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Australian skies
(Continued from page 8)
of the road. The facilities are quite spectacular for a club. I'm staying in one of the four rooms in the bunk house. There is no heat, but rooms are wired for red and white 12-volt lights powered by solar-charged batteries. Other amenities are flushing toilets, hot showers, a large forested area for camping during the summer, and a large open field for telescopes. I don't see any kangaroos while I am there, but notice signs of them everywhere.
On Friday, it rains all night, then it's cloudy all day Saturday; but it's getting colder and people are hopeful. Local wisdom holds that there is a close correlation between height of the clouds and temperature -- the colder it gets, the lower the clouds drop. Once it is cold enough, the clouds go away, which they do around 9 p.m. (This is not a problem in summer.)
Nagler fans think big
I use of one of the club scopes, a fine 17.5-inch f/4.5 Dobsonian. A few minor adjustments, and the infocus travel is extended to accept the 31mm Nagler I brought. That eyepiece sticks farther into the focuser than any other I have seen. Many of the Aussie astronomers, eager to try out the big eyepiece, are quite impressed with the views. They are already Al Nagler fans with their Panoptics, widefields, and smaller Naglers everywhere. I think that by this summer they will have a few of those big eyepieces on the observing field.
Saturday night I begin to work my way down the Caldwell list, starting from the most southern object, and hoping to get all the things I couldn't see from the north. I immediately have problems with the very first object, a planetary near the South Pole. I probably could find it but why waste to spend a good part of my very limited observing time on difficult objects, when there was so much new spectacular stuff to see? I move down the list, and find a lot of new and spectacular clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. I spend time wandering in the LMC and SMC. I study the Tarantula at different powers and filters. I try to see the Helix unaided eye, by rolling up a black piece of cardboard and looking through the tube, with and without filters, but it doesn't work.
By 3 a.m., I am really cold, fighting with dew on the
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eyepieces, and tired. I also have to get up pretty early to make the four-hour drive back to Sydney to catch the train to Alice Springs at 1 p.m. So, I call it a night, quite happy that I spent some time under clear dark skies with a fine telescope. My observing objectives are met!
Problems in Alice Springs
When I arrive at Alice Springs two days later, it is 95 degrees and perfectly clear. Later I try to arrange to use a C8 at the Ayer's Rock Resort Observatory for some really dark skies, but it is first quarter Moon, and with a huge storm blowing through that night, a fire breaks out in the campground next door at sundown. Although the astronomers are bending over backwards to accommodate me, it doesn't work out. At 4 a.m., when I get up to take a sunrise tour on Ayer's Rock, the wind has died and the sky is clear. I cannot get away from the lights of the resort to see how dark the sky is, but it looks pretty deep from what I could see. I'll have to come back some
time when I can observe.
The last five days of my trip are in Tasmania, as far as 43 degrees south. I have hoped to see the far southern sky high above the horizon from here, but
the Moon is nearly full, and I don't expect the weather to be very good. Much of Tasmania is rain forest, and this is the rainy season. So I don't have much hope for clear weather. While the weather isn't good enough for observing, it doesn't ruin the sightseeing. It snows my first night here and I see some Tasmanian Devils.
In summary, the sky is unbelievable, the people are wonderfully friendly and helpful, the land is spectacular, and the wildlife is exotic. I am now a member of the ASNSW. It was a great trip. I didn't pick the best time of the year to go, but it worked out as well as I had hoped. I think I'll start planning my next trip. Maybe I can make the South Pacific Star Party, March 23-26, 2001.
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