How is Astronomy Like Sailing?

There are actually a number of parallels...

• Both can be experienced simply and casually: a relaxing day sail where you wander where the breeze takes you and the laziness of laying out under the stars tracing the constellations and watching meteors flash across the sky.
• Or, as a highly technical and challenging past time or way of life: for sailing, everything from local circuit racing to the Olympics, America's Cup and round-the-world races and, for astronomy, challenges such as comet and NEO hunting, planetary and deep sky imaging using advanced scopes, mounts and cameras and, of course, professional astronomy. At this end of the scale, sailing and astronomy have something else in common: both can be incredibly expensive.
• One thing shared by both astronomy and sailing is the opportunity to get a little closer to nature, to experience a sense of awe at the majesty of the world around us and the universe beyond.

Unfortunately, there's at least one more thing they both have in common: being at the mercy of the weather. Just as you can't sail if there isn't enough (or there is too much) wind, earthbound astronomers can't observe if it's too cloudy. Yes, I know advances in technology have changed that to a degree - I've written here about using Slooh to image/observe on nights when I can't get my own scope out because of the weather - but even remote observing sites are still at the mercy of local weather conditions.

This subject came to mind after our trip last week to Yosemite National Park and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. I had hoped to take advantage of the lack of light pollution to experiment with some star trail photography using my Nikon D40, possibly even getting some starlit shots of some of the icons of Yosemite such as El Capitan or Half Dome.

As it turned out, it just wasn't to be. The first couple of nights we'd had long, long days in valley and because the Park Service had evening programs scheduled for later in the week we turned in early each night. We did try catching a glimpse of the sky from our cabin but looking up through the trees all we could see was Ursa Major, almost straight over head. Unfortunately, over the course of the remainder of the trip there were thunderstorms almost daily. Never a lot of rain - usually about an hour or so a day - but each night it was so cloudy there was nothing to see.

Most amateur astronomers I know are as pragmatic about the weather as most of the sailors I know... being so dependent on the weather, you get used to enjoying clear weather when you have it and finding something else to do when you don't. So, although we didn't come home with any star trail shots, we did come up with a few shots like this one of a beautiful sun pillar (read more about them here). I won't say I wasn't disappointed that we didn't get to spend time under the sky during this trip but it passed quickly. After all, now I have another reason to return...

Seeing the Real Thing

As announced in the latest newsletter from the UT Arlington Astronomy Department, The Starry Messenger, in addition to their state-of-the-art planetarium they will soon have a new observatory. Housing a 16" Meade LX200 (including CCD camera), it is primarily going to serve the students of the department, the school also has plans to host public viewing nights. The observatory is scheduled to be operational in Fall 2009.

Astronomer's Friend

I've recently added a widget for the Dallas Clear Sky Chart to the site. It is a great tool for getting a sense of what the sky conditions will be over the next couple of nights (as well as during the day for folks who enjoy solar viewing). It uses weather forcast models published by the Canadian Meteorological Center to show key factors that can affect viewing. While I configured my widget form conditions in Dallas, they are available for sites all over North America.

As cool as that is, the point of this post is something that takes this to the next level. I just received the following email (and I get email on my phone, so I saw it come in immediately):

Favorable observing conditions at Dallas
Based on your Default subscription.
Opportunities to observe at: (Clouds/Trans/Seeing)
01-08 @ Hour 19 for 4 hours (0%/Transparent/Good)

Check out your clock at http://cleardarksky.com/c/Dallaskey.html
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Consider a sponsorship of the Clear Sky Alarm Clock.
Reach over 3000 astronomers every week with your message.
Inquire at csacadmin@casazza.net

This tells me that the skies above Dallas will have no clouds, will be very transparent and will have good seeing at 7pm for the following 4 hours. Based on this, I can take a closer look at the clear sky chart itself and also see that it won't be incredibly dark until the wee hours when the moon sets, that the wind and humidity will be low and the tempurature moderate.

Very cool, huh? This is thanks to the efforts of Mark Casazza, who runs a site called Clear Sky Alarm Clock. When you sign up for Mark's service, you can configure one or several "alarms" that trigger an email like the one above when a specific set of conditions are coming up. I have one alarm (Default) that tells me when the seeing will be generally good at my home. I also have one that goes off when conditions are going to be excellent and one for when daytime solar observing on the weekend will be good. I won't go into the details of all the features here - go check it out for yourself.

Meanwhile, it's time for me to run... need to get ready to get the scope out and take advantage of the clear skies!

Family Affair

Something I should have mentioned from the beginning is that I'm not alone in my interest in astronomy. My wife, Linda, presents planetarium shows (both formal presentations and ad hoc sky shows) at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science. As much as I enjoy getting out under the sky at night, I don't know nearly as much about the sky as she does. So, we welcome you to our little corner of the blogosphere where we'll be joining the rest of the world in celebrating 400 years since Galileo first turned a telescope on the sky.

Plans for IYA2009 Projects

Thinking about how to do my part to help celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, a couple of ways come immediately to mind:

• Networking with other amateur astronomers. I've been meaning to join the Texas Astronomical Society (TAS) for years... it's about time. I've also enjoyed observing with folks like Dwight and Paul before and look forward to doing so again this year.
  
• Through my photography. Yes, it'll be fun but, more importantly, my hope is that everyone who sees my work - whether here, on Flickr, or anywhere else - will appreciate the sky in a new way or learn something new about astronomy.
• Through star parties. Linda and I have participated in one every year or two for Mesquite schools. Hopefully, there will be more opportunities this year - whether for MISD or other organizations (TAS, etc.). Seeing people's reaction the first time they see Saturn or a crater on the moon is incredibly rewarding!
• Sharing here. As I run across news articles, other people's photos and anything else about astronomy on the web that strikes me as interesting, I'll reference them in posts or add them to Recommended Links.

In addition to these - and in some cases, in conjunction with them - there are some personal projects I have in mind.

• Photographing a solar analemma. What is an analemma? Learn about it here. This would be a huge project so not sure whether I've got the time and energy, but I do have some ideas on a way to pull it off.
• Capturing a suburban view of meteor shower. Although I've never had any success watching a meteor shower from our backyard, I've seen a few nice ones out near the lake. This year, I hope to capture images of one (or more) shower. I'd also like to contribute to information gathering efforts to document meteor showers.
• Capture image of a young crescent moon. This is a key event in the Islamic calendar but is also of interest to me both for the challenge and as a unique photography subject.

More to come...

International Year of Astronomy 2009

One of the key points of creating this blog is to have a forum for celebrating the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Not exactly sure how this will work yet - I'm going to take another shot at a 365 project on Flickr, this time posting one astrophoto a day. That might prove as challenging as managing 365 shots of anything that came to mind last year, so my goal is going to be to use this blog to tie it all together over the course of the year.