all i want for christmas

I’d like

1. $300,000 (USD)
2. An MP3 Player
3. To master the roll on the hammered dulcimer
4. More clear skies and less light pollution
5. A road bike
6. A sling bag
7. New clothes
8. A music practice room (or have my neighbor move, which ever is easier)
9. Fitness and health
10. More books

Item 2 isn’t that expensive these days. I guess I don’t know the models well enough to make a choice. A gadget good for listening to downloaded radio programs when I’m commuting is all I need, nothing fancy. It’ll be a bonus if the machine had tens of GBs of storage space for mp3 backups. Item 3 takes time. It’s more appropriate as a New Year resolution, but I don’t want to jinx it. We all know resolutions don’t work. Item 4’s an uphill task. I’d really like to ride on one of those slick looking road bikes, but I’m not about to part with a 4-digit figure just for the frame. 8’s for our sanity — my neighbor’s and mine. For 9, a bit more body mass won’t hurt too — yes, I need it.

Item 1 kind of vetos almost everything else, doesn’t it? Well, not really. It’s the price of freedom. If I had to choose the one I want most, this would be it; most of the others can be done without. This versus half a decade of unconsummated ambition, servitude and lost youth.

Happy Holidays.

memorable astronomical experiences – part 3 of 3

The final entry in this series is a belated trip report of my first visit to a dark site 4 years ago. My recollections are based on my personal log, photographs, and accounts of the trip from my fellow travelers.

It was the summer of 2002 and I was back home for the break. I had discovered the burgeoning local amateur astronomy community online, attended star parties in town, and got to know the few stalwarts of the group who remain active in the local amateur astronomy circle till today. There were plans to drive up north for a 3-days-2-nights astronomy getaway. The site is situated in a rural coastal area in the state of Johor, Malaysia. Dark sky camp-outs were not new to “elders” of the group, some of whom had logged no less than a dozen stargazing trips out of the country. I decided to tag along when I realised that the school term was starting and that I was not going to see the southern skies until a year later. Thankfully, the 15×60 binoculars I mail-ordered for this trip arrived on time.

It was a diverse group that consisted of high school students, college students, working adults in their 20s, early 30s, people with scopes, people without, people who knew zilch about astronomy before the trip,… The drive to the site took 5 hours and at least 15 of us — the most I’ve seen on similar trips I’ve gone for — together with our scopes and mounts, were packed into two 9-seater vans. Our equipment took up more space than we did, and that was typical, so said the veterans. It would be a nightmare if we had to unload the van for customs inspection. Fortunately we didn’t need to.

The ride would have been rather dreary if not for the boisterous few in my van who went into karaoke-mode during the journey. We arrived at the site at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon with ample time to set up our scopes and get sunburned. It was my first time so close to wildlife — buffalos roamed and left droppings all over the field where we observed. Human inhabitants share the land with cattle, goats, chickens, seagulls, crabs, coconut trees and palms. We lodged at a spartan family-run beach-front accomodation less than a mile away that was unbearably hot during the day and had no warm water supply. Cellphone reception was non-existent. That was quite an experience for a city denizen who had never ventured very far from population centers!

It didn’t begin well on the first night. I started observing at about 8pm. The sky was still bright and the open cluster M7 in Scorpius didn’t look much different from what I would usually see in the city. The first hour of our session was interrupted by a thunderstorm that moved in as swiftly as it receded. Most were unprepared for the rain this early at night. In our frenzy, trash bags were thrown over scopes, mats wrapped up, and we retreated into the nearest shelters, our tents, which weren’t designed for thunderstorms.

It didn’t clear up completely after the rain, but there was enough of a clear patch to reveal the splendours of the galactic center region. Back on campus, I had glimpsed sections of the Milky Way in the Cygnus region with averted vision, but that was the first time I saw the Milky Way directly. It was confusing just scanning the Scorpius-Sagittarius region through my binoculars. I revisited the urban sky favorite M7 but it didn’t stand out as much from the background stars as it did in the city. Yes, stars formed the background.

We had an owner of a 8″ Mag 1 Portaball in our midst. The scope was an ingenious piece of engineering with its elegant and economical construction. The primary mirror was housed in hollow sphere resembling a cauldron, which rests on friction pads. A truss tube connects that to its cylindrical secondary mirror support. It’s amazingly compact when it’s all disassembled and packed up. An avid stargazer during his college days, the owner was more than willing to share views of the heavens through his scope and allow even newbies to move the scope around! He would announce his findings whenever he got to a new object. I was struck by the sight of the open cluster M4, with individual stars sharp and resolved, through the Portaball. Most of us were impressed that the Veil Nebula, an object masked by city skies, could be seen through the scope with proper filtration. The Lagoon Nebula appeared almost photographic. Same for the Trifid Nebula, where I could clearly see dust lanes, and I discovered that the Swan Nebula did resemble… a swan. It was no surprise that a line frequently formed at the Portaball throughout the night.

