YALE (no, not the University)

Yet Another Lunar Eclipse.

Usually I'm a bit more disinterested in Lunar Eclipses.  They come, they go.  The popular press and media makes a bit deal about it.  The Blood Moon Super Size Me Things Come in Threes Apocalypse.  Sigh.  And why am I so grumpy with the seemingly ever more popular characterization of "Blood Moon".   It doesn't look like blood.  It's orange.  Copper maybe.  Orange Moon or Copper Moon are much better descriptions with less drama/pseudo religious connotation.  Lunar Eclipse would be even better.  I cringe when I hear kids saying, "did you see the blood moon?"  I hope they actually understand what is happening - after all we have come a long ways in the last few thousand years.

The excitement at a "Super" lunar eclipse is also overbaked.  Last one until 2033!  Well sorry, the "Super" part is accounted by the moon being at perigee-syzygy (read closest approach in the moon's elliptical orbit).  This results in a colossal 14% or so increase in the size of the disk.  If only "Super" meant 14% bigger to McDonalds.  I'm pretty sure there is not a human on the planet than can say with any certainty that they can tell the moon is 14% bigger in apparent diameter.  So it goes.

The next full lunar eclipse around these parts (New Mexico) is in January 2018 so we've only a little more than 2 years to wait as long as you don't care about the "Super" part - which you can't see anyway.

OK rant off.  With all of the above out of the way ...

This one was real pretty.  Don't remember the last time I saw a lunar eclipse so close to the horizon. Makes for a bit more drama when you can see the eclipsed moon next to terrestrial features like mountains or cityscapes.

Eclipsed Moon over the Sandias and northern outskirts of Albuquerque NM, Sept 28, 2015
Note the traffic on I-25 streaking across the base of the Sandias.

This lunar eclipse was also a opportunity to connect with friends near and far.  Most notably with my astro-posse hanging out in the coastal hills of the San Francisco peninsula waiting pensively for a break in the clouds.  As we are an hour ahead I was able to send them updates and they in turn kept me updated on navigating crowds and clouds.  Fortunately they were rewarded with a break in the clouds with just a few minutes of totality remaining.

Clouds to the East also kept my Austin Texas pal waiting nervously.  With friends and family by his side they waited with little hope ... but towards the end of totality they did get a glimpse.  Nice thing about the eclipse is you can make what you want of it - nice excuse to get together - outside at night!

A friend in Los Gatos texted ... can't see a thing!  But I don't think they cared much as they dined on delicious food and the Raki flowed ....  People together, connecting, outside, at night.

New friends and neighbors were texting excitedly as they watched from their homes nearby.  My wife and oldest daughter joined me on the room of our patio.  We watched together as I took advantage of our clear skies and clicked off picture after picture with the camera on a tripod.

Pretty orange moon suspended in the inky dark punctuated with stars.
Mid eclipse through 200mm lens on a static tripod.

With anything much more than a 100mm lens you really need a tracking mount to get any kind of detail on the moon.  Exposure times much more than a quarter second will blur details - even with mild magnification.

I still think the best way to enjoy a lunar eclipse is in a comfy chair with no visual aids or cameras.  Just relaxing with friends and family, near or far, under the night sky.  So wonderful to begin to see stars appear and later, mid eclipse, the Milky Way.  It would be wonderful if the lunar orbit wasn't so inclined so we could enjoy a lunar eclipse every Full Moon.  If that were the case I wonder how it would have changed how the ancients viewed eclipses and if we would have stamped out the memes of evil portent long ago.

As it is we only have to wait until 2018 to do this again (at least here).  It will be another opportunity to get together with family and friends under the wonders of the night sky.  As long as that happens I guess I can live with another "Blood Moon".

The Hairshirt Goes Social

The Eclipse of 2012 was probably the deepest I'll see in my lifetime - without travel that is.  Part of me was wishing I'd made the 3-4 hour drive to see the full eclipse but it was still pretty impressive from my backyard in the San Jose area.  We had some some friends and neighbors over for a BBQ and in the end it was a wonderful way to enjoy the eclipse.

