A Taste of WHACo Astronomy

We're having quite the time in Hawaii - I can think of about 3 posts a day as we fill our schedule with snorkeling, shopping and eating (and that is just today)!  Tonight we were invited to  a Halloween astronomy outreach event by Andrew Cooper, our buddy here who gave us a great tour of Keck last weekend that I'll certainly be posting about later.  Tonight he continues the tradition of Bob Goff, a mutual friend who decades ago set up a telescope to entertain trick-or-treaters who came by his house.  Bob, who passed about a decade ago, was a neighborhood superstar who was the talk of kids for miles around.  This time Andrew solicited the help of members of the West Hawaii Astronomy Club, or WHACos, to set up at a local mall who was running a program for kids tonight for Halloween. 

Of course, the first thing an amateur astronomer learns on tropical islands at sea level - you can't always plan on it being clear!  Up at their regular observing site at Mauna Kea Visitor Center, yes, they often observe from above the clouds,  but near the ocean, clouds and rain occur frequently.  The sunset started out great - the photo at left shows Andrew's workplace atop Mauna Kea - the Keck Telescopes - the rounded domes at left, one of which has the shadow of the Subaru (Japanese National Telescope) cast upon it.  The view is one often seen from the western coast of Hawaii when weather cooperates, nearly 3 miles above us and about 25 miles downrange to the east of us from our hotel.

 

But an hour later at the mall, there were a large herd of kids, a number of telescopes set up, and unfortunately, nary a hole in the sky allowing starlight to penetrate.  The photo at left shows Andrew trying to identify a random star that had popped out in the northeast.  Yes, there are lots of stray lights, but often in doing astronomy outreach, you need to set up your equipment where people are located.  There were not a lot of bright objects in the early evening sky, and the clouds made a frustrating experience.  It even sprinkled rain for a brief interval! 

 

Fortunately it cleared a little, allowing some of the kids that stayed a little later to check out the moon.  It is interesting to me how all the kids grabbed Andrew's scope.  Perhaps it is because of the short stepladder, but a number managed to "manually" slew the telescope to the zenith!  At least the sky allowed some viewing at the same time the Moon cleared the condos across the lake.  We also managed to get a peek at the ISS rising from the west disappearing into the Earth's shadow a few minutes earlier.  Perfect timing!

 

After a bite of dinner, Melinda and I took a short road trip up the Kohala Mountain Road, about 25 miles north of where we are staying.  I noticed in passing a few days ago that the view of the west coast of Hawaii was quite spectacular from the 3500 foot level of the "scenic view" located there.  So we returned tonight to take a few photos to assemble into a panorama, and my favorite section is reproduced here showing the coast from the Mauna Kea Resort at lower right to the Kona Airport Just over the rise of Hualalai at top.  Our hotel is at the Waikoloa Complex right at the center of the frame. 

 

This is an interesting place - while the island is roughly triangular about 80 miles on a side, the huge range in elevations create nearly all earthly life zones from tropical rain forest to tundra conditions, and driving for only a few miles can change conditions enormously.  It would take some getting used to living here, but between the island's history and culture, climate, astronomy and sea life, it could certainly keep one entertained for a long time!

A Hawaiian Tradition

Turn on the TV in your hotel room and it always comes on to the Hawaii tourist channel, which advertises various activities you can do on the island.  It always shows iconic clips of Hawaii, and among these is shown native islanders fishing with throw nets.  This morning, while exploring tidal pools near the hotel, I got to watch a trio of locals fishing with a net.  It was interesting to observe him stalking fish by peeking over the edges of the tidal pool to remain hidden as long as possible, then throw the net correctly so weights at the periphery spin out spreading the net to cover as large an area as possible, catching several fish at a time. 

Of the three, one evidently had experience, one's job was to carry the bucket, and  the other was a kid who was just tagging along.  The guy was pretty successful, they caught 4 good-sized Orange Spine Unicornfish pretty quickly, then the local supply dried up and of the 2 adults, the experienced one gave throwing instructions to the other.  After showing how to wrap and hold the net, the student made a couple practice throws about the time we headed back poolside for some lunch.  It was cool watching skills that had been passed down through the generations...

