Oregon Star Party 2013 Photo Album
Category: Observing
Oregon Star Party 2013
The plan is simple, a vacation combining a visit to my family and a run to Oregon Star Party. I miss doing the larger regional star parties, six telescopes is a big star party on the island. OSP would feature hundreds of telescopes, speakers, and hopefully dark skies. I also volunteered as a speaker, may as well bring and share little Keck experience.
The site is quite remote, no nearby hardware store to replace a missing bolt, no internet connection to allow download of a missing driver. The setup would have to work with what was packed to start with. Several iterations of packing showed that two cases would be required to carry the setup. An ancient hard suitcase I have had since my Air Force days, and a hard equipment case purchased years ago for a portable telescope I have yet to build. At least both had wheels and could be hauled by one person through an airport terminal.
After a few very nice days visiting with my parents I steal away in the camper for the drive to OSP. Four hours sees me over the Cascades, into the Ochoco Mountains east of Prineville. It is a very pleasant drive, a beautiful day, open roads, Mt. Hood soaring over the trees that line the highway. The sort of driving you just can not do on the island, the sort of vacation I grew up with.
Comet Spotting? Not really…
So, the comet is to be positioned right next to a pretty crescent moon this evening, a perfect photo opportunity. What are my chances of seeing it? Pretty much nil.
Will have to wait for the photos from my friends in Arizona.
Comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS
Like so many other amateur astronomers, I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of Comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS.
The comet was discovered in June of 2011, by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope atop Haleakala, Maui. The comet will pass closest to earth on March 5th, at a distance of 1.09 au. Perihelion, the comet’s closest approach to the Sun, occurs early on March 10th UT.
Initial predictions were quite optimistic with this comet, indicating a possible -1 magnitude for the comet. Reality seems to be somewhat more restrained, with a peak somewhere between magnitude one and two being more likely. Reports indicate that the comet has brightened to about 2nd magnitude, bright enough to be easily seen without optical aid.
Even more convenient, the comet will be well placed for observation this coming weekend. With new moon occurring on March 11th, this will be the prime weekend for a telescope outing. Amateur astronomers everywhere are already planing for this weekend. Our local club is no exception, expect a good crowd of telescopes to be at the Mauna Kea VIS this weekend. Myself? I will probably setup at the Substation site, just across the road from the VIS. The site offers a much better western horizon, which is blocked from the VIS by a line of pu’u, old cinder cones.
I will be taking photo gear, looking to get a decent photo of the comet. Stay tuned to Darker View to see the results if I meet with any success.
The latest orbital elements from the MPC
Another interesting opportunity will come on March 12th, when a slim crescent Moon will join the comet in the sky. A 1.4 day old moon, about 2% illuminated will be about 4° north (to the right) of the comet.
New Moon Saturday
A line of big telescopes greeted the crowd. Mike had his 20″, Cliff his 24″, my 18″ Deep Violet, later in the evening Olivier set up his 18″ Priscilla. All of this large glass was open to the public, we each had long line of folks waiting a turn at the eyepiece. It was a huge Saturday night crowd, several hundred people awaited darkness. Yes, I had made the decision to observe from the VIS, knowing that there would be a crowd, but wow!
Showpiece objects, the Andromeda Galaxy, The Pleiades and Jupiter were available for viewing. I was stuck on the Orion Nebula all evening long. I changed targets once, to meet a chorus of request to move back to the nebula. I have to admit it was a pretty view, even to me, who has seen this sight more times than I remember. I put the 35mm eyepiece in place, creating a bright low power view that had visitors waiting through line a few times for second and third looks.
In addition to the big dobs there were quite a few smaller ‘scopes present. Maureen had her C-11 setup, Larry brought his nice Stellarvue 102mm refractor, Mike had an 8″ SCT beside his 20″ for use by a friend. Dan didn’t bring a ‘scope, but he did bring pizza! We met Woody, an Alaskan Airlines pilot flying the Anchorage to Kona run. Out of a couple carry-on sized bags he produced more telescope than we would have thought fit in airline luggage…. A neat collapsible pier arrangement with an alt-az mount and a very nice WO 110mm APO.
