Observing from Australia: The 9th Annual South Pacific Star Party
Written for the NOVAC newsletter; July 2001
In the February, 1999 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, Greg Bryant published an article entitled "Astronomy Under the Southern Cross". In the article Greg described several activities of his club, The Astronomical Society of New South Wales (ASNSW), based in Sydney, Australia. The ASNSW is the largest and most active club in the southern hemisphere with several hundred members and two permanent dark sky sites. Since 1993 the ASNSW annually has put on a premiere star party called the South Pacific Star Party (SPSP). In his article, Greg describes the site, called Wiruna (aboriginal for 'sunset'), at which the annual party is held. Wiruna is a 107 acre site 200 km northwest of Sydney situated at an elevation of 3300 feet. There are several permenant buildings that include a roll-off observatory for a 17-inch Dobsonian telescope, a large room for talks, as well as hot showers and flush toilets to civilize camping. He invited all readers to attend the upcoming SPSP and described some of the showboat objects that can only be seen from southern latitudes such as the Magellenic Clouds, Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae, the Eta Carinae Nebula, and many others. Near the end of his article in Sky and Telescope, Greg quoted the famous nova hunter, William Liller ,who wrote "If you don't plan to travel to southern latitudes, I offer you my sincere condolences…" This was the impetus to begin planning my trip to DownUnder.
To do justice to the wonderful objects in the southern hemisphere and to have the freedom to observe when and what I wished, I felt the need to bring a good telescope. The project began by calling American Airlines to determine how many frequent flyer miles it takes for a free ticket to Sydney and to find out the size limits of carry-on baggage. The answers were: 60,000 miles and 13x5x23 inches. I calculated that the required miles would be accumulated by summer 2000 and that 12 and 1/2-inches was the maximum size mirror that could be carried onto the plane. Thus, I determined to go to the SPSP in March 2001 and to construct and bring a 12 and 1/2-inch Dobsonian reflector with me.
Making a Travel Scope
Beginning the project in the spring of 1999 provided enough time to learn many telescope-making techniques and to make numerous mistakes and to go down several blind alleys. Two major resources provided the initial ideas of how such a telescope should be constructed: Ray Cash's web site (http://www.raycash.us/telescopeplans/travelscope.htm) describing his airline portable 13-inch Dobsonian and Dave Kriege and Richard Berry's book "The Dobsonian Telescope" which is the most valuable text anyone could have regarding telescope making. Between these two sources and helpful discussions with several club members, including Pete Johnson (who helped me cut the steel tubing for my mirror cell), I ended up finishing the scope in January 2001, with only one dark sky outing to Mickie Gordon in February before packing it up to go to Sydney in March. The final product was a melange of compromises dictated mainly by the fact that all components except the mirror and the aluminum tubing had to collapse down into a single box to check on the plane. Thus, the upper tube assembly fits inside the mirror box and the mirror box fits inside the rocker box and the altitude bearings, removed from the mirror box, fit, butterfly-like, into a little space provided inside the rocker box. Finally, the whole thing closes into a cube with a top that mates exactly with the contours of the rocker box. Although I knew that the plywood (Baltic Birch) used for construction was dense and that there was a fair bit of steel and aluminum in the mirror cell, I was shocked at the 72 pounds that the closed cube weighed. American Airlines had indicated that the single bag weight limit was 70 pounds, but I figured they wouldn't notice (mistake #1). Importantly, during the one night at Mickie Gordon, the scope performed flawlessly and the f/5.2 mirror made by Steve Swazye which I purchased two years earlier appeared to be well-figured and the scope itself provided high contrast (small diagonal, well darkened), sharp images and was well-balanced with smooth but not too (Obsession) smooth bearings. So, on to Australia!
| The nylon shroud that forms the 'tube' was from a 15" Obsession that fit reasonably well and was made much better than I could have done.