I set up with my 80mm AT-LE refractor and 12mm Nagler with a Baader filter on the front. An hour before the event I realized that with so many guests it would be best to rig up a projection.  I quickly taped a piece of white paper to the bottom of a cardboard box and then fastened the box to the ball head on my tripod.   Off came the Baader filter, and after some focusing and moving the box to and fro a very nice image presented itself.  The full solar disk about 8" in diameter.  Multiple sunspot complexes were easily visible with the lighter grey penumbra easily visible on the largest of them.  So many sunspots made the eclipse just that much more interesting.

Eclipse equipment with "spokes model"

I had the Canon T2i clicking away a picture every minute through the 200mm lens.  This was a very good dry run for the Venus transit since I learned that I'll definitely need to borrow a friends (you know who you are pal) 100-400mm.  The disk image is just too small at 200mm.

Even so, I'll attempt to assemble a time lapse of the eclipse event - if for no other reason than to practice up for the Transit on June 5.

As written in a post below, the practice of imaging is largely a solitary pursuit.  With other imagers nearby it can be a shared experience but in the end it is just you, the camera, the mount, the computer, and a horrible tangle of wires and cables.

Sharing the eclipse, live, with nearly 20 onlookers was great fun.  The youngest was 18 months, the most senior over 90.  It was satisfying to share something so unique with a group of friends.  Yes, the hairshirt monk does go social every once in a while.

But there was another aspect.  A more intiment moment of sharing.  One that I wouldn't trade for pinpont stars across the field.  Or for the lastest gear.  Or a set of perfect Flats, darkest skies, deepest image.  It is the moment of connection with another over this instance of wonder.

Today's connection: mid-eclipse

 It's when another looks at an image, or through a telescope, or even with naked eyes at a dark sky and gets it.  It's when another sees what I see and there is the ah-ha moment.  Doesn't happen frequently but when it does it makes all the hard work of imaging worthwhile.  I was thrilled that it happened today.

Brain Virus

Hey it's the end of the year and time for some reflection 6 months into this crazy pusuit.

I have some wonderful observing friends to blame thank for all of this hair-shirting.  You see,  I was going to miss an observing trip because it coincided with our annual family vacation to New Mexico.  Hmmmm,  new moon ... dark skies ... I thought I could at least vicariously participate with them by doing some astrophotography.

Only one issue.  I didn't do astrophotography.

"Yeah,  I'll get a camera and some kind of lightweight mount I can ship out to New Mexico and do some killer astrophotography".  From such naive beginnings began this storyline arc.

I remember the exact moment this pernicious virus infected my brain.  April 4, 2010 at about 10:15am.

You see I was in the waiting room at the doctors office trying not to think about my appointment when it came to me.  In the 15minutes before I was called in I imagined myself peacefully taking pictures of the heavens under wonderful skies churning out stunning mosaics.  My observing pals floored with admiration.

Distraction accomplished.  Didn't matter that it was a far cry from reality.

The blog started as a way to share images with those guys while on vacation.  By then I already knew enough about astrophotography to give it this rather odd name - Cilice.  Hair-shirt ....

Here is my very first astrophoto.  June 20, 2010

Lyra.  Vega dead center.  One pixel in there is M57.

A stack of 5x30sec images, f/5.6, ISO1600, taken with the 18-55mm kit lens that came with the then 12hr old Canon T2i.  New camera smell still pungent in the warm summer air.  No flats, no darks.  I was thrilled, if not a little concerned at how hard it was to focus.  Ahhhhh, the first hint at the pain challenges to come.  But hey ... there were stars there ... and a recognizable constellation. 

Next came the real lens ... the "big gun" I was going to take to New Mexico.  The venerable 200mm EF-L.  First light on July 3, 2010.

M13.  200ml EF-L lens.  Center crop from the full T2i frame. 

Hey, this time I even used dark frames!  But ... this processing stuff sure takes a long time.  And Photoshop?  WTF?   Sigh ... this may be harder than I was expecting.  But look Ma!  There's a lot of stars there!

