When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Not a great deal of snow, maybe an inch or two rearranged by the winds. More snow is expected over the coming few days before this storm is over. Where to find the heaviest snow on the mountain? Puʻu Poliʻahu of course, just look at the images below.
This is the first winter storm that our new weather mast camera is operating, since I bolted it in place a couple months ago. It is great fun to have a full pan-tilt-zoom camera available during weather events like this.
The first real product of Saturday’s imaging session on Mauna Kea. Processing comet images is a challenge (actually I am using far less correct language while I work on it). The problem is that comets move rapidly against the star field. This creates all sorts of issues when attempting to assemble a final image.
The single frame shown here is he product of 28 light frames and thirty calibration frames. The light frames used in this image were each 4 minutes long, accounting for nearly two hours of exposure total. There were a few more, but a few had to be discarded due to wind-shake of the telescope during the exposure.
The image below is processed to align on the comet as it moves against the background stars. During the two hours of exposures the comet moved appreciably. The stars are somewhat suppressed by using a sigma reject combine, but they are still there. Processing like this allows the details in the tail to be seen.
With a set of images running for two hours taken without interruption other things can be done. One possibility is that these images can be animated, leading to another interesting product… Up next!
It will be interesting to see just how much snow we do get. The Mauna Kea Weather Center is predicting a possible six inches. I do not plan on being on the summit until Friday. A white Christmas?
Like any true nerd I love the webcomic XKCD, Randall somehow keeps me laughing! Today’s comic hits even closer to home… He does Keck!!
As a Keck engineer I can categorically state that we do not use tape to secure the domes… We use zip ties.
It has been a while since the last good photographic comet. Since comet ISON disintegrated at perihelion a year ago, we have had few opportunities to get a really nice comet photo. It is the surprise of comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy that changed this.
Better yet… The comet is well placed for photography in the late evening and early morning sky. While fellow sky watchers on the south side of our planet have been enjoying the comet as it has brightened, for most northern hemisphere observers it is still rather low. In the past couple weeks it has moved far enough north that it is now nicely positioned to observe from Hawaiʻi. I have been following the comet for a while, catching it in binoculars from the house. We showed it to students of Paʻauilo Elementary in club telescopes as they camped out at the Kilohana Girl Scout Camp earlier this week.
Unfortunately it is still low enough that my neighbor’s trees prevent me from photographing it from the driveway. Thus I took the opportunity to pack up the ‘scope and head for Hale Pohaku and the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station for a night of photography.
The Mauna Kea VIS is busier than ever, the numbers of tourists coming to this free show just continued to increase. Parking is now a major issue, with even the lower gravel lots full of visitor vehicles. Fortunately, with some discussion and name dropping, the rangers allowed me and my vehicle past the barricades into the main lot so I could set up just off the patio. I would be entertaining guests at the telescope and answering questions all evening, becoming part of the show.
This evening, Dec 22nd, will see a brilliant Venus paired with a very thin crescent Moon. Look for the pair to appear just 12° above the setting Sun. Venus will set at 18:50HST, about one hour after sunset. A 1.8% illuminated Moon will be a nice match for Venus shining brilliantly at -3.9 magnitude. Separation will be just under 6°.
Winter solstice occurs today at 13:03HST. Today the Sun will occupy the most southerly position in the sky of the year. The term solstice comes from the Latin terms Sol (the Sun) and sistere (to stand still). On this day the Sun seems to stand still as it stops moving southwards each day and begins move to the north. This is the first day of winter as marked by many cultures in the northern hemisphere. Alternately, this is the first day of summer for those folks in the southern hemisphere.
| 2014 Solstices and Equinoxes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UT | HST | |||
| Perihelion | Jan 4 | 05:59UT | Jan 3 | 19:59HST |
| Vernal Equinox | Mar 20 | 16:57UT | Mar 20 | 06:57HST |
| Summer Solstice | Jun 21 | 10:52UT | Jun 21 | 00:52HST |
| Apehelion | Jul 3 | 22:59UT | Jul 3 | 12:59HST |
| Autumnal Equinox | Sep 23 | 02:30UT | Sep 22 | 16:30HST |
| Winter Solstice | Dec 21 | 23:03UT | Dec 21 | 13:03HST |
| Source: NASA Sky Calendar | ||||
I did not know until I got message from a couple friends with my morning e-mail, including one from my Dad… The website is down. I go to look to find that DarkerView is down hard, 403 Error!!
I have changed nothing in the basic website for months, at least nothing on the configuration side. With WordPress installed all I generally do is post using the WP admin tools. Everything was there, I could FTP into the site, all the configurations stuff looked right, there was no response when HTTP protocol was used. I poked about a little at the problem, but could see no reason why the site would be down.
It was not until later, around lunch, that I was able to call GoDaddy tech support and see what they could make of the problem. I expected a quick fix, something that could be done in a couple minutes. This was not to be, they could not figure it out either. The gal I was speaking to kept bringing in even more senior techs to look at the problem. It was nearly 45 minutes on the phone, usually on hold, with nothing resolved. At least I could work on a document at my desk between answering questions about the site.
They finally just gave up. At least they would give up on my hosting account. The solution was to create a new hosting account and copy everything over. A little later that evening, on a friend’s iPad at the Keck public lecture, that I found that DarkerView was back online. Of course I find a slew of automatic emails in my inbox welcoming me to GoDaddy hosting.
GoDaddy has great tech support. I rarely need to use them, the service is very stable, but when you do call you get a human (who speaks English!) and they generally know what they are doing. One way or another they fix the problem.
Thanks for letting me know about the site crash… At least I know that someone reads my blog!