Big domes

What an interesting day. I'm supporting the current observing run at the telescope and partly as a consequence didn't get to bed until midnight and then woke up at 4-am completely wide-awake. Well, I had an early start planned anyway, just not quite that early.

Today we worked on infrared array electronics at the summit trying to narrow down a fault we've been seeing for a while and I think we got somewhere, or at least have a better idea where the fault is occurring and can now plan some further tests and hopefully fix it very soon. In the middle of all this we had an earthquake. I thought at first I was dozing off as it was just after lunch, but the building really did shake. Fortunately nothing was damaged, but the guys up on a crane at the top of the dome certainly experienced a nervous few seconds - those Genie cranes certainly amplify any ground movement!

It was also my first photo assignment. Well, not a real one, but one of the scientists I was up with today needed some photos taken of him at the summit for an article in his local town's newspaper - a very small town way up there somewhere in the Italian Alps. I was happy to oblige as he's such a great guy, but learned that I'm a bit better at photographing landscapes rather than people, but hopefully there are one or two decent photos the paper can use.

Now, tonight, we've experienced faults with the telescope/instrument that I don't understand, but you know I'm worrying because the work we did today may have caused them, except I can't see the connection right now. Since I'm supporting the run and I'm the instrument scientist, I have to try and figure it out. This has been a long day - nearly 18 hours now and it may go on a little longer...

In a short break today, however, I took a few photos of the observatories at the summit. I didn't really want to do this: the sun was high, the sky was bright, all the clouds were way below us and the snow was making exposure times difficult to sort out, but I took my camera up there so goddamn I was going to use it.

Keck II, with a really funky shadow from the walkways on the dome. Now those are places I would not want to be during an earthquake.

Keck I with the dormant volcano Haleakalā on the island of Maui in the distance. Like Mauna Kea, Haleakalā has astronomical observatories at the summit, but being almost 4,000-feet lower at 10,000-feet doesn't offer quite the same astronomical image quality as Mauna Kea. It's a great place to watch sunsets and sunrises though and is much more accessible to the general public as there's a decent paved road all the way to the summit.

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). This is the place that did the Hawaiian Starlight movie. Get it if you can!

Finally, the Gemini North Observatory. I worked there for a while although it was in a kind of shared mode (I helped commission an instrument there). The dome dominates the summit ridge and there's one amazing telescope inside!

Day's end on the windward side

Living on the east side of an island doesn't typically lend itself to being able to take nice sunset shots, especially when there are two 14,000-foot volcanoes in the way and the trade winds pile up low-level clouds against those mountains. Occasionally, though, we do get some spectacular sunsets.

This evening was one example although I can't remember the last one! I almost missed it as well. I just happened to look out of the window at around sunset and saw the most spectacular sky. So, no tripod or filters, just some snapshots in an attempt to capture the amazing colours from my lanai and garden.

According to the observers I spoke to at the summit of Mauna Kea the sunset from up there was amazing. I wish I'd been there to see it although I've seen my fair share of sunsets and sunrises from the mountain over the years! Well, I'm up there again tomorrow but not on the night shift this time, I have some work to do during the day. I'll take the camera but am not sure if I'll have time to take any photos. We'll see though, but it's time to hit the sack as it's an early start tomorrow morning.

No time to pick the best shots so a quick collection of the ones that look good to me so far:

Looking to the north-east from my top lanai.

Out on the dirt road looking north.

From the lanai again. I love the trees but they get in the way sometimes!

Back out on the dirt road taking a picture over my neighbour's house. I hope they didn't mind.

Same place, but the usual Hawai`i photo of palms at sunset. No ocean or beach I'm afraid!

Photo book

While on vacation in February/March I bought a couple of photography magazines because I wanted to see if they were worth subscribing to. One of them, a UK publication, was really good but I won't be buying it - I'm on the other side of the planet from the UK, the US-UK exchange rate isn't so good right now and what offers they did have were only open to those in the UK.

That's fine, I subscribed to a couple of other US ones, but the UK magazine had an article about publishing photo books and it caught my eye - so much so that I've now created a book with my favourite photos from this blog. I used Blurb which has some software you can download in order to create your own book.

It was fun although the book is private and will only be sent to my mother in the UK (and a copy for family in Austria) and the Treat Lady. I've ordered a couple of copies for preview and if they look good I might just consider letting others have a peek. It'll be nice to see my photos in print, even if I'll be the only one to see them!

Anyway, we'll see. When the book/s arrive I'll let you know if the service is worth it.

Oh, you're back already?

