OS you're using, as the UI appeared to be CDE. Finally got the answer at the end as you panned to your colleague and saw the Sun workstation on the floor. Nice! BTW, a side effect of watching your vids is that I almost always end up opening XEphem to at least have a look at the latest SOHO images and grab a look at the UW-SSEC clouds and temps map. ❤️

[bencash]

Going a little crazy when you think you're alone on the site and realize you're not when the janitor comes around wondering where the loud music (and the singing) comes from. Happend during corona multiple times.

[RichardT]

Laughing at the air drumming ... during my own late night sessions, I have been known to do the exact same thing, with that exact song! Geeks of the world unite! :)

[jeffhgv]

Brilliant, your enthusiasm for your work and your energy is amazing.

[ianbcnp]

This is the best, the very best, video on YouTube. Love it :-)

[Taricus]

All the singing scenes are from 5:30-6:00 AM, she interspersed those scenes into the middle to make it more entertaining, so she had to put a freeze frame of the clock in the video over the actual clock so that it had continuity with the rest of the video. You're welcome XD