My 15×60 was not left in the cold. While sights seen through the modest binocular cannot compare with those seen through the other scopes, it was useful for star-hopping practice and eye-training on faint objects. Besides, I wanted to know the instrument’s limits in dark skies. I revisited open clusters and globulars, including M22, M55, NGC 5723, M25, M18 etc. The Andromeda Galaxy’s elongation was clear through the binoculars and its companion was barely visible. My favorite for the night was M33, the Triangulum Galaxy. Usually invisible in city skies due to its low surface brightness, it was revealed to be a diffused patch easily missed if one was not looking for it.

4am – It was time for comet hunting. I had brought along charts for comets Hoening and C/2002 O6 (SWAN). I starhopped to the Hoenig’s field but couldn’t confirm if the spot I saw was a faint star or a fuzz. Elsewhere, I tried for C/2002 O6 (SWAN), but couldn’t convince myself if I saw it. Clouds moved in at about 4:30am and spelt the end to the first night’s session.

The start of the second night showed all symptoms of a thunderstorm, but rain didn’t materialize. The sky cleared miraculously at about 8pm. Venus was the evening star whose glow could be seen through obscuring clouds. ω Centauri was relatively low but still visible. M7 was easily seen with the naked eye. The Milky Way was visible even before the sky had turned completely dark. With stellar fuzzes all over, the sky looked like a huge open cluster magnified many times. I logged globular clusters, open clusters, nebulae, planetary nebulae, binocular asterisms and galaxies. Compared to the previous night, more objects were seen but I shall recount the more noteworthy ones.

Everywhere I looked, the star field looked like a page out of the photo gallery section of an astronomy magazine. It was mesmerizing just scanning the heavens aimlessly. If there was anything I could ask for to enhance that experience, it would a parallelogram mount for the binocular and a lounge chair. But a pristine night sky calls for more challenging objects. I had to make the most of the night by staying focussed — so I thought then. I sighted the famous radio galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) in my binoculars early on, but didn’t remember if I saw any dust lanes. The first half of the night was spent on prominent clusters and nebulae in and around the galactic center region, for eg, M55, NGC 6352, 6397, M26, M18, M24, etc. I tried for Hoenig when Cepheus got high enough, but again I couldn’t confirm if I did see it. Proceeding northward from the galactic center, I added more clusters to my log — M2, M92, M71, M13, M15. Feeling adventurous, I decided to go for the faint fuzzies — planetary and diffused nebulae that I would not easily see in poorer skies. The Helix Nebula was the first. It looked bright, diffused and showed hints of structure even through the binocular. NGC 246 in Cetus was an unplanned find less obvious than the Helix. At about 2am, I saw NGC 281 in Cassiopeia, easily mistaken for another Milky Way star cloud. Then there are planetaries I tried to look for but didn’t see, namely NGC 7662 and M76.

My eyes felt strained and heavy by 3am and I had to take a nap. It was the first time I slept under the stars, with nothing between me and the heavens. It felt so dream-like to wake up seeing stars all around. 5am – the familiar winter constellations and stars had risen… Orion, Sirius, Aldebaran. But the stars were visibly subdued by high clouds. With the fainter stars now out of naked eye reach, the sky looked like what I’d see in a city on a good night. I just took a nap… now where had the stars gone?

I had one last task before dawn. Hoenig was a lost cause, but C/2002 O6 (SWAN) was high enough in the sky to try for. Using a star chart I prepared, I found the star field of C/2002 O6 and sighted the comet. The tail-less fuzz was unmistakeable since no other deep sky objects were supposed to be in the field. That’s +1 for my comet tally and the last entry in my log for the trip.

4 years later, in August this year, I visited the same site for the 4th time, with a largely different group. In the intervening years, the dirt road passing by the site had been paved, warm water supply installed at our regular accomodation, cellphone signals now covered the area, and the southern horizon brightened so slightly at night by the nearby developing town. Ironically, I’ve also grown to find the ability to use a cellphone while I’m on holiday an unwelcomed convenience. Smitten by aperture fever (even binocular fans get them!), I had bought myself a 16×70 and retired the 15×60 I brought along for the first trip. With neither the financial resources to get a telescope nor the means to transport one very far from light polluted skies around my home regularly, I’ve stuck to binoculars and even come to prefer them over telescopes.