It's always nice to come back home after being driven off the mountain by a blizzard and life-threatening weather. You get to see your loved ones again who simply explode with excitement and enthusiasm at your return.

Sorry I woke you up, guys...

Once upon a time

In an article many months ago I think I boasted about how clear the night sky was from my house. I can't find that blog entry now, but regret writing it because since then I can't recall the last clear night - at least from down here at sea level. The photo above is from late February this year when I was trying to figure out how to take night-time photos with my camera. Even then the sky wasn't completely clear, but at least the stars were visible with Orion overhead.

Since then there has been no clear night. Not one. What's going on? When I first moved here it seemed that every other night I could walk out the door and be met with an incredibly clear, dark and star-filled sky. It usually took seconds to spot the Andromeda galaxy, it was that dark.

Now it's coquis, mud, clouds and continual drizzle. If it wasn't for the coquis I'd swear I was living back in north-west England...

We came, we saw, we evacuated

Inclement weather at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai`i continues. Yesterday evening our telescope operator, a couple of visiting observers and I ventured up to the summit at 5:30pm in the hope of at least checking the dome, getting in a little bit of training (this was one of the observer's first visit to Mauna Kea - welcome to Hawai`i!) and getting a brief glimpse of the sunset.

Well, we didn't really get any of those done as the weather was appalling. We drove the "scenic" route as we like to call it, it takes us past all the telescopes on the summit, but we could hardly see any of them until we were right next to them. Thick fog, high winds and snow made for almost white-out conditions. We described it as blizzard-like in the night log because that was the most appropriate description.

The road was already covered in thin ice and the snow was starting to form drifts. It was clear we'd have to evacuate almost immediately or risk the road becoming impassible leaving us trapped at the summit. That's not a pleasant thought. The weather was so bad there wasn't even a chance of taking a photo outside, standing upright in those cold winds was difficult enough without holding a camera steady as well. Believe me, anyone stuck up there without the right gear or access to shelter (i.e., the observatories) would have been unlikely to survive the night.

So we came down almost immediately. The forecast is for these conditions to continue for another day or two at least and today the Mauna Kea rangers reported large 5-foot drifts in some places, ice on the road and heavy snowfall, so the road was closed. The snowfall was so heavy that the snow-clearing crew were beaten into submission, snow was accumulating faster than they could clear it!

Since I couldn't take any pictures I've used a webcam picture of the summit taken late this afternoon at UKIRT. It was the clearest view of all the summit webcams but doesn't give justice to the conditions. The high winds were blowing all the snow off the road at this section but piling it against other sections not visible in the shot. It really is not a place to be at the moment.

In the meantime, happy Easter everyone and give a thought to the Mauna Kea Observatories Support Services (MKSS) snow-clearing crew. They will be up again on Easter Saturday trying to clear the road. I don't envy them.

Faking it

Reading my few photography books has left me a little shocked. Now, they don't all say this, but one or two suggest using photoshop or similar software to use a bit of one image and copy it onto another to make it look better. One example might be taking a nice photo on a cloudy day and then adding the blue sky from another photo to make it look great (or sunny).

Don't get me wrong, I knew that this could be done, I just hadn't realised that it might be normal advice given to a photographer. I really like to capture images and present them the way they looked to my eye and although I tweak the odd one, OK, crop them massively because I don't know how to compose and frame an image to save my life, I was somewhat surprised to see this suggestion given out so freely.

Then I realised that photography is an art form for many and so what if the photo is manipulated? Presenting a good picture is what it's all about. I'm no artist though, so still like to show what I see. It's also much easier doing it that way!

Still, being a scientific type, I wanted to experiment, so I did. My computer isn't up to running photoshop or lightroom or any really serious photo editing software, but I saw something called PhotoPlus for sale at $10. It had the crucial thing I was looking for - layers - so I bought it.

Now, for anyone out there thinking of doing the same thing, I really don't recommend buying PhotoPlus. It's OK, but you'll tear your hair out reading the manual and will likely put your fist through your monitor. It's hard, though, to feel too annoyed since it only cost ten bucks. I'll fast for a day or something to recover the expense.

What was the question again?

Oh yes. I wanted to try and copy a nice sky onto a picture with land. So I picked a couple of Kilauea Iki pictures I took that either had the land exposed properly while the sky blasted out and one where the sky was fine but the land was too dark.

After repairing a couple of monitors and bandaging my fists, the result was the image above. It could be much better, I'm sure, and those that are keen will easily spot where the manipulation occurred, but it was interesting to see what you could do with the two poor photos below.

