|
Rodolfo Barbá is a leader among the young
generation of Argentine astronomers. He was born
near Buenos Aires, and grew up in a wide range of
Argentinian localities, ranging from the sub-tropical
rain forest of Tucuman in the northern part of his
country, to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in Mar
del Plata, and the incredible southern land of whirlwinds
called Patagonia. He can still recall Patagonian
mornings when he needed to hold onto street signs
or onto his mother to avoid being carried away by
the wind.
In 1980, Rodolfo began studying astronomy at La Plata Observatory, making money on
the side by working as a bartender, (bad) wall painter,
babysitter, and electronics designer. He married
his wife Laura in 1985, and obtained his Ph.D. from
La Plata in 1994, a week before their son Dante
was born.
Rodolfo was a postdoctoral fellow at STScI from
1997 to 1999, and is currently back in Argentina
as a professor of astronomy and geophysics at La
Plata University. He uses both HST and ground-based
telescopes (especially those in Chile and Argentina)
to study massive stars.
Rodolfo is one of those astronomers who chose their
career very early in life, in his case as a 7-year-old
boy. His earliest interest was sparked by the Apollo
moon flights, and by an ancient astronomy textbook
that his mother gave him. Lying on his back in Patagonia,
he was able to identify the Southern Cross, the
Belt of Orion, and the Magellanic Clouds. Later
on a friend of his father loaned him a 3-inch telescope,
and then his decision to become an astronomer was
sealed. Laura, however, has her own theory: "He
chose the stars as his fixed reference frame because
of all the times his family had to move during his
childhood."
Rodolfo delights in taking moments away from his
work at large telescopes to sneak glances through
the eyepiece at deep-sky objects. He says "I love
to catch starlight gathered with the telescope directly
into my eye. The 30 Doradus (or Tarantula)
Nebula looks incredible in HST images, but the experience
of seeing the Tarantula with my own eyes in a 2-
or 4-m class telescope is simply indescribable.
Every dark night I also try to take some time to
step outside the telescope dome, just to look at
the sky, hear the sounds of the night, smell the
subtle aromas that the mountain breezes bring, and
feel the caress of the cool air."
His greatest professional pleasures now come from
his efforts to maintain and improve the level of
astronomy in Argentina, his international collaborations,
and sharing his passion for astronomy with his students.
When he takes time off, he loves to go camping and
trekking with his family in the Argentine national
parks (especially in the Patagonian Andes) several
times a the year, doing landscape and portrait photography,
and climbing volcanoes.
|
