Last week (presumably while you folks were at Lassen or with the Wild Bunch in Hollister) I was on Kauai. I did a little observing and it was quite amazing. The first night or two rain and high winds prevailed in the evening. However the latter portion of the week (tuesday through saturday) were very clear and mostly cloud free. A note about the weather: it is not exactly cloud and rain free like the bay area. However, if its raining, just wait a few minutes and it will clear up.

We were staying on the south side of the island, at a resort called Kiahuna Plantation on Poipu Beach. Our unit faced southeast with a clear view of scorpius and sagitarrius. Quite visible was the milky way around scorpius, and also to the north. I had the ETX with me, and setting up on the balcony was doable. >From here I showed my wife's father most of the popular objects in the sky: The ring nebula, M13, M22, and some others. Later in the week, we were all sitting out on the balcony and Jupiter came up... so out came the scope, and we looked at that for a bit. The seeing was really pretty good from here.

One night, my wife, daughter, and I took a walk through the resort around 9:30pm. The resort has a fair amount of grassy areas scattered in between the two story condiminiums. (The grass is like a carpet: cut like a golfcourse green.) It turns out that there are alot of coconut trees in the complex, and they almost all have lights on them, spotlights, pointing up. However, this didn't affect viewing too much. That night we walked down to the beach. Omega Centauri was visible with the naked eye. With 7x50 binoculars it was really clear. As was the milky way.

On another night I attempted to take the scope down to the grassy area, but it started to drizzle as I headed out. So instead I got in the car and went for a drive down the coast. To the east I was faced with a downpour. So I went west, where there was no rain. I passed some other resorts and the Hyatt Hotel. Eventually the road turned to dirt, so I turned around. This turned out to be a very dark spot. However, there wasn't much of a place to set up, and an occassional car would come by. Plus.. it was a little spooky. Anyhow, I put the top down (had a convertible) and took in the sky for a half hour or so.

On saturday evening I went to a public star party put on by the Kauai Educational Association for the Study of Astronomy (KEASA). Boy, do they have an excellent site. I'm not sure how KEASA got formed, but it is essentially a club. One of the members is a physics and astronomy teacher at the Kauai Communitity College. He got a state grant to set up an observatory for the school, public observing, and such. Club fees are $25/yr and include (as far as I know) full use of the observatory.

The Observatory is located on the southwest corner of the island within some sort of military installation called Pacific Missle Range Facilty. (No, I don't know what this means, and didn't ask.) Anyhow, security at the observatory is *not* a problem. For you Hams here, WWVH is located just across the road from the observatory area. There's a neat little sign there, but I didn't have the camera with me that night.

This seemed like a fantastic club observatory: They have a (?) 30x60 foot building with a roll off half-roof. Outside the building is a large (?) 30x30 foot concrete pad for setting up scopes. One member installed an additional concrete slab with permanent pier with electrical hookup at the end of the larger pad. From here he does a fair amount of astrophotography using polaroid 3000 film. Other scopes on the pad were a 90mm Meade, a TV Ranger, a 12" homemade dob, a 8" celestron SCT, a couple pair of giant binoculars, and a 12" truss dob which is apparantly Starsplitter #2. These scopes are all owned by club members. The club also has a fair amount of those cheap plastic lawn chairs which is a nice touch for the public observing.

Half of the building is for storing scopes and other gear -- the interior is a "work in progress". The other half of the building has a raised floor with a 14" Celestron SCT, with lots of accessories. That 14" SCT sure was nice. More on that in a minute. The building is also equiped with dimable red lights, and a refigerator.

This was a public star party, hence there were local folks, students, and also a fair amount of folks from the mainland vacationing. A couple of the visitors were astronomers, others were just out to do something. In all I'd say there were about 30 or so visitors. (It turns out that KEASA has a listing in the "Kauai 101 Things To Do" directory. This brings out alot of visitors.) Btw, KEASA also does public star parties at the Hyatt Hotel on Kauai.

On the 14" we took the tour of the bright objects and some others: The Ring, the Dumbell, M81/82, Omega Centauri, etc. Mars was up, and with all the pathfinder news, we took a look at that. We also looked at the Lagoon Nebula, the Veil and the Owl. I believe the highlight for me was seeing the whirlpool galaxy and companion. It was incredibly bright with the 14".

The crowd thined out around 10:30pm or so, and some of the members left shortly after. I held out with a couple of die hard members. We ended the evening with a high power view (564x ?) of Uranus. It was a little fuzzy, no detail of course, but it was a large disk at 500x.

Around midnight a large cloud started coming in from the north. I also felt a little dizzle, so we packed it in.

So.. if you're ever in Kauai around the new moon, you'll have to check these folks out.