Sun belt a'ama

I didn't realise it when I first moved into my house, but being quite close to the ocean on a peninsula meant I was in the Puna sun belt. Often, when the trade winds are blowing and the atmosphere isn't too wet, most of the windward side of the island, at least the Hilo and Hamakua regions, will be cloudy and damp yet it's sunny at my place. Drive a mile inland and it's raining, sometime heavily. Today was a perfect example: at the office in Hilo it was cloudy and wet, but while driving home noticed that it looked clear towards the ocean and when I finally arrived home (damn the traffic on H-130) the sky was beautiful. Perhaps my last chance to spot a whale this season?

No such luck, no whales and since I'm heading back up the mountain tomorrow, and the weather forecast is dire for the next week (that figures), I think I'll give up on the whale watching attempts until next winter. One day I'll get a picture, I swear, although I may have to resort to a whale watching boat trip.

Still, I managed to take a photo of this little guy:

It's an a`ama crab, or Hawaiian rock crab, and I can tell you that these little buggers are downright difficult to photograph. Firstly, they're quite black. Secondly, they live on even blacker lava rock. Thirdly, they live in the splash zone, so you risk getting wet or swept off the cliffs if you want to get close, and fourthly, the little buggers have radar and scatter as soon as you get within twenty feet, usually over the edge of the cliff.

This is the first one I've actually managed to photograph on the nearby cliffs. Perhaps they're so nervous because apparently they're good eating and good fish bait, and these cliffs are a good fishing spot. I know, I caught a fish here once...

PS. No tripod was used, abused, harmed or otherwise mistreated. Yes, it's possible to take ocean panoramas without a tripod, but you have to be ever so careful! Just don't inhale and exhale very much and wait for the big waves to pass by.

A backyard view: II

The last year has not been a good one for just about everyone due to the severe worldwide economic crisis. British astronomy has not been immune although the current funding crisis appears to be unrelated to the recession, more a chapter of mismanagement in the relevant research council. It's been difficult to keep up with all of the developments being so isolated out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but nevertheless everyone working here has been very nervous about their futures.

Although I'm no cosmologist so certainly won't attempt to explain the science, there has been a very recent casualty of the crisis in the UK: the CLOVER project. This would have been world-beating science and hopefully would have answered some of the most fundamental questions in modern astrophysics and cosmology, specifically the existence of gravitational waves in the early universe predicted by cosmological inflation.

What has struck many, and an issue that we have been aware of for some time now over here in our small part of the Pacific, is how UK-only funded projects are so vulnerable to cuts and closure by the UK funding agencies. It seems to be the highest irony that good science is more susceptible to be thrown into the trash by the UK if it's a UK project. The reason for this, of course, is that if there are agreements with international partners then closing a project is much harder to do. Our observatory is funded almost exclusively by the UK, so I'm sure you can understand why people here are nervous.

Both Andy and Peter have blogged about the recent problems. Andy had a guest blogger write "Over for Clover" and Peter wrote "Clover and Out" (among other posts). The comments in both posts are interesting reading as well.

Hence the reason I've been practising my photography. Firstly, it's a release from the stress of having an uncertain future and secondly, if I practise enough, perhaps I can become professional and earn my living that way! Seriously, becoming a pro is not something I'll do, I'm nowhere near talented enough, but taking pictures does seem to release a little tension.

So, I'm subjecting you to more photos from the backyard. They were taken this evening after the first really sunny day I can remember for ages so tried to capture the colours of the few clouds that were around at sunset. Oh, and the moon was up as well.

I really like the last one. Not that it's a particularly good photo or anything, it just looks as though it was painted. Perhaps that's my next hobby?

Moonset and Hawaiian Starlight

I don't think these are particularly good photos, but then again I suspect few people get the chance to take pictures like these - the moon setting above the clouds! I loved the reflection of the moonlight on the tops of the clouds and tried to capture the moment, although I have to remember to stop using higher ISO settings on my camera - they just add too much noise.

The day after I took these photos and headed back to sea level and oxygen I found the Hawaiian Starlight DVD in my mail. I ordered it after reading the article by Andrew Cooper called "Hawaiian Starlight DVD Available".

It's very special. Amazing movies from the summit of Mauna Kea coupled with pictures of deep sky objects and great music. You'll get to see where Andrew, Ant and I take some of our pictures and that we're not faking things - the colours at sunrise and sunset on Mauna Kea really are incredible.

Apparently the DVD is not available in Europe right now but will be next month. For my European readers, please buy it when you can, you won't be disappointed. For those in the USA, it's available from the CFHT Hawaiian Starlight site and worth at least double the $15 it costs.