It was a dark and stormy night...

At the end of Ala Heiau Road in Puna on a wintry evening. This place is about two miles south of where I live and believe it or not I had never visited before.

Run away, run away!

This was very nearly the last photo I ever took! There's a high surf advisory for the east cost of Hawaii Island and thought I'd take a picture or two of the surf at sunset. This particular place is somewhere I haven't visited before so was a little wary about where I should stand but thought I'd found a safe enough place. Unfortunately the wind combined with the spray made it virtually impossible to take any decent pictures, I had to clean the lense every couple of minutes so just relaxed and watched the surf instead with the camera ready.

It was getting really dark so decided I'd try one or two more shots at high ISO (hence the noise in the picture) but the spray was just too bad. Then I noticed the highest set on its way in so tried to see if I could capture it - Bad Idea.

The first wave almost got me and the second one would have if I hadn't run away - not an easy thing to do in flip-flops (why I keep wearing them on slippery rocks is something I keep asking myself).

Hopefully the camera has survived - it seems to still be working but it needed a thorough clean. I'm going back to this spot though - I think this might be a splendid place at sunrise!

The biggest waves of the evening on their way a few seconds before the picture above.

Fifteen minutes earlier - not my finest effort but was really just scouting this place out.

Never turn your back on the ocean.

Another record-breaking year for UKIRT

For the second year running UKIRT has smashed its own publication record. In 2010 118 papers were published using UKIRT data which beat the previous record by 34 papers, a quite remarkable achievement given all the cutbacks in recent years. The new count for 2011 has been released and the record has been broken again and not by a small amount - a total of 138 papers this time round. As you can imagine I'm very proud of the record and on a science-per-dollar basis UKIRT must be one of the most productive major international observatories in the world, perhaps the most productive.

A moonlit UKIRT in July 2011.

The JCMT also broke its own record with 103 papers published in 2011, again a remarkable result given much of JCMT's time recently has been spent commissioning SCUBA-2, so a much reduced time spent on taking science data (SCUBA-2 is now commissioned and performing excellently!).

I think everyone at the Joint Astronomy Centre should be very proud of their recent achievements!

Announcement by the JAC.

Press release by the STFC.

Just a bit of fun

Another couple of pictures from the trip to Ka'u and Whittington Beach Park, both HDR. The weather and time of day were so unphotogenic I thought I'd give HDR a go. My Picasa software (free Google photo software) had also undergone some upgrades hence the framing - was just trying it out!


Incidentally, the blogger gadget on the top right of this page is broken, it's supposed to link to my Flickr photostream but no longer does. It's been broken for a while and haven't seen a fix for the gadget yet but will try and come up with an alternative soon. Just click on my photostream if you really want to see it.

A cloudy Ka'u coastline

This was the view looking south from Whittington Beach Park in Ka'u this afternoon. I've never been here before and can't figure out why. I know the view from atop the cliffs but for some reason never saw the turn-off into the beach park. A tad of research suggests the real name is Honu'apo Bay and Fish Ponds and there appears to be a lot of history behind this place although the view above is technically outside the park (as ever click on the picture to see a larger version).

I was up at 4am today and drove down to the Kalapana coast hoping to take some sunrise shots but when I got there it was still pitch black and the surf was high. The place I intended to use was being overrun by the waves and since there was only moonlight to go by I thought it a little too dangerous - "Astronomer goes missing in mysterious circumstances - only his flip-flops and lense cover found on a remote Puna beach" is a headline I've been trying to avoid over the years.

Thinking I'd find another spot I drove around for a bit but this is the east coast of Hawaii, so it started to rain and rain hard. Off home and back to bed then.

Anyway, come this afternoon I just wanted to get out for a bit so drove south into Ka'u and found some interesting places which I'll have to revisit. It felt wrong not taking a picture so there you have it, the one above.

This would be a fantastic place for photos at sunrise but it'd be a 3am start from my place to do that, so don't expect any too soon...

PS. It's actually a panorama and was a pain to put together, but didn't think that was worth mentioning!

PPS. The picture looks much nicer than I imagined here.

