Coonabarabran, NSW, 18-21, 2006: Be careful what you wish for!

by Marek Cichanski

You've doubtless heard that old saying: "Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it."

Well, that's exactly the position I'm in right now - and it's the most wonderful irony!

If we were down at the pub and you asked me to spell out a big-time observing fantasy, it would probably involve being at Timor Cottage under the austral winter sky, with day after day of flawless cerulean skies and night after night of searing Milky Way and intricate Magellanic Clouds. "Dude!", I'd say "It'd be awesome! Totally awesome!"

Well, so far at least, I'm living the dream - and paying the price in sleep deprivation! Right now it's Monday morning, and I haven't seen a cloud since about Friday morning sometime, and the weather forecast is clear until sometime on Thursday. So, in other words, if the forecast holds, it looks like I've lucked into a solid week of cloudless skies in Coonabarabran. The observing has been a total blast, but I'm really getting behind on sleep.

I've done multiple all-nighters (or nearly so) in a row now, and I hadn't really done the math before I came down here. Sunset is at 5:30, astro dark is at 7, and astro dawn is at about 5 or 5:30. Say hello to nearly 11 hours of observing. If you stay up until 6am and then try to sleep for 8 hours, that would mean waking up at 2pm! And there'd only be three hours of daylight. How nuts is that?

Last night I took a nap from about 11:30 until 2, and it was wonderful. The LMC shift starts at about 2 am, and it gave me energy for a trip into the northwestern suburbs of the Big 'Ol Cloud.

I had this grand plan that I'd observe all night, type up the OR on my laptop in the morning, and email it at the Community Center in the afternoon. I've had the time and energy to do that precisely once. There just ain't the hours!

Could there be a more wonderful dilemma for an observer? Too bloody much clear sky to do anything other than observe and (try to) sleep. Outrageous, and I'm loving every catatonic, sleep-deprived minute of it.

Well, I should at least try to write an overview of what I've seen so far:

1) Naturally, there are a lot of naked-eye stare sessions at the Milky Way passing overhead. I rank these views up there with any eyepiece view I could ever have. No, make that better than any eyepiece view. You don't just look through some piece of glass at it, it surrounds you. Okay, let me take a minute and type in my notes from the first part of last night, almost verbatim:

"Well, it's 18:30 on another flawless, beautiful evening at good 'ol Timor. What a wonderfully peaceful place this is. I'm sitting at my "desk" (the plastic patio table), facing south, into the great undiscovered country of the south sky. It's deep twilight, and I'm watching the stars come out. It's so wonderful to watch the Pointers and the Southern Cross come out in twilight. There's something about watching those bright points come out against the twilight sky that's just magical.

Okay, that knocks it... this is the best MW-in-twilight view I've ever had. What a magnificent royal road of the stars... Sagittarius way up high, approaching the zenith - Scorpius - Ara, Lupus - Triangulum Australae and the Pointers - Musca, Crux, and the body of Centaurus - the 'Miaplacidus Diamond' and Eta Carinae - the False Cross... horizon.

I will never forget this view. I had to work hard for it, and it was all worth it. To sit here at my little "office" - and who knew how luxurious a simple plastic patio table could be? - and tilt my head back and see this view, is worth everything I did to earn it. This view, these stars, this river of starclouds - I am a rich man"

Suffice it to say that the naked-eye Milky Way is pretty nice down here.

2) In addition to naked-eye MW, each night begins with epic stare sessions at Omega Cen in the binoviewer. Again, I'm just laughing and giggling at how massive and magnificent it is. The binoviewer was so worth it for this. If someone said to me "you're gonna go to Oz, and you're going to do nothing but stare at Omega Cen, the Lagoon, 47 Tuc, and the Tarantula - nothing else!", I'd say "Fine! Done and done. Where do I sign?"

3) Although the SoHem is famous for MW and the Clouds, there are heaps of galaxies to go after. After looking at the Grus Quartet, I logged some gx's SE of the Pavo glob. I also started on the Centaurus Gx Cluster last night, but it was a comeuppance. It's low and dropping fast, and those suckers are tough. If it weren't for Albert's annotated DSS chart, I'd have been totally spanked last night. Not sure how much it's going to be worth it to keep working the Centaurus Cluster. If I'm gonna look at stuff near the horizon, I think I might as well go Eta.

4) Crazy good view of Cen A.

5) All but one of the globulars in the Fornax Dwarf.

6) Spectrum of Gamma Velorum. This is a bright Wolf-Rayet star, and it's got these big, honkin' emission lines in its spectrum. Wild. I saw one W-R spectrum in NGC 6888 from Lick recently, but Gam Vel blows it away. Totally neat.

7) More galaxies in Pavo. This area is well-placed, high up, and p. 194 in U2000 South has scads of stuff to see.

8) SMC: Andrew Murrell of the ASNSW wrote a column about it, and he pointed out a bunch of nebula within the little triangle of 261, 290, 267. I couldn't bag a dozen little nebulae, but the effect of the OIII filter in this area is amazing. In fact, it's amazing in both Clouds, pretty much anywhere.

My logbook contains an entry that sums it all up: "I weep that John Herschel didn't have a nebula filter!"

9) Tried for Proxima Centauri, but didn't have a detailed enough chart.

10) The LMC: I feel like the best use of one's time in the LMC is to 'dissect' it. The key, here, of course, are Albert's DSS charts, which fully rock. Albert, you da man. So far I've only 'dissected' some stuff around the star Theta, such as the 1929 complex, the 1955 complex, and a really neat starcloud around 2004, 2006, 2034. Going back and forth with the OIII filter in the LMC is absolutely revelatory. I would kill for a filter slide!

So, there's been plenty of stuff going down. And still the clear skies roll on... please, Brer Bear, don't throw me in that briar patch!

Lording it up? Nope, not going to tempt fate like that. I am one lucky dude. My observing buddies are totally here is spirit: Kingsley's back here with me, Albert is SO here with me, Turley is here with me, the list goes on...

And, if I remember his schedule right, Dan Wright will actually be here soon! I think he's driving here as I write these words. I hope he has a smooth trip. He'll probably be pretty fried when he gets here, but then again I'm pretty fried, too. I'm SO looking forward to showing him the SoHem sky! That is gonna rock.

Okay, so here I am, saying 'woe is me, endless clear skies in Australia'. You're probably saying 'cry me a river, chump', and I'd be saying the EXACT same thing in your place. You can take one consolation, though...

AOL keyword: FROST.

The skies are wonderfully clear, but it is BITTERLY cold at night. Far and away the coldest observing I've done. (I never did any serious observing when I was growing up in Michigan.) Last few nights it's been down to about -4.5C. On the night of my birthday, my gear had so much frost on it, it looked like it had been friggin' snowed on. But I'm keeping my optics clear, and going after it hammer and tongs. The whole key to staying warm has been all the clothing I brought. In addition to my usual fleece bodysuit, wool socks, wool sweater, insulated coveralls, neckgaiter, fleece skullcap, and gloves, I brought a big poofy down parka and my Sorel boots. And thank God I did! I would be a total popsicle without them, but as it is I'm warm and comfy. And an unexpected benefit of my noise-cancelling headphones is that they keep my ears warm! Very nice. I have music all night and warm ears, too.

Well, I better get my errands done and get back to the cottage. Probably about time to put another log on the fire, keep things warm for another frosty cold night under the southern sky.

To paraphrase Gregory Crouch, no matter how cold it is and how beat up I am, this is just what I came for - big Australian action.

Rock on, y'all,

Marek