I've been waiting for quite a while to get a chance to capture Orion rising over the TWR office building. the skies cleared up this week, so I did some imaging three nights in a row. I tried all sorts of combinations of exposures and settings. It turns out that there is too much ambient light to use the type of settings I use at the slave huts. I'll just have to hope for an island wide power failure at the right time of the year, and the right time of the lunar cycle. We actually had a nice power failure a week ago, but I didn't get out to shoot any pictures, oops.
I ended up using a simple 5 second exposure at ISO 800. I drew in some of the constellation lines so you can get oriented. Auriga is at the top left corner. Orion is at the top right corner. The legs of Gemini are at the upper right corner of the studio mural and part of Monoceros is to the right of Gemini. The Rosette nebula is near those Monoceros stars, but it doesn't show up in this short exposure. It shows up great in the Photopic Sky Survey (see my other post from today) but the view is upside down compared to my images here.
The young people meet in this outdoor pavilion during the Sunday School hour.
Our newly augmented TWR Bonaire staff had a Christmas get together Tuesday night at the Plaza beach barbeque.
Amado and Sue, and Walt and Lynne were also invited in recognition of the valuable help they've provided to us during this transition year. Amado can be seen in the foreground in the top image. Sandra and Lynne are pictured above. In the background you can see the steel band setting up and also one of the ubiquitous cruise ships.
The view above is always referred to as the area around Rho Ophiuchus. But the bright yellow star at the bottom middle is Antares, the heart of the scorpion, and that's how I locate it. This is pretty much the full frame from a 85mm lens.
The two bright stars in the lower middle of the frame form the stinger of the scorpion. They point towards the upper left to open cluster M7. It is almost swallowed up by the star clouds in this shot but M7 is easy to spot in binoculars and can be detected with the naked eye.
The above image is a combination of three frames shot with the 85mm lens, so you are looking at a much larger swath of sky than is seen in the first two photos. Part of the spout of the Sagitarius teapot is at the lower right corner. There are lots of star clusters and nebulae visible in this shot. I may make a poster sized print of this one someday because there are lot of pixels to work with in the original file. (7317x4774)
There was a brief ceremony outside and then we all marched in while singing "I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart... for He hath made me glad."
There were lots of friends and visitors in attendance. It was standing room only after a bit. Probably were 145 people or so.
Everyone hung around for quite a while after the service and enjoyed cake, coffie and punch. Friendly fellowship after the church services is one of the main drawing cards of the IBC.
The top shot was taken early in the evening and is looking a little more to the east than the shot below. It shows the stars east all the way to Scutum on the left.
That table top is a safe haven from the rampaging puppy, for now...
It's unanimous, the grass is greener on the other side of that metal thing.
Frank Bohm and the Freewieler Bike shop sponsored a bike ride in Washington Park today. I think there were 15 riders. Frank, left, is talking to Bud Gillan, right before the start of the ride. The Gillans volunteered to drive behind the riders in case anyone had any problems.
Below, Brad and Ethan ponder the restorative properties of Gatorade as they take a break at Slag Bai. The road from Slag Bai to the exit is still not open, after sustaining damage during the super rainy wet season. We rode in on the long route and back out on what is usually the short "in" route.
Below, TWR interns, Ethan (left) and Andrew (right), check out the whale skeleton with Smithstonian intern, Daniel.
Bud's enthusiasm for jellyfish has come to fruition in the Bonaire Jellyfish Jamboree, happening right now. You can learn more about it from this Bonaire Insider story and from this Florida newspaper story.
Ethan and Andrew, our hard working TWR summer interns are also turning into serious snorklers. It doesn't hurt any that there is a great beach right across the street from where they are living.
There is a lot of water movement along here and lots of soft corals and sea fans flapping around.
We saw some cool schools of fish.
Look for the old anchor chain running from the lower left to the upper right of the picture below.
The fun category consisted of a 850 meter swim, a 11.6 kilometer bike ride and a 5 kilometer run. The "pro" category included a 1500 meter swim, a 23.2 kilometer bike ride and a 10 kilometer run. Both categories were open to solo competitors as well as three person relay teams.
Everyone started in front of the Regatta House. The fun category competators swam directly along the coast to the fruit market in front of City Cafe. The pro competators swam to the north for a while before making a u-turn and heading to the fruit market boat ramp. 
Did I mention that this was a fun, family friendly event?
There is massive media presence here for the championships.
This past Thursday, Vice Consul Winifred Hofstetter from the US Consulate in Curacao made a working visit to Bonaire. Some passport related matters require one to sign papers in the presence of a US official, so consular officers come to Bonaire from time to time, so we don't have to make the trip to Curacao. I hadn't met the Vice Consul on her previous visit to Bonaire. We were probably on one of our medical trips to the States. She is a kind and helpful person, not officious at all, but she definately knows her stuff.
We had a very clear night last week, the first one since February. So I zoomed out to Red Slave to take pictures of the Milky Way rising over the huts.
The new cross brases are cleaned, taped, primed and painted. The braces have to make good metal to metal contact where they connect to each other and to the tower legs.
After all new parts are bolted onto the tower, the joints are all primed and painted in place.
