by Steve Gottlieb
We ended up with 3 and a half clear nights out of 4 (dark from 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM) starting the evenings off with the Large Magellanic Cloud riding low on the meridian (10-15 degrees above the horizon) as well as picking off goodies in Dorado, Pictor and Horologium. Later on, the amazingly rich milky way fields in Vela, Carina, Centaurus and Crux came into view, well-placed above the southern horizon as well as the dark lanes and Coal Sack which are unparalled in the northern sky.
Observing was done the entire time, by the way, in T-shirts and shorts as the temperatures were in the 70's and 80's in the evening! During the day we tried to stay in the shade or in the pool and avoid roasting under a brutal sun. The end result was that I took notes and sketches on 200 objects and nearly completed my entire "not to miss list" of 150 far southern objects (below -40 degrees dec) as well as several dozen new objects in the LMC which I wasn't expecting to be so accessible. Even the Tarantula Nebula, nearly the southern side of the LMC was visible, down at nearly -70 degrees dec and looked pretty decent with a UHC filter with steady seeing down close to the horizon. In addition there was time for lots of goodies we can see from northern California (like the Fornax cluster and rich open clusters in Puppis) but which were much better placed when seen 28 degrees higher in the sky than the bay area.
The star party took place at the Ensenada Lodge, a working ranch and wildlife refuge in the province of Puntarenas on the dry western side of Costa Rica (http://www.1costaricalink.com/eng/web/parks/pv-ensenada.htm). A couple of hundred feet from our front porches were howler monkeys hanging from the trees (shrieking at the crack on dawn), iguanas, exotic tropical birds, crocodiles and more. Add to this scene that we were staring at Orion and Canis Major virtually overhead while in standing or sitting in shorts and a T-shirt and you can imagine how surreal the whole experience was.
Coincidentally, the genesis of the trip began on TAC with some discussion in December about observing sites in the southern hemisphere (Australia, Chile, etc). Rob Hawley mentioned about the TravelQuest/Sky & Tel "Costa Rica Southern Skies Fiesta" Tour scheduled for February 16-22, 2004, (http://www.tq-international.com/CostaRica/CRHome.htm) hosted by Sky & Tel editor Gary Seronik. The dates were perfect as they coincided with my mid-winter school break, but I didn't know what to expect as far as weather prospects or darkness of the site. This was the first tour TravelQuest has attempted to Costa Rica and probably the first which was really dedicated to dark-sky observing as opposed to a secondary attraction. In addition, the location was 15 degrees further south than the mostly southerly continental US site in the Florida Keys -- so I was assuming that Eta Carina, the Jewel Box, LMC and other southerly treasures would be high enough to be stunning.
Gary Seronik had edited several of my Sky & Tel deep-sky articles and I knew he was an experienced deep sky observer and had traveled around to the major star parties in the US, so I immediately e-mailed him about the location. He mentioned he had flown down to Costa Rica the previous February and scouted out the locale and assured me the site was comparable to Mt. Kobou in British Columbia or the darker US sites (he brought along a device to measure sky brightness). Also the tour was booking the entire Hacienda and there would be no light from other guests (the ranch spreads out over a 1000 acres so there are no nearby neighbors).
So, in January I signed up, along with my wife, for one of the last remaining spots with the group (there were two dozen slots total and it did sell out) and found a low-cost airfare to San Jose, Costa Rica from San Francisco. When I received the list of participants, I realized that Rob and I were the only Northern California residents, the others being scattered across the US and Canada.
The week or two before leaving, I made up my observing list, starting with the big list I had brought to Australia two years back in June/July -- deleting objects that were too far south (below -70 degrees) and summer objects in Norma and Ara that would not be very well-placed until nearly dawn and then added in new southern winter objects in the unexplored constellations of Dorado, Horologium, Pictor and others.
When we arrived at the Hacienda last Tuesday (2/17) we were able to set up our scopes literally on the lawns immediately outside the front porches of our rooms, looking due south over the Gulf (perhaps 50 yards away) to the Nicoya peninsula beyond and the Pacific Ocean. Once set up, the scopes could just be left there without packing up although I generally just moved the 13-inch into the shade during the daytime. Three Costa Rican-style meals per day were included in the package and served buffet-style in an large, open air. An inviting swimming pool was nearby. Just down the peninsula was a river lined with Mangrove trees, tropical birds and wildlife (we missed running into a Croc) which we would explore later by boat.
Turns out the 13-inch was the largest scope there, the others being 8-inch (Rob and Gary) and smaller, but there was a fair amount of equipment and it required a separate vehicle to transfer down to the Hacienda after our first night in San Jose. To be continued along with observing highlights, but needless to say, I relieved my photon deprivation from the past few months during the next four nights!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Mon Feb 23 18:30:06 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Mon Feb 23 21:26:43 2004 PT