Postcard from the Summit – Supplies
The summit of Mauna Kea is a long way from anywhere on this island. If something breaks we really need to have the parts on-hand to fix it. The result is that just about any unclaimed space in the building is used to store spare parts. We have stuff stashed everywhere!
This goes for the electronics lab too. A little bit of everything we might need is available. Now you just need to spend a few months learning where to find everything…
Mercury and Mars
Tonight and tomorrow the pair of planets, Mercury and Mars will be about 30′ apart, close enough to easily fit in the low power view of most small telescopes. The pair will be 13° above the sunset, setting about an hour after the Sun slides below the horizon.
After the 8th the pair will separate, with Mercury heading for maximum elongation on February 16th.
Pāhoehoe Squeeze
Super Sunday
Let me be quite clear… My idea of Super Sunday does not involve any sort of professional sporting event. This includes no television or funny commercials, no party, piles of chicken wings or large screen displays, and no halftime show.
It was a pretty good day to go diving. The surf was a bit high, no problem as we would be diving from the boat. It was Dennis, Sky, Pete and myself, the usual crew. Dennis chose to head south of Kona, a good choice as we found nice conditions… Good vis and little surge. Going south also allowed us to do a little whale watching along the way. We encountered spinner dolphins just outside the marina, and again in front of Kailua Bay on the way back. Two humpbacks caught Dennis by surprise, surfacing right in front of the boat as we cruised south, giving us a great view as we waited for them to move away.
Mercury and Mars
For the next few evenings Mercury and Mars will pair in the sunset for a dance. Tonight the two are 3°13′ apart, with Mercury rising rapidly. Tomorrow the two will be only 2°17′ apart. On the 7th and 8th there will be about 30′ between the two. After the 8th the two will gradually draw apart. On the 10th the separation will be just over 2° with the addition of a 1.8% illuminated Moon just 7° lower and north of the pair.
The pair should be easy to spot. Mercury will be shining brightly at -1 magnitude with Mars at about 1.2 magnitude. A pair of binoculars might help spot the dimmer Mars.
Neptune is also in this dance, but at 8th magnitude it could be very difficult or impossible to spot, even with optical aid. On the 5th, with Mercury and Mars only 2° apart, Neptune will be right between the two.
Mars and Neptune
Tonight and tomorrow night Mars and Neptune will be under a degree apart. But, as the pair is quite low in the sky, this may not be observable. The planets will be 40′ apart tonight, a little closer tomorrow at only 27′ separation. The pair will be 14° above the horizon at sunset. Mars, shining a 1.2 magnitude should be relatively easy to spot. The 8th magnitude Neptune may be too dim to see, even with a telescope, against the bright glow of sunset.
On the evening of February 5th, Mercury will join in to create a trio, just 2° below Mars with Neptune between the two.
Meanwhile in Hawaiʻi…
Mercury Appears in the Evening Sky
The planet Mercury is starting an evening apparition. The planet should become visible this week just above the fading glow of the setting Sun as a magnitude -1 object. Currently about 10° from the Sun it will rise higher each evening, reaching a maximum elongation of 18° on February 16th.
Climbing the Stairs
Wait! What is broken?!?
The elevator.
It has been broken for two days. The contractor is here to fix it, but this is the day Olivier and I need to get a job done in AO. It would have to be the Keck 2 elevator, not the Keck 1 elevator. Which telescope are we working in today? Keck 2 of course.
This will mean climbing the stairs to the Nasmyth deck, all five flights of stairs. Five flights does not sound too bad, until you remember that the bottom of these particular stairs start at 13,600ft above sea level. Climbing these stairs is guaranteed to get your heart pumping and remind you of the consequences of every one of those 13,600ft.
The job? Re-installing one of the mirrors in the rotator that was re-aluminized earlier in the week. A delicate, fiddly job that would take much of the day. There will, of course, be missing parts, needed tools, or other small things that we will have to get during the course of the job. Things that are at the bottom of those stairs.
Every trip up and down would be planned, this is not the time to remember that you also needed an #8-32 nut, after the climb. No forgotten items, everything thought through twice. We got the job done, a critical bit of optics safely secured back in the mount and correctly aligned.
In the end I only had to climb the stairs five times through the day.
That was quite enough, thank you.
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