The Geminids and The Astronomical Society of Victoria

So yeah, hmmm.... it's been a while since I posted.  Looks like it's been almost a month since my last post, and that was just a quick note about moving to Australia for a while.  If you discount that, it's been almost two months.  It's been a busy time, but I'm finally feeling settled into the new city and the job duties are smoothing out, so I'm hoping to write a bit more.

I've certainly not stopped dreaming about astronomy, or my future telescope, but dreaming is about all I've really been able to do.  I'm under a whole new section of sky, with so many and varied wonders to be seen, and I've not been able to take advantage of it... yet.  A few things have been lacking so far, Time, Equipment, and Knowledge.


Time and the Geminids

I think the time issue will  only get better from this point, at least for a while.  The new studio I'm here to setup is really coming together; I'm now usually free on the weekends and I'm not working very late in the evenings.  In fact, last Tuesday, the sky was very clear, the moon was gone, and I took my new Southern Skies edition of the Night Sky out on a walk.

I did not get anywhere very dark, mostly just around my hotel, ducking into shadows to avoid street lights.  There is a park nearby I've got my eyes on, it's walking distance, and is large enough to at least offer some relief from local light sources... maybe next time.  On my short excursion I was at least able to look at the sky and try to orient myself.  Even fairly close to the center of Melbourne, there are still significantly more stars visibile than in Los Angeles.  I'm going to chalk it up to less particulate in the air, and about half the population density.

There are some familiar sights here, I spotted Orion almost immediately, but it took me a minute or two to realize what should have been obvious.  He's upside down.  At least from the way I'm used to seeing him.  The constellation was low on the North/East hoizon, and his sword was hanging 'upwards' towards the zenith pointing the way to a whole area of sky completely unfamiliar to me.  It was strange to think that the rest of the sky I'm familiar with is down below the horizon in the direction of his, now upside down, head.  

My attempts at finding constellations were not all that successful, this first time out.  I'm hoping to spend some more time studying the sky next week if the weather cooperates.  Even though it was a short observing session, from a terrible location, I was rewarded with one gem.  A very bright, and fairly long lived, Geminid!

At least it seemed like a Geminid.  It was several days before the peak of the shower, but it seemed to be going the right direction, in the correct area of sky, so I'm pretty confident.  It was surprising to me considering I was a few days early, it was pretty early in the evening, and I was under light polluted skies.  Under a dark sky, I imagine it would have been awesome.


Equipment

I have several potential solutions to this one.  First, as I came to realize by taking the time to actually go outside and look up, eyes are pretty good on their own.  There is a lot for me to observe with the standard issue equipment.  There are whole new constellations and wide starscapes to learn and appreciate

Second, I found an optics shop that has what looks to be a decent pair of binos at a resonable price.  I've not found many reviews, but the few I have found are positive.  New binoculars have been on my list for a while, and I'd love to get under a dark sky here and try them out!

Third, when I return to Los Angeles for the holidays in about a week, I'm going to come back with my C6 travel kit.  At 6" (152mm) in diameter the scope is smaller than my workhorse XT8, and much smaller than the 16" (406mm) I'm working on building.  I'll also have to travel light, with the collapsable photo tripod and a limited set of eyepieces and accessories, but it will still be a heck of a lot more kit than I observed with for years.  I expect great things from that little scope!


Knowledge - Enter the ASV

To tackle the last item I'm going to join the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV), which is the local astro club here in Melbourne.  The way things stand right now I'll be here for 4 months or so after the new year.  That's maybe 8 weekends of good dark sky observing when the moon won't be an issue.  Weather might cut into that number even more, so it's important I know where to go to observe, and what the "Can't Miss" objects are.  I need to meet people who know the geography and the sky.  Also, maybe they can give me a ride... driving on the left is a little intimidating.

Joining an astronomy club has been on my todo list for a long time.  In Los Angeles, my work schedule and lack of automobile always seemed to interfere with getting to any of the local club meetings to check them out.  By a wonderfully strange set of coincidences, here in Melbourne, I'm staying a block or two away from the regular meeting place of the ASV, and my work runs from 8-6, rather than 9-7.

I missed the meeting in November due to work and ignorance of the location, but I was able to attend the December meeting last Wednesday.  Right before the meeting was scheduled to start I found the room in the National Herbarium and rushed in.  There were something like 50 people in attendance and the meeting started promptly at 8:00pm.

The president of the club started with some announcements about committee memberships, meeting schedule changes and information about the yearly Star-Be-Cue they hold at their dark sky site during the new moon in December.  He then went on to describe the building of a wooden hybrid tripid/dobsonian mount he built for his 6" refractor.  It was a very interesting presentation and hearing about it made me yearn for the chance to get started on my 16" scope.

Being the last meeting of the year, the majority of the time was dedicated to slideshows and videos from the last year's events.  I could not have picked a better time for my first visit!  It was a fun and fascinating to hear about the events the ASV has sponsored including monthly star parties, a viewing of the transit of Venus, and the total solar eclipse visible from the northern tip of Australia.

A few of the recaps included wide field, time lapse photography of the sky from their dark sky site.  It's only about 1.5 hours from the city, but judging from the video, it's got much better skies than my normal dark sky site 3 hours from Los Angeles.  Even though Melbourne is not all that far south, at 37 degrees latitude, they had a strong Aurora during one of the most recent star parties.  Sadly, this is very uncommon, so I'm not likely to see anything like it while I'm here.  Still, it was beautiful, even on the time lapse.

When the meeting was breaking up I had a chance to introduce myself to the club president and speak to him for a few minutes.  He, like everyone I met, was very friendly and enthusiastic about both their club and the night sky.  Before attending the meeting I was somewhat apprehensive, but it was a wonderful experience to be around so many people with a common interest.  I look forward to attending again in January.

When I get back into Melbourne after my holiday trip home, joining the ASV is first on my todo list.  For a $70AU membership fee, I'll have access to their dark sky site and, more importantly, a group of very knowledgable people to help me make the best of my observing time here in Melbourne.  I'll probably end up renting a car for the trips, but it will be nice knowing that I have a dark and friendly place to head to.

Attending the meeting also showed me what I am probably missing by not making the effort to make it to one of the local Los Angeles clubs.  When I get back I'm definitely going to find some way to make it work for me.  If you have not at least explored one of your local astronomy clubs, I really suggest you do.  You might enjoy it as much as I did.

My next post will definitely return to my telescope build, I've got some exciting new via email to share!