A little rest and relaxation in Puna

It's Sunday evening on the Puna coast roughly halfway between Kalapana and Kapoho and the place I go to relieve stress. Just before taking the photos I met a very interesting guy - retired and clearly well-off with a large house just above the shoreline. He used to be a photographer and cameraman and had worked for many of the major movie companies in the US and had clearly done quite well financially! It turned out he used to live and work in California and shared my love of the Monterey/Carmel area and the whole central California coastline. He was walking his dogs and clearing up the trash on the "beach" as he does every day. I hope to meet him again and maybe give him a print or two of these photos. His dogs were also super-friendly!

Rock pools and surf. The waves weren't too high but the water was very "messy" with no regular wave sets. It made timing interesting!

The sun was setting and made the colours interesting despite most of the lava rock being a light-sucking black.

One black & white shot because I thought it made things look a little more dramatic, but that wave almost got me!

A change of position because the waves were getting a little dangerous considering where I had perched myself. I kept looking out for whales since this is the height of the whale season but unfortunately saw none.

It was getting quite dark now so switched position again to take in the wonderful colours of sunset. And the blackness of the lava of course...

Puna is on the east side of the island so not great for sunset shots, but the sky and ocean can still take on magical colours at this time of day.

And that was it for the evening. A short drive back home, stress somewhat lowered and relieved to find I could still remember how to operate my camera...

As always, you can view larger versions of the pictures by clicking on them.

A well-deserved award

The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) won an award from the Royal Astronomical Society. It's a bit of the way down the page but it's a well-deserved award that reflects some pretty damn hard work lots of people have put in over the last few years. It doesn't include me of course, I'm just a grunt, but I like it that way...

Almost the same

There's a picture I saw in a recent edition of Outdoor Photographer, a magazine I've subscribed to for the last couple of years, that made me say "What the hell, that's my photo!". You can see the picture at the top of this article. My picture is above.

It wasn't my photo in the article but it looks as though the photographer took his photo from almost the same spot as I did last year. It's a nice photo and captures those crepuscular rays a regular reader will know I love, except I'm not blogging regularly these days so that's a bit of an oxymoron. Anyway, it got me thinking - why not just pick up the camera again and start taking some photos? Well, my camera is still in storage but I promise to bring it out soon. The photo in that article made me realise that I'm not a complete muggins when it comes to capturing the beautiful scenery here although the real reason I've not being active recently is that I've been too busy. I need to change that and get my life back into a proper perspective.

I'll also say that even if you prefer the picture in the article, at least I know how to keep my horizon straight!

Just a couple more from that trip to Maui. They've appeared on the blog before...



PS. I should add that the picture in the printed version of Outdoor Photographer looks much better than the online one and has had some extra processing done.

Steve Rawlings

I'm stunned, and so are many members of the astronomy community. Rather than hearing through the grapevine I just happened to read this article on the BBC site this morning about how Steve was found dead yesterday.

Steve was a good friend and was a regular UKIRT observer. I supported many of his runs and we spent a lot of time together both at the summit of Mauna Kea and having dinner and beers in Hilo. Steve stopped coming out to Hawaii a few years ago mainly because we switched to survey operations and had fewer visiting observers, but he always complained that when he visited it always snowed and he never got any observing time!

Steve will be missed by his many good friends at the UKIRT and JCMT and I'm sure around the world. He was a wonderful person and lots of fun to be with. We once talked about arranging a cricket match in Hilo against the local softball team and he was going to bring his cricket gear out and also arrange to get the game onto the local news! Unfortunately it never happened, but my main memory of him was us having fun, especially on the soccer field! (Scroll down to the report at the end of the newsletter - in the picture Steve is second from right in the front row and there's even a rare shot of me - front row centre in the blue top kneeling down).

I know everyone at the JAC, both current and ex-employees, send their heart-felt condolences to Steve's family and friends. This is such a shock.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas

It's not one of my photos, in fact I haven't picked up my camera for two or three months. It's a picture taken from the UH 88-inch webcam this evening at sunset. The weather here has been incredibly bad over the last couple of months and we've hardly been open but tonight we finally got back into action. The summit road has been closed for ages due to snow and ice and on the occasions it has been open to the public the summit has been in fog. This evening, however, the skies cleared and at least according to this view the summit was about the busiest I have ever seen!

Anyway, sorry for not posting recently, the last couple of months have been very difficult and also extremely busy. I'll try and get my act together regarding this blog in the new year. In the meantime:

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!

Tom