{"id":14126,"date":"2014-09-15T01:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=14126"},"modified":"2014-08-30T11:52:49","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T21:52:49","slug":"working-late-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=14126","title":{"rendered":"Working Late Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

When most folks work late at the office it is a boring evening at a desk staring at a computer. I may have stared at a computer a bit, but it was hardly a boring evening.<\/p>\n

\"CloudCam<\/a>
A focusing test shot from the Keck CloudCam<\/figcaption><\/figure>The task that had me staying late was to focus the new cloud camera<\/a>. To accomplish this task I needed a dark sky and stars. The plan is the same as I have used before<\/a>, work the day and then stay into the evening.<\/p>\n

Waiting for darkness had it’s advantages, an opportunity to do a little photography. In addition to the usual tool bag and lunch I took my camera gear with me.<\/p>\n

With Sniffen on the roof while I watched the frames on the computer, I called the corrections up to him on the radio. It is tricky work to focus a fast lens, made worse by the need to do it remotely. We had to wait for each 30 second exposure, painfully slow. I hesitated to ask Sniffen to sit much longer out in the cold, but he was game and ready to assist. His tiny adjustments were deftly made, I watched as the lens moved through focus.<\/p>\n

\"VLBA<\/a>
The summer Milky Way soars over the VLBA antenna atop Mauna Kea<\/figcaption><\/figure>The focus is not as good as I would like to see, I suspect that the Sigma 18mm f\/1.8 lens leaves a little to be desired when used wide open. Perhaps one of the Rokinon lenses would work better. Or maybe I just need to step the lens down a stop or two.<\/p>\n

After leaving Keck I took my time wandering down the mountain. I stopped at IRTF for a set of panorama shots. One of the first things I noted was the lack of airglow. Last time I shot from the summit the airglow was intense<\/a>. Despite using the same camera and lens, with the same settings, the bright red glow was missing. Only a pale green near the horizon to be seen in the shots.<\/p>\n

On a whim, I drove out to the VLBA antenna<\/a> for a set of shots. This radio telescope was something different than the usual telescope shots I take. I walked around the dish until I could position the summer Milky Way beside the antenna. As the VLBA is a radio telescope there was no issue in using a little light from my flashlight to paint the dish and illuminate it for the photo.<\/p>\n

I arrived home just before midnight, tired from a full day on the summit. The photos will wait for another day for processing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When most folks work late at the office it is a boring evening at a desk staring at a computer. I may have stared at a computer a bit, but it was hardly a boring evening. The task that had me staying late was to focus the new cloud camera. To accomplish this task I … Continue reading “Working Late Again”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1425,1873,88,86,1636,601,1872],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14126"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14133,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14126\/revisions\/14133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}