A Darker View

It is cool, almost cold, breezy and clear! In the driveway again shooting astrophotos. Hydrogen-alpha work of the Seagull Nebula (IC2177). After the fiasco of yesterday I was expecting it to cloud over and start raining any moment.

At least the gear was all setup and ready to go, I didn't even need to fiddle with the focus. Just double check everything and shoot.

To read the weather forecasts of the last few days you would have though a storm of apocalyptic proportions was approaching. Dozens of wind warnings, watches and extreme weather statements issued by the local office of the National Weather Service. The predictions were so dire that schools on several islands decided to cancel and state offices were closed. I put our lanai furniture in the garage and rolled the barbecue away just in case.

What we got here on the kona side of Hawai'i was a little wind, nothing out of the ordinary for strength and a fair amount of rain, 1.2 inches in our rain gauge on the lanai.

We did get a couple items that were predicted... There was some incredible surf along the coast. And the summit was the scene of very high winds. Enough to prevent any observing for the night at the various telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea. Looking at the summit weather data showed 60-80mph winds at the telescopes along the ridge with gusts higher that that. The Keck crew was held at Hale Pohaku in the case of the winds dying down in the night. They did, to be replaced by high humidity and fog.

The weather was very nice yesterday evening. So much so that I set up a telescope in the driveway intending to spend part of the night doing astrophotography. I was not alone, there was a small star party taking place at the local club's dark site. I would have joined them, except I am on-call this weekend and should stay around the phone and computer.

What stared as a crystal clear evening degraded into clouds. I waited a while for the clouds to clear, checking for about an hour, hoping to use the gear that was all set up, aligned and focused in the driveway. But after a solid grey hour I gave up and rolled the telescope back into the garage. None too soon, shortly after I heard the first raindrops on the roof. I fell asleep listening to the heavy rain.

Thursday, January 15th was Darker View's first 1,000 visitor day, with 1003 visitors registered by Google Analytics. Normally this website gets between 100-200 visitors each day.

The reason for this is due to one post. My Attic Fan article was posted on Hack-A-Day, garnering a lot more exposure and even a few Stumbles that greatly added to the traffic. There is a large community of electronics hobbyists out there, with great websites that allow us to see and appreciate each others homebrew projects.

The traffic is falling off again, things probably return to my usual traffic levels. There were 735 visits yesterday and I expect under 500 today.

I notice that more than a few of those visitors stayed for a while, perusing more of the website. So maybe I picked up a few more regular readers. For any new arrivals... Welcome to Darker View!