The last time out I fitted a camera ball mount to the counterweight shaft of the Losmandy mount. This allowed me to shoot an additional camera at the same time, along with the camera attached to the telescope. The second camera can be aimed at a different target completely. With a relatively wide angle lens, tracking errors become insignificant.
With the center of the Milky Way high overhead it made an obvious first target to test this wide-field setup. The results are quite nice, a series of one minute exposures reveal the star clouds in fine detail. The camera for this run was the Canon 60D, as the 20Da was shooting the Lagoon at the time. I need to swap places and try the shot again with the 20Da to see what the Hα sensitivity reveals, capturing more of the nebulae that is mingled with the stars.
The lens was an older Nikon 50mm f/1.8 stopped down to f/2.8, nice round star images right into the corners of the frame. Yes, a Nikon lens mounted to a Canon camera, you can do that. A very nice lens, I will be using it again for this work.
The galactic center region on the Sagittarius-Scorpius border
This is not a case of “I wish you were here”, but rather another lesson in the many hazards of diving.
The welts left behind by hydroid stings across a forearm one day after the injury
I know when I got hit, a series of pricks down my left forearm. I didn’t even react, I was concentrating on the photo. I continued to brace myself against the surge by using the rocks of the cave floor. Those rocks were home to some little critters that had an issue with the disturbance I was creating… Hydroids.
Through the rest of the dive my arm continued to sting, discomfort that persisted but was not really all that bad. I took no action other than noting that I had gotten hit. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized that the stings were not going to go away quickly. I had a series of red welts across my forearm, and they itched. Time to break out the hydrocortisone cream. A week later the welts have faded and shrunk to pinpoints, no longer itch, but are still there.
An unidentified hydroid hanging off a lobe coral (Porites lobata) Kohala Coast at about 70ftThe angry red welts did attract comment all week, they were rather noticable. I have had to explain what hydroids are a number of times. These small relatives of jellyfish posses the same defensive armament, stinging cells called nematocysts. As soon as you mention jelly stings the stories come out, most everyone on this tropical island has gotten stung at some point.
Friday evening we stopped into the shop of Kohala Divers for a bit. There were a few folks we know in the shop as they were having an open house. As I chatted with Lina Preskitt, a local marine biologist, I mentioned the stings, showing her my forearm. She raised her forearm to display a very similar set of red welts on her left arm! We laughed as we looked at a mirror of almost identical stings.
This is the second time I have been seriously stung by hydroids. Will it stop me from diving? Not at all. Perhaps be a bit more careful when mucking about on a cave floor.
A nice trio will grace the dawn tomorrow, the morning of June 17th. Three bright objects will be visible just before sunrise. A brilliant Venus will be 14° above the horizon at sunrise. Above Venus will be a very thin crescent Moon, only 4% illuminated, will be 4° above Venus. About 8° above Venus will be Jupiter, shining brightly at -2.0 magnitude. Thus Jupiter will be the first to rise, at 04:02HST. Sunrise will occur about 05:43, leaving plenty of time to enjoy this bright conjunction.
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Another product of this last new Moon star party at the MKVIS. An easy target, suited to checking the performance of the new setup. As usual, click on the image to view the larger size…
The Lagoon Nebula, NGC6523, in Sagittarius, 11 x 8min exposures, Canon 20Da and AT6RC
As I have discussed before, there are some weird critters on the reef. Some of the more alien appearing creatures are the sea cucumbers of the family Synaptidae, the thin-walled sea cucumbers. These look like large worms, moving across the reef by expanding and contracting their bodies. At the front end are a set of feeding tentacles, sweeping out in slow motion to move food to the mouth at the center. The body is flaccid, supported and given shape through an internal hydraulic system.
The small brown Keferstein’s sea cucumber is surprising sticky, with small hook-like spicules on its outer skin. It sticks readily to dive gear, twice now I have seen these critters stuck to a diver without the diver knowing. Carefully peeling them off they make a nice photographic subject before allowing these normally nocturnal critters to escape back into a crevice in the coral.