Sometimes, I wonder why some of us stay in this hobby when we marvel at the same objects years after years. After all, the sky doesn’t change very much over the course of a human lifetime. But it just feels different, to look at M42 today, a week later, or a year later with a whole new group at a different location. I’m not alluding to the weather or seeing conditions here. What is drawing us back to the feeble beams of light that had traveled for hundreds and even millions of light years just to reach us? I’ll attempt a partial answer. At a wine tasting class I attended, a sommelier remarked that their appreciation, enjoyment and consequently their review of a wine is affected by factors external to the bottle — the ambience, the conversation, the company… It is not just about the content of the bottle. Perhaps it’s the same for amateur astronomy.

zoned out

I was completely zoned out the past few days, literally — I was living in a different time zone. My overnight shift was on Thursday night. Instead of sleeping when I was supposed to, I spent the night watching a Japanese drama series (link to the main site in Japanese) on DVD, 10 episodes of it — I couldn’t muster enough energy to finish the final episode. The scenes were touching and even if I found the drama occasionally melodramatic and the English subtitles sucky, Erika’s presence made up for it. Friday in the office was spent in and out of consciousness, but never in restful deep sleep. Then I made it home on Friday night, slept from 7pm to 2am, then went back to bed at 5am and woke up at 8am on Saturday. Things are going back to normality now. The crazy things I do sometimes…

I’m off to a concert and will be working on the third and final installment of the “memorable astronomical events” series after that. It’s going to be a long entry.

planetary conjunction – day 2

Got up early again this morning for the second day of the conjunction. Cloud cover was pretty extensive this morning. Fortunately just enough of the east-southeastern sky was clear for a while before menacing dark clouds moved in from the south, forcing an early end to the session… and I was on time for work.

The photograph (click to enlarge) below was taken on Dec 11 2006 at 0616h LT (Dec 10, 2216h UTC). Exposure settings on Nikon Coolpix 5400: 8s, f/4.6, ISO 100. Fast moving Mercury’s separated from Jupiter by a third of a degree.

The same photograph, with labels added:

planetary conjunction – day 1

I woke up this morning at 5am to a partly cloudy sky. Few stars were visible except for the brightest ones. At first it didn’t seem that there was much hope of seeing the conjunction. I took my time to mount my camera and 16×70 Fujinon on tripods, just in case. From the south-facing window of my apartment, Spica, Corvus and southern hemisphere constellations winked in and out of the clouds.

Things only started to look good at about 5:30am. The clearing began while I was at my computer (or was I in the bathroom?) checking out the positions of the constellations I could barely see. I returned to the window to find the entire strip of southern Milky Way constellations shining through. Centaurus, Crux, Vela, Carina… I’ve missed them for months. α Centauri, then barely 7° above the horizon, didn’t seem any less intense than it usually was. A brief glance at Crux in my binoculars revealed possibly more than 50 stars within the area bound by the four stars in that constellation. It also helped that key stars (α and β Librae) in Libra were visible. With the aid of a sky chart program and some star hopping, I was able to aim my binoculars at the spot where the trio were expected appear from the cloud banks. 0559h… checked with the sky chart program again. The planets have risen! 0601h… Cream yellow Mercury peeked out from the horizon hugging cloud. Mars made its entry not long after.

Enough of the preamble. Here’s one of the earliest photos (click to enlarge) I took. The brightest stars are Mercury and Jupiter, with Jupiter lower in the sky. Mars is at Jupiter’s one o’clock position, completing the vertices of an equilateral triangle. Look hard and you’ll find β Scorpii at Jupiter’s 10 o’clock position, separated from the latter by about a third the separation between Mercury and Jupiter. Look really hard and you’ll might see δ Scorpii sandwiched between wisps of dark clouds, to the right of Mars, and separated from it by about twice the distance between Mercury and Mars. This was taken at 0607h LT (2207h UTC) with Nikon Coolpix 5400, 4s, f/4.4, ISO 400.

And this was at 0613h LT (2213h UTC). Camera settings: 2s, f/4.6, ISO 400.

At 0621h LT (2221h UTC). Camera settings: 1s, f/4.6, ISO 100.

(I might stitch the 30 odd photos I took into some sort of time-lapse animation if I figure out how.)

I lost Mars completely from binocular view at about 7am, minutes after sunrise. For the first time, I convinced myself that Mercury and Jupiter can be seen in broad daylight.

I hope I get lucky again tomorrow, when Mercury moves closer to Jupiter. Meanwhile, it’s clear skies to all on time zones west of me…

just another all-over-the-place post

The three planet conjunction (involving Mercury, Jupiter and Mars) is happening this Sunday and Monday mornings. Given that the trio rises about an hour before sunrise, I have serious doubts that I’ll see them. Then again, I saw Mercury barely 10 degrees above the horizon from my home twice over the past week, if that’s any encouragement. So, I brought home the spotting scope my boss had kindly given away, in the hope that it might be of some help in photographing the conjunction. If the sky looks good, I might even attempt to stack video clips of objects taken on the camera, but first I need to find an adapter.

A major sunspot group just rotated around the sun’s limb. Maybe I’ll bring the scope back into the office on Monday for some solar observing. Time to unwrap that sheet of solar filter which I paid way too much for.

