Island of Moorea in French Polynesia

by David Kingsley

Lots of off and on clouds here, but daytime clouds seem to clear by 8 or 9 pm. Had a great couple hours with binoculars from a reclining beach chair Thursday night. Feet aimed right at the LMC, waves lapping on the shore, and lights from a neighbor shielded by a large coconut tree. I knew I would be tired on travel day, so just spent Thursday evening relearning Southern constellations and admiring the Arc of the Milky Way stretching all the way from Canis major to Scorpius.

On Friday I set up on a dock over the coral lagoon on southern Moorea. Had five great hours from 9pm to 2:15 am, hitting highlights, and reliving the greatest telescope sweep ever recorded by John Herschel. On Feb 5, 1834, John wrote in his journal: "Made a long nights sweep, and the night being most superb - the mirror brilliant and the zone swept... the richest perhaps in the heavans-- attained the sublime of astronomy, a sort of ne plus ultra in my astornomical life."

I've had fun diggiing up the original observing notes from that epic sweep. Herschel's epipheny night was spent observing within a few degrees of 60 south. That slice cuts through an amazing numer of some of the greatest objects that can be seen in the heavans, including Eta Carinae itself. Herschel was the first (and still one of the only) people to ever systematically sweep the entire Northern and Southern Hemisphere with a large telescope. When the discoverer of a large fraction of the NCG says he just had the greatest night of his astronomical career, it's worth a revisit!

--David Kingsley