When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
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…
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
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)
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.
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.
The first meteor shower of 2017 is the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. The Quadrantids are a reliable shower, producing 60-120 ZHR, one to two meteors per minute. The Quadrantids are named for the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis, now part of the constellation Boötes.
This year’s peak is calculated for January 3rd at 14:00UT, this would be January 3rd at 04:00HST, well timed for observers in the islands. For northern observers the radiant is circumpolar, thus the shower is observable all night long. Given our 20° latitude here in Hawaii the radiant does not rise until 01:30HST, thus observations must wait until well into the morning hours. As this perfectly corresponds with the peak this looks to be an ideal meteor shower for island observers. Further, a first quarter moon will have long set leaving a perfectly dark morning sky for observing meteors.
A first quarter Moon on January 5 creates favourable viewing conditions for the predicted Quadrantid maximum on January 3. For many northern hemisphere sites, the shower’s radiant is circumpolar, in northern Boötes, from where it first attains a useful elevation after local mid-night, steadily improving through till dawn. The 14h UT timing for the peak is favourable for observers in the west of North America. Observers in the north of Asia will find the radiant close to the horizon in their evening skies. The λ⊙ = 283.15◦ maximum timing is based on the best-observed return of the shower ever analysed (IMO data from 1992), and has been confirmed by optical and radio results in most years since. Typically, the peak is short-lived, so can be easily missed in just a few hours of poor northern-winter weather, which may be why the ZHR level apparently fluctuates from year to year. A – IMO 2017 Meteor Shower Calendar
Watching meteors requires no more equipment than your eyes and a dark sky, and can be enjoyable for just about anyone. While most observers in the northern hemisphere must endure winter conditions to observe this shower, in the islands we have the option of observing from somewhat warmer locations. I think this year’s Quadrantids deserve an early wake-up and a trip into the dark!