Later, a Kydex light/dew cap |
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The Bumpy Road to Oz
The free, frequent-flyer ticket was on American/Qantas originating at Reagan National Airport with a small (mistake #2) American Eagle shuttle to JFK in New York to pick up the Qantas 747 that runs daily to Sydney via Los Angeles. My initial indication that something was going wrong came when I was sitting in the small commuter full of passengers on the tarmac at Reagan looking down at the baggage handler loading bags onto my plane, and seeing my telescope on his truck. He finished loading all the suitcases, grabbed my 72 pound box, looked up the conveyer ramp to his partner in the plane's hold, waved his hands in a 'no' sign and drove off with my telescope on his truck. So, about 24 hours later (on a Monday morning) disembarking from Qantas in Sydney, I was not surprised to hear my name called. When I checked with the agent she explained that my luggage did not make the plane and that I should check with the Qantas baggage people. I did and was assured that it would be on the next morning's flight into Sydney. As I was planning to spend the next three nights (prior to the beginning of the SPSP) at a farm outside of a (very) small town called Mudgee, 250 km northwest of Sydney, the Qantas baggage people assured me that the box would be flown to the Mudgee airport tomorrow and should arrive by 6 pm (Tuesday). To make a long story short, it arrived at 7 am on Friday, the first day of the SPSP.
| The 12-inch packed and
ready to go on the airplane
Aluminium truss poles pack into a separate box with sleeping bag and air mattress |
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At any rate, I drove, in my rented car, from Sydney to a place called Protea Farm near Mudgee on Monday. That was an exciting drive and my oft repeated mantra was "Stay on the left side. Right turns are hard. Left turns are easy". My mantra failed me several times as I found myself looking down the road at oncoming cars. Somehow I managed to escape Sydney without accident and to make it to Protea Farm. This is a bed and breakfast type place in the wine and honey country about 4 hours from Sydney across the beautiful Blue Mountains and into the lush valleys beyond filled with vineyards, cattle, sheep, horses, kangaroos, but very few people. The nearest town, Mudgee (pop 7,000), is 25 km away and behind some hills. I found this spot via the internet (http://www.proteafarm.com.au/) and it is a comfortable 3-bedroom fully self-contained cottage that I rented for $50/night. It was very nice and I highly recommend it. Arriving at Protea Farm in the late afternoon, I took a nap and awoke at 8:30, after darkness had settled in. I went outside and looked up and nearly fell over!
The Skies Were Worth the Trip
The cloudless sky was devastatingly black and the Milky Way coursed directly overhead from horizon to horizon. It was the only light that could be seen anywhere. There were no light domes in any direction and I could see stars through the trees at every horizon. The constellation Auriga was setting in the northwest and its brightest star Capella was already behind the distant hills. But the winter Milky Way running through this constellation was easily visible right down to the hills. There was no air pollution and no humidity which normally cause haze near the horizon. The section of the Milky Way near the Southern Cross (Crux) was extremely bright and contrasted mightily with the dark rift nearby called the coalsack (foreground dust). I immediately noticed two 'clouds' to the right (west) of the Milky Way. The larger one (The Large Magellenic Cloud) was very bright and several degrees across. The Small Magellenic Cloud was lower, smaller, and much dimmer, but still quite easily seen. These Clouds are nearby galaxies in orbit around our own Milky Way. I brought out a chair and sat with a planisphere and my 8x50 right-angle finder (my only telescope at that point), learning the constellations and having a low-power, not so well focused, look at a few show piece objects. I could easily identify, naked-eye, the large and bright globular clusters Omega Centauri and 47 Tucanae. I found them both in my right-angle finder but the quality of the images was not impressive. I tried to locate the large nebula in Carina but there were so many things passing my view in the finder, that I could not be certain what was what so I contented myself with 3 more hours of naked-eye astronomy. To tell you the truth, this time served me well later in the trip as I got a reasonably good handle on all the new constellations and bright stars visible in the southern half of the sky. In the northern sky, Orion was dipping to the horizon, but was upside down. Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, all upside down, crossed the sky low in the north as the night progressed. But I didn't pay much attention to the northern sky except to note that everything was upside down.
Running through the Milky Way overhead, and in the south, however, were Vela, sort of a big, squashed hexagon, Pyxis, three dim stars in a row, Antlia, three very dim stars making an L, Carina, a mutated pentagon with a long leg ending in the bright star Canopus, Crux, the southern cross and very easily identifiable, Musca (the fly), four stars making a small, Corvus-like, squashed rectangle with an extra, fifth, star sticking out (the fly's antenna?), Volans, a bigger version of Musca, and Centaurus, a squashed hexagon with legs wrapping around Crux. Alpha and beta Centauri were very bright and are known as the 'pointers' as they point to Crux (which is on the Australian flag). All these easily identified constellations were novel and overlaid bright regions of the Milky Way which were interrupted frequently with dark, dusty lanes. As the evening grew late, the constellations of Ara, Lupus, and Norma rose, followed by Scorpius. I went to bed that night feeling as if I had just had a great astronomical night.
