2016 – A Darker View

2016 A Year in Photos

In retrospect 2016 was not a bad year. I can look back on a collection of photographs that document my life. I am reminded of all the things that occurred in 2016, it is a set of good memories that deserve to be remembered well…

Keck at Dawn — The rosy glow of dawn lights the domes of Keck Observatory

Modifications to HBS — Just checking the wiring in HBS

Keck mirror segment warping fixtures — The old and new warping fixtures being tested side-by-side in on a spare segment

Warping — The warping fixture in use in the Keck 2 mirror cell

Segment — Looking at the back of a segment with the radial support removed

Motor Current — Analog ammeters indicate the motor current

Jacked — A Keck primary mirror segment jacked up out of the array

IRTF at Dawn — The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility with zodiacal light and the first light of dawn above

CFHT in the Dawn — The CFHT dome lit by the first rays of dawn

Mamane in the Fog — A mamane tree along the Mauna Kea access road.

Orange Tube Corrosion — Looking at what remains of the paint on an old Celestron C8 orange tube telescope

Drying Paint — Paint drying on the front and rear castings of the old orange tube

Restored C8 — A restored Celestron C8 on a similarly restored TeleVue Renaissance mount.

Transit Telescope — The C8 set up along the old Saddle Road for Mercury Transit

Mercury Transit 9May2016 — Mercury transiting the Sun on May 9, 2016. Celestron C8 and Canon 6D at f/10.

March 8th, 2016 Solar Eclipse — The solar eclipse of March 8th, 2016 taken from Spencer Beach State Park. Celestron C8 with a Canon 6D at cassegrain focus, 2000mm focal length

A Paradise Helicopter Hughes 500 with the doors off for a photo tour

Deb without Doors — Deborah shooting through the open door of the helicopter

The currently active Puʻu Oʻo vent on Kilauea, photo by Deborah Cooper

Mauna Kea from Hilo — Mauna Kea as seen from Hilo Bay

Roping — Paniolos head for the steers in the opening moments of the team mugging event

Deb at the Rodeo — Deborah at the 2016 Parker Ranch 4th of July Rodeo

Team Mugging — Attempting to cut out and rope a steer in the team mugging event

Breach! — A humpback whale breaches in Chatham Strait

Newspaper Cottage — An abandoned cottage in the woods at Funter Bay

Fashion Plate from 1919 — A fashion plate from a Woman’s Home Companion of April 1919

Summit Road — The Mauna Kea summit access road climbs towards Hale Pōhaku

Hualālai Submerged in Shadow — Hualālai and Pu’u Poliahu submerged in the shadow of Mauna Kea

Dual Lasers on the Galactic Center — Both Keck lasers aimed at the center of the Milky Way galaxy

Keck 1 Laser — The Keck 1 laser attempting a target in a cloudy sky

Keck 2 Laser — The new Keck 2 laser shines brightly during a system engineering night

Keck 2 Lases in the North — Keck 2 lasing to the north in the dawn the lights of Waimea and Honolulu behind.

Sunrise Watchers — A group of tourists brave the cold wind to watch sunrise atop Mauna Kea

Chris Gives the Sun — Chris showing a young observer the Sun through a telescope with hydrogen alpha filter

Space Rocks — Local kids check out the meteorites in Gary’s educational collection

Viewing the Sun — A young observer checks out the Sun

Secondary Cage — Re-assembling the secondary cage on the 20″ Obsession. The truss tube clamps still need to be cleaned up and re-installed, same with the focuser.

Obsession at Kaʻohe — The 20″ Obsession telescope awaiting full dark at Kaʻohe, on the side of Mauna Kea

Students Under the Stars — A group of local school students with the 20″ telescope

8 Day Moon — An eight day old Moon, Celestron NS11GPS and Canon 6D

Milky Way Arching over Hualālai — The winter Milky Way arches over Hualālai with Orion and the setting Moon at the center, taken from the Kaʻohe observing site, panorama of five images taken with a Canon 6D and a Rokinon 14mm lens with over 300 degrees of horizon

The 61G lava flow ocean entry at Kamokuna under the light of a full Moon

Pāhoehoe — A very close view of advancing pāhoehoe lava

Lava Watching — A lava watching boat rises on the swell in front of the steam plume at Kamokuna

Lavafalls — Lava from the Kilauea volcano enters the ocean at Kamokuna

Trickle — Lava trickles into the sea at Kamokuna

Kohala Sunset — Sunset along the Kohala Coast

The Top DarkerView Posts of 2016

As I look back to 2016 I realize there were some pretty good posts. DarkerView is a true blog, as in “web log”. It exists as much as a personal diary as much anything else, a place for me to store my thoughts, my photos, my memories of life. A the new year is upon us it is traditionally a time to look back upon the year and recall some of those memories.

I posted nearly 300 blog posts through the year, not quite keeping to one per day as I had years ago, but rather trying to keep the quality high. Someone must appreciate that, There have been over 100,000 views and about 50,000 visitors to the site over the year. I am always slightly amazed that people come by to read what I write and even comment on it. Traffic is steady at between 100 to 200 visitors per day.

Of course most of those visitors are from the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, but surprisingly India, Pakistan, Germany, and Norway all top 1k visitors to the site. Just about every country in the world is represented in the visitor list, only central African nations seem to be left out.

I find that my best posts, my best writing, was primarily my comment posts. A chance to editorialize on the issues that swirl about my life and our island. Sometimes the emotions and thoughts just need to be expressed, to be recorded. Writing is a way for my to further analyse my own thoughts. In organizing these ideas into an essay I can more clearly see the issue.

Looking back, 2016 was not a bad year at all…

Cultural Misappropration
Restoring an Orange Tube Celestron C8
Dual Lasers on the Galactic Center
A Helicopter with No Doors
Making Room for the Traditional
Cruft
Changing a Light Bulb
To the Flow by Sea
Restoring an Obsession
Broken, Now Fixed
Moana and Polynesian Culture
A Celestron FirstScope
Alone with the Mountain

The Sky for 2016

Looking ahead to sharing a fun and pretty 2016 with everyone. As usual you can come to Darker View for heads up on everything happening in the sky for 2016. I have spent the last month setting up pre-scheduled posts with all of the significant sky events for the year. We have a couple interesting eclipses, including a total eclipse across the Pacific, and some nice conjunctions. Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina continues to be naked eye into January and C/2013 X1 PanSTARRS should be marginally naked eye in June.

Young Moon — A very young moon over Waikoloa, this is only 26 hours after new, visible to the unaided eye as a sliver in the fading glow of sunset

Setting up all of the scheduled astronomy posts for the year allows me an excellent overview of what the coming year will bring. As I go though the schedules I have assembled a summary here to give my readers a preview of the year and to allow advance planning.

The Moon

Below are tables of all of the new and full moons of 2016 for those who prefer to plan early for those observing outings. Eclipses are noted with an asterisk in the tables and are explored more fully in the following section.

For those who like supermoons you will have to wait for later in the year when the orbit and lunar phase align. November will be the best supermoon of the year when full moon occurs only two hours away from perigee on the 14th of the month. For a few months either side of the November full moon you will find perigee occurring within a day or two of full, allowing for larger and brighter than average full moons.
Continue reading “The Sky for 2016”