[AZ-Observing] Australia Trip Recap
- From: Tom Polakis <polakis@xxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 19:53:17 -0700
This is about observing with some comparisons to Arizona observing. It
goes on for nearly 2000 words. Sorry about the length.
Tom
-------
Just getting reoriented after a two-week visit to Australia. I went with
three good friends from Arizona: Frank Kraljic, an observer for over a
decade who is only 23 years old, Diane Hope, very active in the hobby in
Arizona for about three years, and Bernie Sanden, who has been observing in
Arizona for nearly twenty years. For several reasons, I took not one note
on a deep-sky object in Australia, and the decision I made while I was
there was a good one. The three others took copious notes, however.
Had this been an astronomy-only visit, the preferred mode would have been
to plant it for two weeks at one site, and get in a lot of daytime sleep.
We would have also wanted each person to have his or her own instrument,
operating independently. Since this was my fifth Southern Hemisphere
holiday, I was content to do things the way we did. This was far and away
my most enjoyable Australia trip.
The trip went like this. The first three nights were spent settling in
near Sydney at a nearby beach town named Manly. We ventured five hours
across the Great Dividing Range for one night in Tamworth and a visit to
Gordon Garradd. From there we moved three hours west for three nights of
observing at Siding Spring Observatory, staying with Rob McNaught. The big
trip of nearly ten hours westward the next day took us into "the accessible
Outback" and the opal mining town of White Cliffs where we spent two
nights. From there we took a record number of dirt road kms for me to
Broken Hill via Mootwinjee National Park. After a night in Broken Hill, we
came back to Cobar, on the edge of the Outback. The next two nights were
spent four hours from Sydney at the New South Wales Society's popular site
near Ilford. Then it was back to Sydney.
Weather was fine throughout, exceeding my expectations. While I'm used to
three or four weather events occurring at a given time across the U.S.,
there were typically only broad troughs spaced almost a continent apart and
perhaps an isolated typhoon north of Darwin. Out of ten nights away from
Sydney, only three were cloudy, and the rest photometric. Not partial, but
photometric! Seeing was variable, but rarely better than 2". The two
nights that exhibited the best seeing were happily spent at Siding Spring,
a site not at all known for its stable air. Despite a lot of hyperbole to
the contrary, the transparency was about what one would expect at a given
elevation above sea level. It was easy to make a naked-eye assessment
based on the visibility of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which made lower
culmination 10 degrees above the horizon around midnight. Most of Outback
NSW is below 1000 feet, and indeed, the extinction of starlight was just
like desert Arizona -- no better.
I was not enamored with the humidity, which only begins to drop off to my
satisfaction a good 500 km in from the coast. Even the night at Cobar in a
widely spaced forest of gum trees saw some moderate dew. We were told that
the Ilford site was experiencing _lower_ than normal dew when in fact our
charts had become napkins by dawn. Not surprising, as from my arid
perspective, the place is practically a rainforest. Only the nights at
White Cliffs and Broken Hill, some 1000 km inland, were free of dew. A
look at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's excellent Web page
(http://www.bom.gov.au) told me up front that this is what to expect most
of the year. We noted that the transparency suffered in the a.m. hours
during the dew-ups.
I've been Down Under now in the months of March, April, June, and November.
April has to be the best for all-around view. In March, one is just
deprived of the center of the Milky Way overhead as dawn breaks. June is
great for this region, but Canis Major, Puppis, and Vela are gone. And
while November offered the best possible view of the Clouds, forget about
the center of the galaxy. An April evening begins with the feet of Canis
Major still well up and ends with Sagittarius overhead. The LMC begins
higher than the Pole, but the SMC is as unfavorable as it can be, despite
having a declination of -72 degrees.
I've noticed on other trips as well that it is difficult to get a sober
description of Australian astronomy from Australians. This includes the
climate, which is certainly not as good as Arizona, much less Chile,
anywhere on the continent. Just check the BOM Web page if you don't
believe me. It also includes ranting about the southern sky. It makes
sense that a Northerner would want to sacrifice a half day on a plane to
see the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way from Vela through Ara. This is
certainly the favored hemisphere. Even so, I'm fond of such territory as
Ursa Major, Cygnus, and Cassiopiea, and many Australian amateurs seem to
have no interest whatsoever in hearing about them. Aussies rightly
consider "their" sky to be neglected by Sky & Telescope, but their market
can't be even one percent. To their credit and my surprise, Astronomy has
been running my observing articles on strictly southern constellations.
Back to our particular trip, we were treated to using good telescopes with
no real effort on our part. While in Sydney we borrowed an 8-inch f/7
thanks to Tony Buckley, who as Steve Mencinsky puts it, "collects American
amateur astronomers" as his hobby. This became our carry-on for observing
at Outback sites.
Our first night was spent on Gordon Garradd's property near Tamworth.