Although my telescope didn't arrive the next day (Tue) or the next (Wed), or the next (Thu), the clouds did, precluding any further sky watching.
The South Pacific Star Party
On Thursday, I drove 75 km to Wiruna where organizers of the SPSP were beginning to set things up. I immediately met Don Whiteman, president of the ASNSW. Don and a crew of helpers were busily posting signs directing people to various places on the site for camping, parking, setting up scopes, etc. Don is your typically friendly, very helpful Australian who works at the Binocular and Telescope Shop in Sydney. He is apparently a wizard at repairing all sorts of scopes. Don quickly warned me at length about all the poisonous spiders and snakes to beware of. As I was to be camping for the next four nights at Wiruna I assumed that meant keeping my tent closed up at all times, stuffing my sleeping bag into its pouch each morning, and checking my boots prior to inserting my feet. As these warnings were being issued he pointed out a Huntsman spider lumbering its way through the grass nearby. Nearly two inches in diameter and very hairy. I was impressed and followed all his directions.
Don had arranged to set up one of his tents for me to use for the next four nights. I camped in the trees nearby a large (100-yard diameter), open field where most of the observing was done. Several telescopes were already to be found on this field and I unloaded my stuff into my tent and then drove back to the Mudgee airport to pick up my telescope, which I had been told would be on the afternoon flight from Sydney to Mudgee. Needless to say, it wasn't on the plane (due to being 2 pounds overweight) and, following my two-hour long harangue, Qantas agreed to drive it up by 7:00 am the next morning. As it was cloudy and due to stay that way that night, I agreed. The drive back to Wiruna was getting familiar. I checked out several of the very slick scopes set up that evening (pointing at the clouds). The most awesome was a beautiful 12.5" f/6.3 dob that was made from several complementary exotic woods. Additionally, it had custom, hand-casted aluminum bearings with artsy designs cast in. The overall workmanship was art museum quality and it later won the competition for best craftsmanship. I met several interesting and friendly Australian astronomers who included me in their groups and had a great night of drinking fine local wines.
Best Craftsmanship 12.5" f/6.3 Sacrifice of a (model) scope to appease the cloud gods
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Friday morning dawned with the clouds just clearing up and my telescope actually arriving at 7:00 am with no damage. To ship the scope, I had to pretty much completely disassemble it so I spent the morning re-assembling it under the intense Australian sun. As the day progressed, many more astronomers and scopes arrived and the field began to fill up. In the end there were about 150 scopes and about 400 attendees. Walking across the field at noon a fellow read my name on my name tag and asked if I had stayed at Protea Farm this week. I acknowledged that I had and he introduced himself as Anthony McFadyen. Anthony and his fiancée, Sarah, had stayed at Protea Farm the night before and had learned from the caretakers about the poor American whose telescope was in limbo. As the afternoon waned and the bright blue sky began to shade towards midnight blue, the excitement amongst those on the field was noticeable; but clouds began appearing in the north.
At dusk, Terry, an Australian from Melbourne who had not brought a scope to the party, gave me some great pointers as to what to look at first, so Anthony, Sarah, Terry, and I spent the next hour racing through several show piece objects and watching the clouds cover more and more of the sky. Nevertheless, we quickly found and compared the two largest and brightest globular clusters in the sky, 47 Tucanae and Omega Centauri. Of the two, Omega was a bit larger and brighter and somewhat more straggly, like M13, but much more impressive (than M13). At 118x the cluster covered nearly the entire 33 arc-minute diameter of the eyepiece. Stars were resolved nearly to the center, but there were so many and they were so bright that it was easy to believe the estimate that there are nearly one million stars in the cluster. Conversely, 47 Tuc was very symmetrical with uniformly less bright stars that seemed to be more compactly arranged. In voting as to which was the most awe inspiring, all the Australians preferred the latter while I preferred the former. Terry then directed me to the Carina nebula. !!!!!!!!!!!!! Incredible! I hesitate to even voice a comparison to the Orion nebula (M42-43). It was so large that even my widest field eyepiece (32 mm widefield) giving 1.25 degrees of field could not come close to containing it. There was so much detail, so many dust lanes, and bright knots that I could imagine spending a whole night just on this object. A UHC filter increased the contrast, but wasn't really needed. The rapidly impending clouds forced us onward to the Large Magellenic Cloud (106!). This object, spanning several degrees had so many small but detailed nebulae, open clusters, and globular clusters in it that you could spend the entire star party just on it. The most spectacular object in the LMC was the tarantula nebula (NGC 2070). Even with no filter it was easy to see where the name comes from. A UHC filter darkened the background and the tarantula stood out with multiple tendrils spreading from its body. "No time for sight seeing", said Terry, so we moved back to the constellation Centaurus and found NGC 5128 (Centaurus A), an odd galaxy in that it is spherical but has a decided dust lane bisecting it. The Australians referred to it as the 'hamburger galaxy' and it actually looked much like an edge-on Big Mac. It was big (10') with two bright lobes bisected by the dark dust in the foreground which is thought to be due to the residual debris left following the ingestion of a smaller, probably spiral, galaxy by Centaurus A some millions of years ago. Terry said, "Go quickly to NGC4945 in the south of Centaurus!" A minute later we were looking at a beautiful, large (15x2'), bright (mag 9.5) edge-on spiral galaxy. Another minute later, the clouds completely obscured the sky. The rest of the evening, till about 2:00 was spent in search of 'sucker holes' which quickly closed before I could identify anything.
