Mercury is ending it’s second evening apparition of 2012. Over the next few days the planet will slide into the sunset heading for inferior conjunction on July 28th and a morning apparition beginning in the first days of August.
Author: Andrew
An electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and diver, living and working on the island of Hawaiʻi.
Astrophoto Interference on Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea is simply a great place to shoot astrophotos from. Dark, clear skies with typically good seeing. Unlike some mainland locations there is a distinct lack of aircraft overhead. I am not sure how many shots I have had ruined by the bright anti-collision strobes crossing through the frame when shooting from locations in Arizona.
There are hazards to shooting photos here that do not commonly exist elsewhere. I was unpleasantly surprised when reviewing the take the next morning to find brilliant yellow lines through a hour and a half of exposures taken of the Cygnus region. The material is otherwise great, the makings of a nice shot, except for this one little issue. There are ways of suppressing artifacts like this when processing, but the beam is so bright I am not certain they will work all that well.
Worse, I checked the schedule, the offending laser is coming from Keck 2 AO, a system I work on.
The observatories have a system in place to deal with this issue. There are four operational lasers on the mountain, Keck 1 and Keck 2, Subaru and Gemini. Each optical observatory using a laser maintains a server that posts their laser location, status, and calculates the position of each beam in the sky. This can be queried by the other observatories to check if the beam crosses the field of view. A set of rules has been negotiated to determine who has right of way, usually who is on target first.
Obviously this computer system does not take into account my little telescope shooting photos from Hale Pohaku. If I had known I could have called Heather and asked her to shutter her laser, I was on target first. Being the kind soul she is, she would probably laugh with me.
Postcard from the Universe – Morning Conjuction
Postcard from the Reef – Sphinx Nudibranch
From a distance it looked like another common P. varicosa, a nudibranch I see all the time on the reef. Getting closer something was different. No protuberances, no yellow, what was it? Simply a juvenile that has not developed the full colors and pattern? Not knowing what it was I proceed to take a few photos of the critter.
Hitting the books it quickly becomes apparent, it was a P. sphingus I found and photographed. A new species for me! I carefully read through the descriptions of the various dorid nudibranch found in Hawai’i again. I need to look closer, there are some lookalikes to be aware of.
A Dive That Went Wrong
Five days, a quick island hop to Oahu, our first time exploring the island. A major feature of the plan was a bit of diving. Oahu features a number of unique dives we can not experience on the Big Island, particularly the wrecks. Based on conversations on ScubaBoard I chose to book with Gabe and Kaimana Divers. The reviews and comments of this dive op have been uniformly positive. After some experience I can second that opinion.
Along with a few changes of clothes and the cameras, we packed two full sets of dive gear. There would be five full days, including two days of diving. The basic plan each day was a two tank morning dive trip, a deeper wreck dive, followed by a shallower reef dive. The YO-257, the Corsair, there are several sites to choose from. On the Big Island we do have the SS Kauai at Mahukona, but scattered bits and pieces are not the same as a large intact ship.
Walking across the posh lobby of a luxury hotel with full dive gear over your shoulder is fun. Everyone looks in your direction, you can only guess at what they are thinking. It was 7am, meeting our ride to the marina. We were looking for our ride from Kaimana Divers in a big black pickup truck. Already in the truck were a couple from Texas and another fellow, five divers total, a nice small group.
We met Drew, our divemaster for the day. Like all divers we introduced ourselves, Jeannie and Charles lived near the gulf coast, but traveled regularly to dive under better conditions than local waters offered. Our fifth diver was somewhat less experienced, with a dozen dives behind him. We were all looking forward to this dive.
Dramatic breakers rolled across the famous Waikiki reefs, stretching from the marina to Diamond Head. There is an adage in the local dive community, if the surfers are happy, the divers are not.
Arriving over the wreck for the YO-257 there was a notable swell, while it was going to be a problem, it was diveable. Drew hopped in to secure the mooring line. Upon returning to the boat he reported a moderate current. We geared up and readied for the water.
The Moon, Venus and Jupiter
The three brightest natural objects of our sky, after the Sun, will join to form a nice group tomorrow morning. The dawn of 14 July will see a thin crescent Moon and Venus only 11° apart. The bright Jupiter will be in between, only 6° from Venus. Jupiter will be shining brightly at better that -2 magnitude, Venus will be even brighter at over -4 magnitude. The pair will be a nice match for an 18% illuminated Moon.
The next morning, July 15th, will still see the trio quite close. The Moon will have moved east to a position just 4° north of Venus.
Postcard from Hawai’i – Big Guns
Private Foundations Fund New Astronomy Tool
W. M. Keck Observatory press release…
The W. M. Keck Observatory has been awarded two major grants to help build a $4 million laser system as the next leap forward in a technology which already enables ground-based telescopes to exceed the observational power of telescopes in space. The new laser, when installed on the current adaptive optics system on the Keck II telescope, will improve the performance of the system and advance future technology initiatives.
“Ever since Galileo, astronomers have been building bigger telescopes to collect more light to be able to observe more distant objects,” said Peter Wizinowich, who leads the adaptive optics developments at Keck Observatory. “In theory, the larger the telescope the more detail you can see. However, because of the blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere, a 10-inch or a 10-meter telescope see about the same amount of detail.”
Continue reading “Private Foundations Fund New Astronomy Tool”
Sunset at Honokohau
Island Hop
After five years of living on the Big Island we finally took a few days to hop to another island and do some exploring. The selected target was Oahu, a place we have never properly visited before, changing planes at the airport does not count.
First impressions… Oahu can be a nice place to visit, but the traffic is beyond terrible! The roads packed with cars playing by aggressive city rules. Even the North Shore and Windward were bad, not just Honolulu. After years of driving on the Big Island, where there are no interstate freeways and the driving is quite relaxed, it was an unpleasant experience. I managed, and we got around with little real trouble, re-learning the old skills of dealing with heavy city traffic. I am so glad to be back to Hawai’i and out of that traffic.
The Fourth of July is a pretty good day to visit patriotic monuments like the battleship Missouri and the Pacific Aviation Museum. This was the plan and it executed well.
For the Fourth all of the ships in the harbor were decked out in flags, including the Missouri, the many US Navy and foreign ships gathered for the upcoming RIMPAC exercises. Another treat was the Mississippi Lions All State Band performing pier-side the battleship.