During the last 10 years I have been studying the content of large data bases provided by satellite data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite ca 1983, and the COBE Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment. This data has to be transformed into a variety of new formats which I develop interactively or through computer programs that I write. Most of my time during the week seems to be taken up with my butt parked in front of a computer terminal for long hours every day, writing programs and displaying the satellite data so that I can search for new clues to galactic structure and the nature of star forming regions. I sometimes talk to colleagues on the phone, or down the hall in other offices. Usually, everyone is so preoccupied with their own work that the only sound you hear in our facility is the clicking of keyboards and the workstation cooling fans. Astronomical research is a monastic life of solitude. I'm serious about this.
I also write new proposals to NASA to conduct research and pay my salary, but this is seasonal work that is done several times a year when the announcements come out of the new grant programs.