Saturday dawned with heavy cloud cover, which got heavier as the day wore on. There were several excellent talks, the best of which was by Dr. Miriam Baltuck, NASA representative in Australia. She spoke of the relatively new push by NASA designed to search for signs of life on other planets and in other solar systems. She indicated that the search for life is really boiling down to the search for liquid water since this seems to be the only common requirement for life. She spoke of future probes to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn designed to bore down through the mantles of ice to what is hoped to be a (relatively) warm salt-water ocean that may harbor life in any of several forms. Saturday night found Anthony, Sarah, Terry and I (and 400 others) enjoying a great spit roast and some excellent local wines. Although we saw no great astronomical sights that night, we had a wonderful time and shared stories of each others culture (I found out what Vegemite is).
This one stayed in the Alpha Quadrant The remainder of the group on Sunday
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Sunday dawned with (you guessed it!) heavy clouds and, following a fun set of model rocket launches culminating in the last one being lost in the Delta Quadrant, a light drizzle began around noon. Many of the participants, including Anthony and Sarah, decided that they had had enough and began packing up to leave. By dusk, the drizzle was intensifying and only about 20 percent of the attendees remained. I went to bed resolved to get up each hour to check the clouds. At 2:00 a.m. I poked my head out for the fifth time and was rewarded with a star-filled sky. Elated, I scrambled out to the field and set up my scope. There were only a half-dozen people out to see the magnificently dark sky so bright with objects to be ferreted out. A fellow named Clive Milne from Western Australia came by to help guide me through the sky (even at 2:00 a.m. you can find a friendly Australian). He was extremely knowledgeable and helped me find several dozen objects. We went back and toured some of the showy objects we had found on Friday night and then moved on to somewhat more esoteric objects. Notably, the 'Eight Burst' planetary nebula (NGC3132) in Antlia was outstanding. It reminded me of a much larger and brighter version of the Eskimo nebula. It was symmetrical with what appeared to be petals surrounding a bright center. A UHC filter increased contrast, but wasn't necessary to see lots of detail. The Jewel Box Cluster (NGC4755) in Crux deserved its name. Dozens of bright and colorful stars in this open cluster were set on the dark background of the Coal Sack. NGC3532, in Carina, was another knockout open cluster. More than 100 stars packed together on a dark backdrop. Besides the whopper globular clusters noted above, there were several other large and bright globulars in the sky. Largest and brightest were NGC3201, 6397, and 6752 and each seemed as if they could give M13 a run for its money. As the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn, we moved to double and colored stars. Just below, and in the same field, as Beta Crux was a 9th magnitude, blood-red carbon star (very nice!). Alpha Crux was a beautiful, nearly matched at 2nd magnitude, pair of white stars separated by about 5". Alpha Centauri, a star system that is closest to earth, was also a beautiful double. The two bright stars set apart about 20" looked like approaching headlights. A gibbous Mercury was up in the east as the horizon began to develop a yellowish glow. With a very satisfied feeling, I sat and watched the entire eastern sky lighten while listening to the exotic and jungle-like sounds made by the kookaburra birds in this strange land of Oz. All thoughts of lost telescopes and heavy clouds were gone.
| The 12-inch in my backyard but without the nylon shroud that forms the 'tube' but with the Kydex dew/light cap on top which very effectively blocks stray light (and keeps dew off the secondary mirror).