Hammered dulcimer lessons are going well, but I’m still having trouble with the roll after getting introduced to the technique at least four months ago. I can’t go too fast without losing momentum to muscle tension, and I tend to stall in between notes.

There isn’t much work around in the office lately. There’s no doubt people are going on holidays. Part of ennui can be attributed to the yet unfinalised and imminent re-organisation. Nobody seems to know what’s going on.  Maybe they know more than they think they know, or they could be feigning ignorance. Anyway this phase of my life would fade away in 7 months’ time, so I’m not deeply concerned. On the up side, I’m getting plenty of free time in the office. My computational number theory notes and peers make good company.

I realised that I lack confidence to bring my suspicions to conclusions in relationship matters. I’m not oblivious to going-ons around me. Events repeat themselves over and over, in different places, involving different persons, but they lead to the same outcomes. I can never articulate my interpretations with enough certainty and conviction. The signs are extremely obvious, but I tend to suppress gut feelings, choose to trivialise observations and believe the innocuous and plain. Perhaps experience confers confidence. gah…

memorable astronomical experiences – part 2 of 3

One of the things I’d like to do in my 4 years stay at 42° N was to see, at least, an aurora display. I frequently get aurora warnings from the Aurorawarn mailing list owned by spacew.com and another Astroalert list run by Sky and Telescope. Depending on solar activity, the number of warnings issued each year can vary. In my memory, it’s typically less than 10 a year. Local weather conditions would cut the actual number of observable aurora events to a lot less than the number of issued warnings. Looking back, I could have observed a total of 3 aurora displays in 4 years, but I’ve seen only 1 out of those 3 because of circumstantial reasons — I missed one of them because I had to stay overtime in the tutoring center, and consequently missed a ride from a friend to a dark site. As for the other I missed… I didn’t get to the observing location at the right time.

I saw my first and only aurora display on Sep 7 2002 from the observatory on campus. I saw a faint arc, rather unlike light pollution, across the northern horizon between 8 and 9pm. It didn’t take long for intense green rays started to appear in Big Dipper, Hercules and Draco. Activity shifted to Perseus and below Polaris at about half past 9. Red pulses could be seen in some parts of the sky. Aurora activity died down significantly after that, but the mysterious glow in the north lingered on for a few hours. Faint rays appeared after midnight, but these were nowhere as intense as those hours before. Here’s an extract from the personal log entry I wrote the morning after the display.

The auroras! I can finally claim with confidence to have seen an aurora display! J was telling me about the AstroAlert notice he received and I had missed because I did not have internet connection in my apartment. I noticed a faint arc of light in the northern horizon just when he mentioned it. They were not much different from those I had seen in April/May a semester ago, which can well be passed off as clouds. Green rays started to appear in the southwest and extremely intense, at least for me, aurora activity ensued. These certainly could not have been clouds. Two visitors stopped by and witnessed the spectacle. One of them said she was T’s roommate.

I was too excited for words when I saw the aurora activity intensify. I recalled noticing some semblance of curtain-like activity in the southwest when I decided to get J and M off the scope and onto the observing deck. Seconds later when I shifted my gaze back towards the sky, the rays became so much brighter! I also remember hearing police sirens in the distance, and I wondered if they were in any ways related to the aurora.

Rays from the aurora spanned these constellations: Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, Perseus, Cassiopeia, Bootes, Serpens, Hercules and even as high as the region near Lyra! I would rate this the second best astronomy event I had ever witnessed, after the great Leonids shower of 2001. Of course, this could not have been possible without the great viewing conditions that we enjoyed tonight. The moon was in new phase, the skies were totally clear, and seeing was good.

A fruitful observing session followed. I bagged targets which I’ve always wanted to catch. M76 “Little Dumbbell” was one of them. The others: Saturn Nebula, M92 GC, M7x GX, and one more which I can’t recall. We caught glimpses of some the early risers of the winter constellation without having to brave the frosty upstate winter. Well, it wasn’t so cold tonight.

back to sleep

0450, Sep 08 2002

I continued to keep watch on aurora warnings over the years. There had been some good displays that were obscured by cloud cover, which was at times extensive enough to cover the entire N Am. I remember nights when I stepped out of my apartment to monitor the cloud cover every half hour and refreshed the spacew.com aurora sightings page every 10 minutes just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. Incidentally, shortwave radio listeners like myself get to monitor aurora activity indoors from our radio sets. For reasons I shall not elaborate here, shortwave propagation is disrupted when an aurora is in progress. When all I hear is static from the usually strong BBC Carribean transmission frequency at 5975 kHz, something is up in the ionosphere.

It’ll be a while before I see my second one, now that I’m back in the vicinity of 0° latitude for an unknown number of years.