by Jay Reynolds Freeman
I picked up my rental car, found the hotel, and checked in. I unpacked the 10-inch Dobson and assembled it, all quickly and uneventfully. I rested a bit, then loaded the car, found the lower end of the Saddle Road, and started the long climb to the observing site.
I arrived at the Onizuka Visitor Center to find that I had brought the curse of the new telescope with me: Broken cloud crossed the sky, and not the whole sky, either, just the far southern part, that I had not already seen from California. It wasn't actually that bad, and it was a very long way home, so I set up anyway. The sky darkened as I fussed with collimation. All done, I rose, stretched, and turned around -- and there was the Southern Cross, clearly visible through gaps in the clouds, straight up and down over Mauna Loa, beyond the far horizon. I should have brought Crosby, Stills, and Nash for background music. To its right, a vast glow marked the eta Carina nebula. I took a few steps to the side, so I could look to the east, past the windbreak of the Visitor Center building, and there were alpha and beta Centauri, shining brilliantly and unmistakably. Yeehah!! Here I am! I made it!
The clouds did not not render observing impossible, but trying to find objects through sucker holes with an undriven telescope is sometimes slow, so I didn't get a whole lot done that evening. Notwithstanding, just that one night would have been astronomically memorable, for good views of several of the showpiece objects of the southern Milky Way, as well as of the Milky Way itself.
The Visitor Center's Meade 16-inch LX200 was working well -- it did not do so always -- and I had a nice view of the eta Carina complex though it at about 160x. This vast nebular region, made disturbed and fluorescent by the incredible powerhouse of a star that provides its name, is richly detailed and fascinating, with numerous dark streamers and variations in brightness everywhere. It is larger and brighter than the Orion Nebula. I wish I had had enough artistic skill to make a drawing. I kept coming back to it again and again, during my visit.
The 16-inch was also directed to NGC 6543 at one point. I took a look at this northerly object, again at 160x. It showed an elongated blue ring, with a central star and hints of more detail. It would have been interesting to increase magnification, but there was a line of visitors, and the optics of the big LX200 were said to be faulty.
The Center's Celestron 14 had omega Centauri in a 71x field. This enormous globular -- or is it the nucleus of a galaxy long since devoured by the Milky Way? -- is visible from central California sites with good southern horizons. Even from there it is a naked-eye object and the best globular in the sky, so viewing it was not so much seeing something new as discovering how much better it was when high in the sky. It was in fact noticeably better than I had previously seen it, but not vastly so -- a tribute to the fact that our coastal California sites sometimes have very clear air when the flow is off the Pacific and conditions are warm enough to deter condensation. Notwithstanding, you who are too far north to see this mammoth cluster are missing something. Omega Centauri makes M13 in Hercules look puny and pitiable.
In my own 10-inch, I viewed and resolved the wide double stars alpha Centauri and alpha Crucis, and spent a while staring at NGC 4755, better known as kappa Crucis or the Jewel Box. This open cluster is neither as large nor as bright as the Pleiades or the Beehive -- it is about as bright as either member of the Double Cluster -- but it is remarkable for several reasons. First, it is very sharply defined, seeming much more to have "edges" than do many of its kin; that is, the density of stars visible in an amateur-sized telescope falls rapidly at the boundaries of the cluster, rather than slowly. Second, it is densely packed with relatively bright stars. Third, many of its stars show colors. These qualities make the Jewel Box very dramatic -- its visual impact is similar to that of a bright, colorful binary, such as Albireo or Izar, but with dozens or scores of noteworthy stars, instead of just a few.
Increasing clouds made the southern sky more and more difficult to view -- sucker holes are hard to use when you are looking through them obliquely. So after an hour or two of chasing less magnificent objects, that lay higher in the sky, I called it a night with only nineteen things viewed. At least I had a chance to get caught up on my rest for the remainder of the week to come.
On the bright side for the evening, the 10-inch worked well. I had hoped it might, as it had had several night's shakedown on the mainland, but there is always the nagging worry about missed problems with a new telescope. Furthermore, notwithstanding the recent low passage, temperatures and wind chill were bearable. They were nicer than, say, the Bumpas Hell parking lot at Lassen National Park in mid summer, which is almost as high but much farther north. And the people, Visitor Center Staff and local amateurs alike, were all friendly and helpful. I shall keep my internet habit, of not naming folks with thousands of dollars worth of telescopes in their living rooms and garages, but mahalo and aloha to you all -- and you know who you are.
On the next day I slept late, explored Hilo a bit, then rendezvoused with some amateur astronomers I had met over the internet for a meal. In late afternoon, as we started up the Saddle Road once again, rain began to fall with increasing ferocity.