There we got an introduction or re-familiarization with the southern sky,
and viewed a few southern gems through Gordon's 17-inch, which rarely holds
an eyepiece these days. The views included Comet Hale-Bopp, which is now
residing very near the LMC. Bernie Sanden was present with Tom Bopp on
discovery night, while Gordon saw it one day later. Therefore on that
night, Bernie became the holder of the record for longest period of visual
observation of a comet. Of course Gordon can now reclaim that record at
his leisure.
The next three nights were spent at Siding Spring Observatory. Imagine
being in the Country Music Capital of Australia (Tamworth) and the
Astronomy Capital of Australia (Coonabarabran) the same day! One typically
doesn't associate Slim Dusty with David Malin. At SSO we were treated to
using a 24-inch f/18 Ritchey visually, and had it to ourselves. Yes,
that's 11 meters of focal length. Our really wide eyepiece, a 32mm Plossl,
gave 340x and a 9' field. This narrows down the selection, practically
eliminating diffuse nebulae and most star clusters, open or globular. Even
small galaxies were only okay, so planetaries became the choice objects.
There are more than enough to choose from. Objects as small as 9" across
were richly detailed at 540x. A couple highlights were an exceptional view
of Shapley 1 and a fully resolved oval globular cluster in the LMC. I will
present some object descriptions in a separate posting. While we used the
24-inch, the 8-inch outside the dome gave good views of large objects such
as clusters NGC 6067 and NGC 2477. Two of us packed halves of my Osypowski
equatorial Poncet platform, which features a north-south tracking switch.
We are forever indebted to Rob McNaught at SSO for securing the 24-inch for
our use, and supporting it throghout the night as we made a half dozen
mistakes with it throughout the two clear nights.
We rolled into White Cliffs at dusk. This is a former opal mining town
with a complete underground infrastructure. All of the several hundred
inhabitants live underground, and staying in dugouts in the excellent
Underground Motel was a high point. After playing public star party on
their roof (the ground above), we ventured out a few miles to the true-dark
desert with the 8-inch. One disadvantage of Australian astronomy is the
very real hazard of hitting a kangaroo during night driving. Coming back
from this site, there were dozens of them along the shoulders, all lacking
the sense to jump in the correct direction when the headlights approach.
The second night was cloudy, which left us fresh to hike in a National Park
that was called "spectacular" by many Aussies. Having skied in the Rockies
and hiked the Grand Canyon, we had all become a bit jaded about what
constitutes spectacular scenery. Now seeing flocks of sulphur crested
cockatoos, galahs, and crimson rosellas along the road, that's spectacular!
On to Broken Hill, a largish mining town billed an oasis in the desert. I
think that means it has McDonald's and Hungry Jack. Broken Hill marks the
beginning of the Red Centre, and I was happy to see it at last. We had a
brief night of observing in arid conditions, but it was terminated by the
prospect of a long drive back to the east the next day.
Cobar was the sleepiest of sleepy towns. This meant that a drive of about
five minutes puts you in a true-dark site. Again we used the 8-inch to
advantage for a long night, but we were all looking forward to more
aperture by this time.
We arrived late at the NSW site near Ilford, and the first night of two was
overcast. On the clear night that followed we used a club 17-inch monster
weighing fully 700 pounds. It provided the bright wide-field views that we
had been missing the previous 9 nights. It proved to be an all-nighter,
and we collapsed after closing with 47 Tucanae, which was almost level with
the Pole at dawn. NSW society member Steve Mencinski was a great help
providing use of this scope and accommodations at the site. I will say
that the four-hour drive back to Sydney was about the worst imaginable,
putting endless small-town stops, tourists in the Blue Mountains, and
non-motorway highways into a single package. I'm happy to use the United
States' advanced freeway system in quickly getting away from the city.
Apparently, the NSW amateurs use another site an hour north of town, though
this strikes me as the wrong direction to travel.
On the final night back in Sydney, Diane wrote into her diary our
"champagne moments" in which some view would stick forever. For all of us,
spending nights among the domes at SSO was tops. At one point in the late
morning, the four of us laid in the road outside the 24-inch dome and
viewed the giant bulge of the galaxy overhead. I had a couple other
moments involving twilight views. Up at 5 a.m. on the first night in
Sydney, Venus rose in a dark sky over the South Pacific. The ecliptic was
almost vertical, and Venus was up 5 degrees when the first exceptionally
beautiful touch of ocean twilight appeared. I know the photos aren't going
to do this scene justice. Then on the final night near Ilford, the waxing
crescent moon teamed with Aldeberan and Jupiter in a classic scene. By
April 26, Saturn was almost gone, yet it is still quite high back here in
Arizona.
Sorry I carried on so long, but you were warned. I hardly mentioned the
daytime experience, which was equally rich.
---
Tom Polakis
Tempe, AZ
Arizona Sky Pages
http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/
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