An Evening With Pele

Of course, one of the highlights of a trip to Hawaii is a visit to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to see a real live volcano.  The Kilauea vent has been continuously erupting for nearly 30 years, and this being my 3rd visit, I've never been disappointed.  The previous trips we've gone down to the south flank of the volcano at night and watched lava flow down the slope and enter the Pacific.  This time the real action is at the Halemaʻumaʻu crater (which the road used to go through in a previous visit!), where a vent opened in 2008 and molten lava has been observed there since.  Lucky for us, the height reached a record height just a few days ago 80 feet below the crater floor, so has been extremely active.  I was hoping to see lava directly, and regardless of height, the crater walls have been illuminated directly, so visible at night.  I wanted those night shots!

Oh, and by the way, the title above mentions Pele, the volcano goddess associated with many stories and myths of ancient Hawaii. 

Our travelling family unit, Melinda and me, Betty, Susan and Shannon left about 9am and took the "scenic route" counter-clockwise around the Big Island from our hotel.  We were always within a few miles of the coast, and made a number of stops for refreshments, fruit and nut stands, black sand beaches, that sort of thing.  We got to the Park about 2pm, in time for a cold sandwich for lunch before exploring the visitor center and observation station where we could gaze out at the belching steam and sulfur emissions coming out of the crater (imaged above).  That was pretty cool, but we were hoping for more for our night time visit.

After a dinner trip to Volcano Village, the girls allowed me to return to take pictures.  As we approached, this little populated part of the island suddenly resembled the parking lot of a home football game.  Rangers had blocked off the road and were only allowing cars in as fast as they were leaving, which I guess is a good idea with limited parking and lots of demand.  But we finally got to the overlook with the Hunter's full moon rising into the eastern sky.  It was quite spectacular!  While no lava was directly visible, it did directly illuminate the walls of Halemaʻumaʻu with a golden fiery glow.  The glow extended up into the venting steam and gas, and the moonlight also lit up the western edge of the crater.  The glow from the lava was so strong that I couldn't expose long enough to collect much starlight without blowing out the subtle glows!

 

As mentioned, the place was rocking with visitors, most shooting it with cellphones.  Image at left with Scorpius setting - Antares is just about to set behind the south slope of Mauna Loa, with planet Mars just above.  I was hoping to get some better results with a real camera, in fact I took a few hundred frames at regular intervals to turn into a time-lapse image eventually when I get home.  The trade winds were blowing mightily, and the girls were getting impatient in the cold (volcano vent is at about 4,000 feet, so it was admittedly very cool, temperature-wise).  But before closing up shop for the night and do the marathon drive back, we took a group shot with the vent in the background.  Front-to-back is Min, Susan, Betty, Shannon and me.  This is an 8 second exposure with some combination of flash and moonlight for us.  The return trip was via Hilo, where predictably it was raining on the windward side of the island.  We then returned to the hotel on the west side via the Saddle Road, which passes between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  It was cool passing between 2 of the largest mountains in the world, when measured from the sea floor where they start. 

 

It was a marvelous night when we returned, though the trade winds were still howling.  The bright star Archenar was culminating to the south over the shield volcano Hualalai, 8300 feet above us, since we were sitting at sea level.  You can see that the palms were in constant motion during the 30 second exposure.  Interestingly, Archernar just grazes above our southern horizon from Tucson.  But here in Hawaii we are about 13 degrees further south in latitude, so the star is correspondingly higher.  Another benefit of visiting the island paradise!

Still Here...