Database Work
I have spent quite a few hours lately revamping my observation database. The whole thing had been quite neglected as of late, never being properly updated since I changed over to WordPress on the main blog. The appearance had been left in a halfway state that didn’t match anything, never mind some serious bugs.
The printable version is still there, a clean black-on-white layout including inverted DSS images for printing. I took a cue from that printed version and kept the other new layouts very clean and uncluttered in appearance.
There is a nearby object section that picks up any close by objects for quick reference. Some attention has been paid to the search routines for better usability.
Those are just the visible changes, much of the work has gone into the back end to improve the quality of the underlying data. The whole thing uses Python and Tk on my local machine, this gets converted to SQL and PHP for the webserver. Most of the tools are automated at this point, and getting less buggy as I hunt down the little issues that I find with use.
I put the whole thing together for my own use, a place to organize my observing notes. But as it is online, anyone can use it. Let me know if you ever find it useful.
Night of The Dobs
Star parties at Hale Pohaku are very informal affairs. You never really know who is and who is not going to show up. We just don’t plan that much.
It had just been too long, I had not had a good night out with the telescope for months. This dark moon Saturday was not going to be missed, I packed up Deep Violet and headed for The Mountain. I knew a few folks would be there, certainly Cliff and Tony. The rest of the folks were a surprise to me. As the evening progressed more and more ‘scopes showed up, a few more familiar voices in the darkness.
The only real issue was the wind, it was annoying. A couple of us moved our telescopes into the patio area of the MKVIS, where the building offered some shelter at the expense of blocking some of the sky.
40″ Nickel Viewing
The view was pleasing sharp and crisp, revealing decent optics and steady air over the mountain. I could just make out the central star on M57, something I had only done before with and even larger telescope.
Atop Mt. Hamilton
The visitor directions on the website had specifically cautioned that the summit road was curvy, something I found to be a drastic understatement. From the very bottom it is curve after curve all the way up, with almost no straight sections. S-curves followed sharp bends leading to hairpins. Nearer the observatory the curve intensity only increases as the road narrows. Local history indicates that the horse-drawn wagons that transported heavy equipment up this road could not negotiate steep grades, the only solution was to follow the contour of the mountain, resulting in an incredibly curvy road.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon there were other users, the road is apparently popular with local cyclists. With the density of the sharp curves there was often little choice but to follow at bicycle speeds at times. I would much rather drive up Mauna Kea than this road again. Next time up Saddle to the summit I will recall Mt. Hamilton road and consider myself lucky.
The reason I was climbing this winding road was simply to be a tourist. Unlike the previous seven days, this day was to be fun. For much of the previous week there had been full day sessions of lectures and labs covering the intricacies of adaptive optics systems. Spending a full week in Santa Cruz might be considered a vacation, aside from the fact there had been very little open time to explore the surrounding area. There was only one open day in my travel plans, and I had specific plans for that day, a visit to an observatory.
The Transit of Venus
We did the Transit of Venus right.
The plan was to stream the transit live from the summit. With access to the Keck facilities we had internet, a comfortable break room, and an excellent vantage point from which to view the entire transit. It sounded so easy at first, just put a camera on a telescope and connect it to the computer for the duration. Easy, in concept. The reality? Not so much.
It was an incredible amount of work. I had spent several days during the preceding weeks preparing the gear for transit. I admit some of that was fun, an excuse to get the gear out in the day and look at the Sun, even photograph Venus quite near the Sun.
The webcast team consisted of three people, Larry O’Hanlon, the Keck PIO, Mark Senft, a volunteer from our astronomy club, and myself. Larry and I met a HQ to begin our drive up the mountain at 8am.
At Hale Pohaku we picked up Mark and enjoyed breakfast. Here we found a massive buildup in progress, a gathering of troops… Visitor center staff, Hawai’i County police and fire, and the Mauna Kea Rangers, all present in force. Stephanie Nagata, the director of the Office of Mauna Kea Management helped man the roadblock. Stewart Hunter, the head of Mauna Kea Support Services with her in an orange vest. Their preparations looked to be necessary, three hours prior to first contact the crowds of transit tourists were already growing.
Continue reading “The Transit of Venus”