A couple days later I met one of my dear friends (and partner in imaging pain) at a Bay Area "dark" site.  Here was my very first big boy picture.  Darks, flats, flat-darks,  the training run for New Mexico. 

I *still* don't know where all the blue-green in the Lagoon is coming from.

This one is 40x60sec, ISO800 at f4.  Hmmmm ... once you are done fratzing with your equipment in the field you get to pound your head against the wall for hours with processing.  Then it still doesn't look like you expect or think it should.  And color?  Enough to make converting everything to grayscale the first step in processing.  But my, what fun it is.

The blog starts up later in July with a 2 week trip to legendary New Mexico dark skies.  And this is what it looked like most of the time.

Beautiful but hardly astronomy friendly.

If you care you can pick up the story from the earliest posts in the blog.  Might give you some comfort and cheer while you are calibrating your light frames or contemplating what to throw when you realize you forgot to shoot flat frames.

I have suffered the good hair-shirt fight and it has all been worthwhile.  I've improved my skill and my images are getting better.  I've had something new to throw myself into at a time when I needed distraction.  I've enjoyed writing about the journey and have shared parts of it it with nearly 1000 people from 50 countries.  That's pretty neat.

I've met a few new friends and grown closer to the four who just had to go out observing when I was on vacation.  Thanks gents.  Securis in corde meo est.

Now for next year I have some really amazing ideas ....

Field Geology the Hard Way

This past weekend I was in the Denver area to celebrate my neice's wedding.  Congratulations Kimberly and James!  We stayed near the Colorado School of Mines and had a few hours to walk around.  The Geology Museum was open and we spent an hour wandering around.  Highly recommended!

All kinds of cool exhibits on mining, radioactivity, fossils, UV fluorescent minerals, and gorgeous gemstones.  Walking downstairs you first encounter a pretty nifty exhibit on meteorites too.  Wandering a bit more I came across this.

Moon rocks are on exhibit in many museums but somehow I don't think I have ever seen one in person.  This is one of the Apollo 17 Goodwill pieces - two given to each state and some 135 countries.  I did some reading about these Goodwill rocks and was saddened to learn that of the 240 samples given to international governments some 180(!) are missing or unaccounted for.  Of the 100 given to the US states ... 33 are "unaccounted for".

Even this little piece has a story.  It had gone missing for decades but thanks to a lost moon rock sleuthing project run by Professor Joseph Gutheinz at the University of Phoenix it was "discovered" this summer (2010) in the possession of ex-Gov. John Vanderhoof, who left office in 1976.  The official press release covering its return to the people and display at the School of Mines states that it "had been in the safekeeping of former Gov. John Vanderhoof".  Fair enough - at least he gave it back.  And just in time for me - it was put on display only a couple months ago.

(For the record I think Joseph Gutheinz is a hero.  He assigns his students the task of hunting down these missing rocks and has been instrumental in the recover of many.)

The rock is encased in a sphere of acrylic mounted on a cheesy wooden plaque, behind a plexiglass window, inside a hefty safe.  Good idea as I so wanted to touch it.  And the safe also keeps ex-Governors from "helping".  I stood and stared trying to take in what I was seeing in that unassuming chunk of moon.  These rocks are of remarkable scientific value.  And they represent so much more.

There are three ways to get moon rocks:

1.)  Moon rocks can be found on earth, shards blasted from cratering events and finding their way to us as lunar meteorites.  I heard somewhere that the prevailing thought in the 1800's was that all meteorites were of lunar origin.  Today only a hundred some odd meteorites of lunar origin are known - the vast majority getting their start as meteoroids.  As the sites chosen for the Apollo missions have been shown to be geologically anomalous, these rocks from random impact sites on the moon have special scientific relevance. 

Certainly cheaper than going there

2.) And then there was the Soviet era robotic sample return mission(s) - which in itself is pretty amazing especially for the 1970's.  The three successful Lunas brought back a total 300 grams of samples. Here is a drawing of Luna 16, the first to bring back the goods for the Soviets.

