Looking ahead to 2017 it appears that the skies will be kind to us this coming year. We have good meteor showers, a total eclipse of the Sun, a bright comet or two, and the usual planetary conjunctions to look forward to. Below you will find some on my notes to what we can look forward to during the coming year.
Jupiter on April 15, 2016, stack of the best 2000 frames of 7600, Celestron NS11GPS at f/20 and Canon 60DAs is my practice I have spent more than a few evenings loading up DarkerView with scheduled posts for the year. Well over a hundred posts are set as reminders for the interesting astronomical events for 2017. It is a useful effort, as I can see for myself what the year will bring and begin my planning.
Covered are elongations for Mercury and Venus, interesting conjunctions, oppositions, eclipses and meteor showers. Posts include notes for visibility in the Hawaiian islands for those events that are location dependent.
A thin crescent Moon and Venus in the sunset, photo by Maureen Salmi, used with permissionThis evening a pretty crescent Moon will be located close to a brilliant Venus. The Moon will be a slim 12% crescent a little over 5° from Venus shining at -4.3 magnitude.
Look for the two as the evening sky begins to darken, they will not be difficult to find. Tomorrow the Moon will have moved 7° to the east of Venus.
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…
The rosy glow of dawn lights the domes of Keck Observatory
Just checking the wiring in HBS
The old and new warping fixtures being tested side-by-side in on a spare segment
The warping fixture in use in the Keck 2 mirror cell
Looking at the back of a segment with the radial support removed
Analog ammeters indicate the motor current
A Keck primary mirror segment jacked up out of the array
The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility with zodiacal light and the first light of dawn above
The CFHT dome lit by the first rays of dawn
A mamane tree along the Mauna Kea access road.
Looking at what remains of the paint on an old Celestron C8 orange tube telescope
Paint drying on the front and rear castings of the old orange tube
A restored Celestron C8 on a similarly restored TeleVue Renaissance mount.
The C8 set up along the old Saddle Road for Mercury Transit
Mercury transiting the Sun on May 9, 2016. Celestron C8 and Canon 6D at f/10.
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
Plumeria blossoms in the rain
A Paradise Helicopter Hughes 500 with the doors off for a photo tour
Deborah shooting through the open door of the helicopter
The currently active Puʻu Oʻo vent on Kilauea, photo by Deborah Cooper
Mauna Kea as seen from Hilo Bay
Paniolos head for the steers in the opening moments of the team mugging event
Deborah at the 2016 Parker Ranch 4th of July Rodeo
Attempting to cut out and rope a steer in the team mugging event
A humpback whale breaches in Chatham Strait
An abandoned cottage in the woods at Funter Bay
A fashion plate from a Woman’s Home Companion of April 1919
The Mauna Kea summit access road climbs towards Hale Pōhaku
Hualālai and Pu’u Poliahu submerged in the shadow of Mauna Kea
Both Keck lasers aimed at the center of the Milky Way galaxy
The Keck 1 laser attempting a target in a cloudy sky
The new Keck 2 laser shines brightly during a system engineering night
Keck 2 lasing to the north in the dawn the lights of Waimea and Honolulu behind.
A group of tourists brave the cold wind to watch sunrise atop Mauna Kea
Chris showing a young observer the Sun through a telescope with hydrogen alpha filter
Local kids check out the meteorites in Gary’s educational collection
A young observer checks out the Sun
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.
Grinding the heads off a few screws
The 20″ Obsession telescope awaiting full dark at Kaʻohe, on the side of Mauna Kea
A group of local school students with the 20″ telescope
An eight day old Moon, Celestron NS11GPS and Canon 6D
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
A very close view of advancing pāhoehoe lava
A lava watching boat rises on the swell in front of the steam plume at Kamokuna
Lava from the Kilauea volcano enters the ocean at Kamokuna
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.
A gorgeous image released by NASA’s Earth Observatory this week. it features the recent snowfall atop our island’s summits. I suggest you go to the link above, download the 6k x 6k version, then just zoom in and enjoy the detail! (Sorry the full image is bigger than the WordPress size limit to post here)
Recent snowfall atop Hawaiian summits as captured by NASA’s OLI imager aboard Landsat 8 on Dec 25th, 2016
Calls from the summit facility are not exactly what I want to see on my phone display on Christmas Eve. Heather was very apologetic about calling, but she had no choice, the Keck 2 dome would not rotate.
Christmas Sunrise over the shoulder of Mauna KeaLess than a minute into this conversation I realize the inevitable… This was not going to get fixed over the phone, I would be spending Christmas on the summit. I call John who is already scheduled to go up for the day… Pick me up on your way out of the village. 7am? I will be out front.
It was just before sunrise that we drove up the mountain from Waikoloa, the sun rising over the shoulder of Mauna Kea, casting long crepuscular rays into the sky. It is a beautiful Christmas morning, a clear sky, the snow capped summits of two volcanoes looming overhead. Heading to work on this morning is a bit surreal, while at the same time seeming a bit more festive for the snow.
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 sunsetNew Moon will occur today at 20:53HST.
