Top Posts of 2018

Examining the most popular posts for the year shows trends we have seen in the past. Certain subjects have a very long lifetime, with steady interest and thus search engine hits. The backyard telescope pier plans continue to be one of my all time most popular posts, it has been in the top spot for a few years running. In general a number of amateur astronomy how-to articles are represented on the list.

Other articles reflect what was popular this year. Getting to the lava may now be obsolete, but the eruptions and the news boosted this post into my top rankings. Canon mirrorless cameras also garner a lot of news this year, and thus more hits on DarkerView.

1A Backyard Telescope Pier2,358
2Repairing a Wii Balance Board1,085
3Astrophotography with the EOS-M889
4Restoring an Orange Tube Celestron C8644
5Viewing the ISS599
6Rewiring a Celestron NexStar Telescope595
7Starscape Photography568
8Visiting the Summit of Mauna Kea529
9Light-years, Light-minutes and Light-seconds524
10Old School Drive Corrector503
11Shooting the Canon EOS M5487
12Emergency Alert Fatigue397
13Tragedy on Mauna Kea380
14End-of-Road Puakō374
15Getting to the Lava374

The message is clear, while the new articles on DarkerView are popular, it is the old articles that form a legacy here. People continue to search for and read a lot of the old material on the blog, a result that gives me some satisfaction.

Quadrantid Meteor Shower

The first meteor shower of 2019 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.

Leonids in Orion
A pair of Leonid meteors streak through Orion

Unlike other showers where activity can occur for days or even weeks, the Quadrantids have a sharp peak, activity falls off rapidly on the preceding and following nights, or even a few hours away from the peak. Thus it is important to observe the Quadrantids quite near the peak prediction.

This year’s peak is calculated for January 4th at 02:20UT, this would be January 3rd at 16:20HST, well timed for observers in Europe, not favorable for observers in these 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.

New Moon on January 6 creates optimum viewing conditions for the expected Quadrantid maximum on January 4. For many northern hemisphere sites, the shower’s radiant is circumpolar, in northern Boötes, from where it first attains a useful elevation after local midnight, steadily improving through till dawn. The 02h UT timing for the peak will be favourable for European longitudes. The λ⊙ = 283 . ◦16 maximum timing is based on the best-observed return of the shower ever analysed, from IMO data collected in 1992, as confirmed by radio results in most years since 1996. It also coincides with the closest approach to the stream calculated by Jérémie Vaubaillon (λ⊙ = 283 . ◦17). The peak is short-lived with an average duration (full width at half maximum) of about four hours. Hence it can be easily missed if the observer is located outside the “main observing window” – IMO 2019 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!

Drone Hysteria

By now anyone reading the news will know that a drone sighting shut down a major metropolitan airport just days before Christmas. London’s Gatwick airport was intermittently closed to arrivals and departures during the busiest travel season of the year, leaving up to 140,000 travelers stranded and scrambling to make alternate travel arrangements.

Waiting to Board
Waiting to board an Alaskan Airlines flight in Seattle

What you may not have heard is that there may never have been a drone involved. This may have stemmed from one bad sighting and a classic case of mass hysteria leading to further drone sightings.

Even worse, authorities looking for anyone to blame arrested and detained an innocent couple for 36 hours. They were eventually released after no evidence was found and an alibi verified. During that time the couple was vilified by name in some major media outlets. The only saving grace here is that the couple is now likely to receive a substantial sum from those newspapers under British libel laws.

Continue reading “Drone Hysteria”

Chasing Fogbows

I have been flying a lot in the Saddle over the last few months. It helps that I can simply leave for work early, stop off and blow through some drone batteries, before heading on to Hale Pohaku where I meet the rest of the crew for a day on the summit. The process can be reversed on the way back down the mauna in the evening after work.

On these short days late in the year this means flying right at dawn and sunset, creating very dramatic light. The rich colors are simply great for photography of this beautiful area of lava flows and cinder cones.

What makes the are even more spectacular is the cloud layer. As you drive up the mauna you pass through the clouds. I love to stop and fly right at the top of the cloud layer, where the fog lays in against the mountain. I am sorely disappointed on those mornings that the fog is not there!

The result of these flights is lot of great video, I just need to put something together to share it.

Of course a good video needs great music. I am indebted to Chris Stark, a local artist who graciously allowed me to use his track Dancing in the Rain as the backdrop for the video. I encourage you to head over to his website ChrisStark.com to check out his albums.

Chasing Fogbows from Andrew Cooper on Vimeo

WordPress Blocks

WordPress 5 introduced an entirely new editor, Gutenburg.  I knew it was coming, but had not really paid attention.  So when I updated DarkerView to WordPress 5 I was unprepared for what was coming.

The new Gutenburg editor introduced with WordPress 5
The new Gutenburg editor in WordPress 5

Oh *#$@!  This is different.

Blocks?  What are blocks?  Everything is blocks? I think I get it, it makes sense, the concept is straightforward… The trouble is in the details of actually doing anything useful, learning what icon to press, how to arrange things.  There should be a way to do this, but where is it?

Now that I have had some time with it, and watched a couple training videos, I think I am getting the idea.  At least I have been able to produce new posts without struggling.

The new editor is truly more powerful, more of a desktop publishing editor than a simple blogging editor.  With Gutenburg the power of WordPress to produce professional websites is dramatically improved.

I wonder what new users will think of when they encounter the editor.  Gutenburg dramatically steepens the learning curve necessary before using WordPress.  It is possible to use the classic editor, but only within a block.  A more explicit way to use the classic editor may be a good idea.

The only real effect on DarkerView right now will be a modest increase in the time it takes me to write a post, there are more keys to press and a few more mouse clicks to get the job done.  There will be no real change in the appearance or function of the blog, at least for now.