by Peter Lumeria
I just came back from a two and a half week vacation to Peru. Since it is in the southern hemisphere and I had never been there, it was an easy decision to pack my Orion ST-80 along with Bogen lightweight tripod, Quickfinder and a few eyepieces. I also packed a few editions of Sky and Telescope (for its sky map) and Turn Left at Orion (which has a section on the southern sky). The total weight about 9lbs (this was rather important to me as you'll see later)
I really wanted to check out some of those famous objects I had just read about such as the brightest global cluster in our whole night sky Omega Centuri (NGC5139) - twice the angular magnitude and two magnitudes brighter than M13! I also was hoping too look into the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds as well as the super bright globular NGC 107. The Large Cloud is (according to my book) a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way - about 140,000 light years away with only (!) about 10 billion stars.
The first week in Peru we took a bus and wooden boat on a 3 day journey up a small tributary of the Amazon into the Manu National Park. The scope was wonderful for seeing wildlife at the side of the river including a large male jaguar which I magnified to x32 to get really close up and personal. The views of the river otters, parrots, macaws and much other wildlife were wonderful. At night, the seeing was fair, but the air was very moist and the moon was up. However the globulars were easy to see and the Southern Cross was unmistakable. I also spend several hours trying to get used to the new constellations and seeing familiar ones like I had never seen them before - such as Orion on his side!
While I mostly used the telescope in the rain forest for wildlife viewing, the next journey I made was one in which it revealed a spectacular night sky in wonderful details. I decided to backpack the gear on the Inca Trail - a 30 mile, 3 day hike which goes over many passes (highest is at 13,700ft) to the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. My friends thought I was a bit nuts, especially as I had all my other stuff to carry (decided to not use a porter). I had some doubts too - but mostly about the moon. However I wanted to at least give it a try.
The first night I brought out the scope and set it up, a long line started forming among the local porters - they had never see "la luna" close up. They seemed fascinated and each one stayed a long time at the eyepieces, marvelling in the local Quechua language (the one spoken before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s). After them, lots more tour groups wandered over for a look... I was too tired to stay up until the moon had set - that would wait until the next night.
The next night we were camping at 12,500ft after climbing over the 13,700ft Dead Woman's Pass! It was a beautiful moonlit night, with a great panorama - perfect for everything but non-lunar astronomy. I woke up at midnight - moon, 2am - moon, 3.30am - no moon... I was in business! It was very cold out but I had wrapped up warm - to be honest I was so excited that I didn't really notice the cold until the dawn arrived several hours later. The two Magellanic Clouds were so easy to spot with the naked eye, they really looked like clouds. Within each one were a host of interesting features (nebulae, clusters etc.), many of which I could make out with my small 80mm refractor. It was too bad that there had been a bright moon, since the sky could have been somewhat darker. The two main globulars I had wanted to see were both spectacular.
The final night our campsite faced towards the familiar (but now sideways) constellations of Orion. Most of the southern hemisphere constellations in the direction of Scorpius were hidden by the mountains and trees. However it was still fun to look at the Orion Nebula from this strange angle - it seemed to glow brighter than I had seen it here, perhaps due to the altitude.
Anyway - sorry if this is a bit off topic for Bay Area observers, but I'd just like to encourage everyone to try and pack a small scope when they travel. You will be richly rewarded as will your travelling companions :-)
(usually you'll see me with my XT-8 on a wooden table)