It might not have made the news where you are, but when the Tsunami Warning hit Hawaii this evening, it got everyones attention!  We were in a local restaurant when the TVs that had been showing college football highlights, suddenly showed the notice of an earthquake off BC, Canada and an associated Tsunami for all of Hawaii.  Returning  to the hotel 30 minutes later, we found that the ground floor had been evacuated to higher floors, but we were ok on the 2nd.  We retired to our room and watched the coverage on TV - appropriately enough, it was all that was on.  Officials indicated a 5 foot surge was expected, hitting the island at 10:28 local time.  Suddenly, we were in the evac zone, and we had 20 minutes to move to the far side of the hotel on the 4th floor!  After carefully unpacking and moving in to the dressers and closets, we repacked in 5 minutes flat and made the move.  Here we are 30 minutes after the expected arrival, and the live TV reports are filling the air time admirably well for what has so far been a non-event.  Evidently 18 months ago when the Japanese tsunami hit (another 5 foot event), there was a lot of shoreline damage, so most are following evacuation orders, though the TV cameras are showing people at the beach awaiting "an event" of some sort.

Meanwhile, we had a long day and are about to collapse (more in a future post).  Meanwhile, our boat trip and snorkel day tomorrow is in jeopardy with tonight's events.  But at this point, we're safe and paying attention to something we've not been through before!

Kinda Blue!

We are in Hawaii!  We've been planning the trip for months - actually since April since we last went to Columbia, SC to see Mom-in-law Betty.  She mentioned she was attending a conference in the 50th state, and we decided then and there to invite ourselves along!  Then Niece Shannon wanted to join in, then Sis-in-law Susan from Dallas jumped, so we've got a real party!  We're doing lots of sightseeing things, since neither Melinda nor Shannon have ever been here.  It starts with an observatory tour at Mauna Kea tomorrow morning, and there will be snorkling, volcano-watchin' and lots-o-fun along the way.

The trip out was uneventful, but after leaving our interim stop in San Francisco, the bulk of the trip was over water, and I was shocked how blue it was. While sky blue is my favorite color (something about astronomers liking clear skies) from 35,000 feet, the sky is a different shade, and the ocean resembles something closer to sky blue from the ground.  That leg of the flight was over 5 hours, and we had an unremarkable movie double feature - something we never get to enjoy going to Chicago.  But even with Morgan Freeman it didn't hold my interest, though the low-fidelity earbuds that wouldn't stay in place plus my bad hearing made it nigh impossible to understand anything.  Hoping for more interesting features on the return, plus my own earbuds (checked in luggage on the way out - DOH!) should make for a better experience.

Finally, Hawaii materialized out of the mist!  Out our starboard-side windows, Maui materialized first, with Molakai in the distance.  A little further along and mighty Haleakala, a 10,000+ foot tall extinct volcano came to dominate our window.  It is of particular interest to me because like Mauna Kea on the Big Island, its peak is home to several telescopes for both national defense and astronomical research.  I've never been to Maui, but know about some of its instruments there.

 

Finally we landed on Hawaii - the Big Island!  We were literally in the last row of the plane, so were the last to depart, and turned to take a picture of our faithful steed - a 757 - I've not been on one since likely the last trip here in '03.  We had a little time to kill till Shannon arrived, so made it to the car rental place - of course, since nearly everyone on the plane goes to rent a car, we had a lice wait in line.  Back to the airport, we could stand a snack, but the airport restaurant is only for passengers after going thru security - bum deal!  Fortunately we found a little stand where I had the best chili dog ever!  The chili dog plate special came with white rice and about 10 molecules of potato salad, but with a diet Pepsi to wash it down, it was truly paradise on earth!  We ambled back to the terminal just as Shannons plane landed, and after getting her a lei, there she was!  It was good to see her, and she gets to hang with us till Betty and Susan arrive in a few hours.  More fun later and through next week!

New Blogs to Read!

Some of you may not know it, but down the right side of our blog a page or two, there is a list of links to blogs we find interesting or unique.  Some are about astronomy, some have interesting writers, some have interesting photography.  In the last few days I've discovered a couple gems that are certainly deserving of our attention.  I don't spend a lot of time exploring the InterWeb, and I can't say how I find these, but here they are!