In practice, both the Kydex |
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After some breakfast with die-hard Terry, I had a long farewell talk with Don Whiteman. He regaled me with stories of his astronomic travels including the time he went to the Riverside Telescope Makers Convention in Big Bear California and it snowed the whole time. (I guess he was trying to make me feel better about the clouds at the SPSP).
One Last Night
As I had booked one last night at Protea Farm following the star party, I headed back through Mudgee again and reacquainted myself with the caretakers, Elaine and Erol. They were pleased to see that I was now in possession of my telescope and, because the sky was so blue and they were so nice, I invited them and Elaine's 15 year-old grandson to come outside that evening to see some celestial sights. As evening approached and the sky darkened, Elaine's grandson and I began touring with views of Jupiter and Saturn (always impressive) which were very low in the northwest. He saw the Orion nebula and compared it to the Carina nebula, looked at galaxies in Leo and Centaurus, the Jewel Box, and the big globulars again. Finishing with a couple of planetary nebulae and the Vela supernova remnant allowed me to tell him about the life cycle of stars. He was an interested and engaged student, but when he had to go in to do his homework, I realized that this, my last night of observing in Australia, was perfect and there would be no clouds from dusk till dawn.
The 'Meat Hook' Galaxy (DSS image) The Carina Nebula (DSS image)
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Now I could really spend time on the LMC and the Carina nebula and try to find some dim fuzzies. Even though I had a detailed map of the LMC I found it more enjoyable just to cruise around in the cloud and pick out as many nebulae, open clusters, and globulars as I could. I didn't try to count or catalog any of them, but rather just to delight in the richness of the view. I did the same in the Carina nebula for a half hour and then decided to get serious. I had been told to look up the 'Meat Hook Galaxy' (NGC2442) in Volans. It was fairly bright and 'S' shaped and is likely to be a pair of interacting galaxies. Next, I was off to the Toby Jug, a planetary nebula that required 235x to resolve its lopsided shape. Nearby in Carina was a big (60'), beautiful open cluster (NGC2516) that seemed to have several hundred stars giving it a decidedly grainy look. Additionally, there were several orange and red stars sprinkled throughout. In Pyxis, the small open cluster, NGC2818, had embedded a dim planetary nebula and, with averted imagination, annularity could be seen in the planetary. This object is a mini-M46. I had read that the Vela supernova remnant and Gum 12 were difficult objects in a 12" scope, so I didn't expect much when I looked for them. However, with an OIII filter this object was easy and enjoyable. There were faint tendrils of nebulosity spread out over several degrees of sky; not nearly so bright as the Veil nebula in Cygnus, but very intricate. There were some great, but dim, galaxy clusters such as NGC3311 etc (Hydra I) in Hydra and NGC3271 etc in Antlia. Both had multiple (4+) dim fuzzies in a single field. Because it was so high in the (very dark) sky, the Ring Tail Galaxy (NGC4038/9) in Corvus, was exactly like the pictures you see; the two interacting galaxies looked like a curled-up shrimp (or, as I learned ,'prawn' in Australianese). And so the night went on. New galaxies, planetary nebulae, clusters and nebulosities seemingly without end finally gave way to sleepiness about 3:30. But, what a night!
Abel I Cluster (DSS image) Vela Supernova Remnant (David Malin AAO)
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In the morning I had to disassemble the scope and pack everything up. Taking out two metal crossbars from the mirror cell and putting them in the box for the aluminum poles lightened the final scope box to 68 pounds. Of course, all of my luggage came home without a hitch and I should have made that change on the trip out. I said goodbye to Elaine and Erol and drove back to Sydney; by now feeling fairly comfortable driving on the left side of the road. That evening was spent at a hotel near the airport and I boarded the long flight home the next morning. In reviewing the events of the previous eight days I realized that there were good times and bad but, on average, the good was very, very good while the bad didn't seem so bad anymore. I think having the end of the trip be so spectacular more than erased all the frustrations over baggage and clouds in the early part of the trip. It also reminded me that the reason I went for eight nights instead of only the four nights of the SPSP was not only to get EXTRA viewing in, but also to ensure that I got SOME viewing in. It worked.
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