Keferstein's Sea Cucumber (Polyplectana kefersteini) at 30ft, Puako
This week Venus will appear in the dawn sky. Today the planet will be over 10° from the Sun at dawn. This will increase over a degree each day as Venus climbs higher into the dawn sky. Maximum elongation will occur on August 14th.
A few nice conjunctions will occur with both Jupiter and the Moon over the coming weeks. Stay tuned to Darker View for postings that will keep you up to date.
Almost a week later and the comments keep coming in… E-mails to the observatory, comments on my blog, people are still pulling me aside to offer their comments in person. It is somewhat overwhelming. Did we really manage to do this?
The transit webcast station while on-the-air, photo courtesy Mark Senft
I spent 6 and change hours with you guys and I really appreciated your dedication to keeping everything up and running for us all around the world. HATS OFF YOU YOU ALL! – Kyle
We are in currently rainy Western Australia, and your webcast was the only way that we got to see the transit at all. My kids’ primary school all tuned into you at some point during the day. 🙂 – Carina
I have been reading the comments as they come in. It is truly gratifying that we managed to share this unique event with so many people.
You made my wife’s day! She was stuck at work & had you and the Keck team in the background for the entire transit! She is eternally grateful! Mahalo nui loa! – Joel
I watched your webcast of the transit from start to finish (with a few breaks here and there). What a great job you guys did! Fascinating, funny and I learned a lot in the process. Thank you for your efforts, and I too look forward to other webcasts from Keck. – Carol
I do not expect we will be doing this again right away. It takes the right sort of event. The one previous webcast was during the close approach of the asteroid 2005 YU55 in November of 2011. That time we webcast from the remote operations room in Waimea. It was also a good success, with great cooperation from the astronomers doing the observation. Need to take advantage of the best opportunities.
Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. I signed on t minus 10 min and stayed until you guys went off the air. I enjoyed myself the entire time. I know for a fact that a lot of people learned tons during this broadcast. My wish, hope and dream is that you continue to do events like this. You all gave it such a warm (beep) behind the scenes feel that made us all feel “part of the science.” The picture in picture was awesome and the graphics support mid-show was much appreciated. I can’t wait until next time! – Eric
We supported an average of between 5k and 6k viewers at any given time, with a total of over 100,000 live views. This viewer count may have badly underestimated the actual number of viewers, often the feed was being shown to large crowds at other public venues. Andrea Ghez mentioned that they were showing our feed at the UCLA event, the feed was on at at least two schools, and our own crowded Hualalai auditorium at Keck Headquarters in Waimea. I keep learning of other crowds the feed was shown to…
“Our observatory in Sonoma County was clouded out much of the day so we had your feed up for our 300+ visitors to supplement live viewing between the clouds. After sunset I went home to watch the rest of the transit on UStream and read the firehose of comments. It was a giant star party! Thanks for all the effort. Best outreach ever!” – Cecelia
A great experience shared with so many people across the globe. Thanks to everyone who made the Transit of Venus such a great day… Our Keck crew and the viewers who were there with us.
Beginning the descent to the reef at PuakoIt has been over a month since I have been in the water. We do live on an island, with world class beaches and reefs just 15 minutes from the house. How can we not go to the beach every weekend?
Well, there is work, and these little events like the Transit of Venus. One thing or another conspires to interfere with getting some proper time in the water.
With a holiday weekend on hand it is time to change that. Thus Deb and I joined the Keck crew for a Saturday morning dive. A routine dive at End-of-Road Puako, one of our favorite spots. It was a fair group… Kirk, Mark and Patti, Pete, Tomas and his daughter Angela, Deb and myself, a veritable pod of divers.
We parked under the usual trees, swam out from the usual spot and dropped into the usual set of canyons. I wandered here and there with the camera, looking for anything interesting to photograph. Nothing really special, a couple decent photos including a Keferstein’s sea cucumber. Simply a nice day to be in the water, perhaps the start of a pleasant summer dive season?