This first one is called "Humans of New York".  Brandon Stanton is a street photographer in New York City.  I happened to have the Today show on yesterday morning, and Brandon was on as support for a young woman overcoming body image issues.  He had only reposted a self-portrait she had taken, but with his wider net, she became famous and he was invited along on the show.  So in short, he was sort of an innocent bystander, but in the meantime, I discovered him.  His blog is amazing, the pictures and words bring up a wide range of emotions, and it is easy to spend a couple hours exploring his range of work.  The video shown at left shows his work and his techniques in humanizing the diversity of this urban population.  In addition to the images, he also has a writer's command of language in describing his encounters, including a "Stories" section where he essays at length about the characters he meets.  Do check it out.

The other new arrival is "Ranger Kathryn's Arches", and if I had to describe it in a phrase, it would  be the opposite of the above blog.  Kathryn is a newbie park ranger at Arches National Park after previous careers as teacher, midwife, massage therapist and home school teacher.  She writes with an artist's soul about the stark beauty of what has so far been 2 years in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.  It is a guilty pleasure to follow by her side as she explores and falls in love with a little-seen part of the American West.  Her season is winding down, but I'm hoping the blog continues for a long time!

 

So scroll down, check out the new entries, and if you've not been keeping up with our other blogs of interest, check them out too.  And, of course, if you have blogs to pass along, let us know!

One Down...

The press release came out today - WE FINISHED A MIRROR!  Melinda had been chiding me recently that since she has known me (going on what, seven years now), that we've never finished a mirror project.  Well, the press release explains a little of what went on.  This first mirror of the Giant Magellan Telescope has been the most difficult mirror to finish OF ALL TIME!  Really!  What makes it difficult is that it is an off-axis parabola, is very large (8.4 meters, nearly 28 feet diameter) and very aspheric.  Its asphericity is a measure of how far the surface differs from a sphere, which has a constant curvature, but isn't very useful in a telescope.  Most large telescopes have an aspheric departure measured in tenths of a millimeter.  The Large Binocular Telescope likely held the previous record at over 1mm of departure.  The outer GMT mirrors have 14 millimeters of asphere, and unfortunately, it isn't rotationally symmetric, which makes it even harder!  We have been polishing on it seemingly for years, and we really have - it took a lot of work to develop tools to polish and test the surface and the result is that it was completed to 29 nanometers rms (millionths of a millimeter).  Note that the diameter of a human hair is about 75,000 nanometers diameter!

The image at top left is from the LBT site linked above and shows the 7 mirrors that make up the surface.  The plan is for each mirror to have its own adaptive optics secondary that will correct atmospheric turbulence, and the yellow lasers are used to make artificial stars to control the flexible secondary mirrors to do that correction.  I like how they've been recently including semi trucks into the scene to provide for scale!

We finished the polishing a couple months ago and had a testing campaign of all 4 different methods of testing the mirror shape (thanks to the Hubble controversy of 25 years ago!).  The photo at left shows some of the process of the SCOTS test.  There is an array of fiducials placed on the mirror that are used to accurately align the error mapping to the mirror surface.  With testing complete, the last few weeks we've effectively put the mirror in "cold storage".  Since this is the first mirror completed, when the second one rolls around, we'll repeat the testing of this first one - effectively using it as the standard for completion of the rest.  This mirror may be around for a while, it might even be the last delivered!  So we've put a protective Opticote layer on the optical surface, covered it with 4" of foam, a layer of plywood, then a 10 mil layer of polyurethane.  So not only is it safe from dust, but also falling tools!  The photo at right shows it safely parked in our integration lab.  The mirror substrate in the rear is a 6.5 meter for the San Pedro Mártir Observatory,  to be eventually located in Mexico's in Baja Norte.  It is up next in the fabrication queue.

 

And speaking of what we're working on next, besides the ongoing LSST project, we've already cast the second mirror for GMT, and just yesterday has been exposed after mold clean out from the cast substrate.  If you think these mirrors look big standing next to it, try standing under it like I am here!  We'll be starting diamond generating of the rear surface along with the SPM scope mentioned above in the coming months, giving the second GMT mirror a bump on the progress curve.  Meanwhile the casting crew has already started the mold for GMT3!  No rest for the weary around here!