Hi all,
This has not be the kindest year for myself so far this year
with astronomy. This weekend was my
first good New Moon weekend since January.
Also the last couple of months from home, the atmosphere has been
particularly turbulent with even the most modest of magnification showing a
shimmering image, making sketching the Moon and Sun ney impossible.
On a more grave part, my good friend, Rod Hay, was
tragically killed in an airplane accident in February. Rod was the manager of Katoomba Airfield, the
location of my dark sky site. With Rod’s
death, access to the Airfield to EVERYONE has had to be stopped until the murky
business of insurance and new lease arrangements are determined. Rod was a very experienced pilot & flying
instructor, and welcoming of anyone who cared to show interest in flying and
his dear Airfield. One of Rod’s biggest
boasts was that he had more students become commercial pilots than any other
flying instructor! Over the five
years I had known Rod, my relationship with him and his partner grew beyond
astronomy. My little son and I came to
have a little end of year ritual with just the two of us spending an evening up
at the Airfield doing “boy stuff”. My
first hearing of Rod’s passing was from the TV news on the Sunday morning following
the disappearance of his aircraft. While
no name was given of the missing pilot, other than that the pilot was a
Katoomba local, sent a deathly shiver up my spine. Tragically, it was Rod who was lost.
So, until the situation with the Airfield is settled, we as
a group of astronomy friends have had to find a new home to exploit the night
sky. The trick has been to find a site
that offers the unique set of parameters that made Katoomba Airfield such a
fabulous location for astronomy:
· * Set high on a ridge, not in a valley – fog
settles in a valley, leaving the ridge tops clear
· * Rocky or sandy ground, not turf – grass expels a
lot of water during the night which becomes dew. This can be just about eliminated by setting
up on rocky terrain. While there are
measures by which to reduce the ill affects of dew on optics, if dew is not
present from the start, then dew control measures may never need to be taken.
· * Away from the bane of light pollution. Being set up high on a mountain greatly helps
to as the reduced density of the atmosphere harbours less light pollution
· * Away from agricultural land as this has the same
consequences as a grassy ground with dew
Katoomba Airfield offered all of these, plus it was a safe
place for us to set up. AND we were able
to use the office which has a combustion heater which became the centre of the
Universe on those freezing winter’s nights.
So, after a few months of pouring over maps, aerial
photographs, asking people, councils, police and state authorities questions on
possible locations, it looks like we have found a new home for our band of
merry astronomers – roadside, deep within the western end of the Blue Mountains
National Park, at Mount Victoria, on one of its higher peaks.
This almost barren ridgetop has a completely unobstructed 360° view of
the horizon! And as it turns out, this
site has a gun-barrel view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge! some 92km away! Holy cow!
Who would have thought that The Bridge would have been visible from so
far away, and from the far side of the Great Dividing Range!
The Bridge and North Sydney buildings are visible from a
tiny, tiny gap in the mountains. The
picture below shows the lumpy profile of Mt Banks in the east of the site. The gap is a thin slither located off to the
right of the shorter third peak of Mt Banks, and stopped by the yellow cliff
face just beyond the right side of that same short third peak.
Wai Keen, one of the fellows who joined me at this new location, came up to take photos of the night sky. Below is one of the lovely pieces he was happy for me to add to my blog. It shows another mate who joined us, Mark, lying back enjoying the sky while he waited for his scope to take a photo. I really like this composition, What is also noteworthy of this photo is it shows what the sky looked like naked eye to us! Brilliant! Thanks for the photo Wai Keen :)
These photos were taken the first night we used this new
location.
As things would be, when I arrived the sky was crystal
clear. On sunset, clouds rolled in from
the west. The next two hours were spent
looking for holes in the clouds, and the holes slowly became larger and longer
lasting until the full splendour of a totally unhindered sky came into view! Magnificent!
I had hope to complete a few sketches this night. The two first hours being lost to cloud meant
that my initial plan went out the window.
Fatigue then set in, making concentrating and settling on a sketch
difficult. After a short sleep to
refresh, I was ready to tackle a sketch.
I have sketched M8, the Lagoon Nebula, a few times over the
years. Yet never from a dark site. What I didn’t anticipate was the level of
complexity that The Lagoon shows from a dark site in a 17.5” scope. Instead of being a flat glow, it is fibrous. Instead of being tight and compact, it is
enormously expansive and diffuse. And
instead of being a grey glow, it is bright with an almost electric blue tinge
to it. I also managed to pick up hints of
a couple of the bok globules that inhabit M8.
This voyage over the Lagoon was a sobering experience in
complexity. It challenged my technical
capability and acuity of examination. I
am not completely satisfied with this effort.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disappointed. But I hope to revisit the Lagoon next month
and have another shot at it – weather permitting.
Object: M8, The
Lagoon Nebula
Scope: 17.5”
push-pull Karee dob
Gear: 24mm 82°
eyepiece, 83X
Date: 3rd
July, 2016
Location: Mt
Victoria, NSW, Australia
Media: Soft pastel,
charcoal and white ink on A3 size black paper
Alex.
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