1950's SciFi Cover Art?  Nope.  Luna sample return lander.

3.) Then there is the hard way.  Over 380 kg in all. 

Astronaut Charles Duke all dusty from a hard days field work.

I guess that is why I stared at that little piece of moon for a while.  Transfixed.

Some things really are worth doing.

I'm glad we did.

Godspeed Jack

`` `Keep Looking Up' was my life's admonition;

I can do little else in my present position.'' 

 


PBS's Jack "Star Hustler/Star Gazer" Horkheimer's self penned epitaph.  

He died last Friday, age 72.


You will be missed.


 

Convergence

We have arrived!  Our home for the next couple weeks.  A lot of people ask why we come back to the same place year after year.  Well, many reasons but this is one.

Chimney Rock from the "Mesa"

 This was taken from the doorway to our little domicile.  I'll chat more about our room in a future post, but for now, not a bad view out the front.

The most recent tracking log for "The Box" ...

ALBUQUERQUE, NM, US	07/26/2010	5:58 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	07/26/2010	9:18 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN

Scheduled to arrive tomorrow right on time.  I let them know at check in that I had a "rather large box" arriving and they wanted to have my instructor email.  I guess only the ones that teach classes here have large shipments coming - pottery supplies, easels and the like.  I think they will find my box somewhat unusual.  Tomorrow I'll have to find a spare barn or shed somewhere to hide all this stuff.

Much less rain today - even some blue sky.  It does look like the weather pattern will be like this for a while.  I won't start getting nervous until later in the week - for now just enjoying being here.

The (too) Dark Skies of New Mexico

This place is amazing.  Pitch black skies.  So dark it eats the light of the full moon.  The moon is out there somewhere but I can't see it.  Might have something to do with the cloud deck and intermittent thunderstorms.

Yes, we arrive to some spectacular weather.  Sheets of rain on the drive up I25 from Albuquerque.  We are staying in a B&B in Espanola only a 35minute drive to Ghost Ranch tomorrow.  Here we make our annual visit to Walmart - the only time I'll suffer a journey into that special big box hell.  In addition to picking up some supplies for the week ahead I needed to secure some larger or heavy items that didn't make it into the "box that had better be on a truck speeding this way".

• Folding camp tray table for laptop in field
• Small folding stool
• 20 pack of AA batts
• Thermos to hold the coffee what will keep me awake

We were just settling in and thinking about dinner ... I hit the go button on the small in-room microwave oven when pftzzz.   Thought I threw a breaker for the room.  But no! The whole B&B went dark.  Heck ... the whole town for blocks went dark.  So either I caused a massive blackout trying to heat up some food or we have to invoke temporal coincidence. Three hours no power.  Yes,  New Mexico likes it dark.

Wunderground says:

Showers and a few thunderstorms will continue through late evening.  Rainfall on saturated ground will fill arroyos...ditches...small streams...and underpasses and block low water crossings with fast flowing water.

Backstory

This year I was was hoping to go with my astro-pals (aka Axe Men - don't ask, I won't explain) to a dark sky observing site for a few nights of glorious skies.  And every summer our family travels to north-central New Mexico for 2 weeks of vacation.  And yes, the dates overlapped.   Depressed.

Kind of like when the cafeteria at work has two dishes I really like on the same day after weeks of less appetizing fare.  Well like that but orders of magnitudes worse.

Of course the family vacation is going to happen (and I love that time) but I realized that if I could somehow get some astro equipment to New Mexico I could attend the astronomy event, well virtually, or in spirit or whatever.

I have always had an interest in astrophotography ... hmmm, maybe I could pull together (aka buy new gear) and ship it on ahead.  All without any real experience in astrophotography (though I am a complete camera hack).  All decided about 8 weeks till departure.

Some ideas seem so beautiful, so crisp, so perfect at the time.   Thus began the journey of the previous 2 months or so.   We leave tomorrow morning.  Follow along if you wish.

My hair shirt is packed.

This account is dedicated to the Axe-Men.  With you dudes!  All Hail the Axe.