Star Count Update

Back on September 26, I wrote about the Great Worldwide Star Count project. Well, I went out Wednesday evening to see how many stars I could see. From my back yard, I could see all the stars on the Magnitude 5 star chart and a couple of additional stars from the Magnitude 6 star chart. I then drove a just little bit North of Sabadeco on the upper dirt road that goes to the Radio towers overlooking Rincon. The sky was darker there, I could easily see the Milky Way running from the western horizon, up through Cygnus (the Northern Cross) and over to Cassiopia. I could also see most of, but not all, of the stars on the Magnitude 6 star chart. I know the night sky pretty well, but I still found it tricky to match up what I was seeing on the Sky Count star charts with what I was seeing in the sky. So I've taken the liberty of labeling a few of the bright stars and drawing in some constellation lines. These charts might help you out if you want to head out and see how many stars you can spot in Cygnus, the Northern Cross. You can click on them to make them bigger, of cours, and probably print them to use them "in the field" with your red flashlight. I use my bicycle tail light.
If you like looking at the stars at all, do get outside during the next night or two, before the moon gets bright, and see how many stars you can see from your location. You can figure out your latitude and longitude from Google Maps, and report your findings on the Great Worldwide Star Count website.
It's not many times one gets to contribute to real science without needing a lot of equipment and training.

Speaking of equipment, I'm still experimenting with getting good star pictures with minimal fuss and equipment. I brought my camera and a regular tripod with me when I headed out to count stars. The picture below, shows the stinger of Scorpius' tail as a vertical pair of stars a little left of center at the bottom edge of the picture, just to the right of a cactus. The teapot of Sagitarius is standing on its spout with the bottom of the teapot on the left and the top of the cap to the right. The spout is a little to the left of the middle of the picture, partway into the Milky Way. The handle is a little down from the top of the image. Half way between the stinger and the spout of the teapot is M7, an open cluster of stars.

So I mounted the camera on my trusty tripod, used a 28mm lens at f2.8, and took some 15 second and some 8 second exposures at ISO 800. I could pick these exposure times from the camera's menu, so I didn't need a cable release or remote trigger device. When I got home and looked at the pictures at 100% size, I could see that the stars had moved during the 15 second exposures, but they appeared quite round in the 8 second exposures.

Having said all that, it is interesting that the picture here is a combination of three 15 second exposures that I've downsized for easier viewing online. The stars look round enough in this small size image. (well you can hardly see them at all in the thumbnail. I'm really referring to the 1024x768 image you'll see if you click on the thumbnail) The 15 second pictures showed a lot more Milky Way than the 8 second ones, so I used the 15 second images, and downsized them.

So, if you have a DSLR and happen to be somewhere where you can really see the stars, have a go at taking a picture or two, even if you have to prop up the camera with a rock on the roof of your car and use the self timer to trigger the shot. You won't get a prize winning photo, but you might be surprised by what you can see in that image. I shot some 8 second images of Cygnus while I was out star counting and they showed MANY more stars than I could see with my naked eye. I'm still snooping around Bonaire for a great foreground of cacti, in front of a non light polluted western horizon. I can find one or the other, but not both.... so far.

7th Annual Jong Bonaire Swim

There are loads of fun outdoor events here on Bonaire this fall. This week is Regatta week, and the 40th annual Bonaire sailing regatta is winding down today and tomorrow. And yes, we've had our annual rainy and windless weather this week as well. October and November also see a long distance swim event, running races, a couple of big cycling tours, as well as a mtn. bike race.
The seventh annual swim to Klein Bonaire, to benefit Jong Bonaire, was held this past Sunday. Loads of people turned out for this worthy cause, and a chance make the swim between Bonaire and Klein Bonaire in safety.
I had to head over to our church at 8am, to set up the PA system, and missed the start of the actual swim. George DeSalvo sent me this action photo of the swimmers getting underway.

Moon and Planet Show

Shortly before dawn today, Venus, Saturn, the Moon and the bright star Regulus made a nice compact grouping in the Eastern sky.

Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.

On Tuesday morning, October 9, the moon will have moved down to the horizon, but Venus, Saturn and Regulus will assume their most compact grouping. They'll fit within a circle 4.5 degrees across and could be viewed together in many binoculars.

ISS Update

Well, Sandra and I zoomed to the south end of Bonaire yesterday evening. Jupiter was about 52 degrees left (south) of the sun and about 48 degrees high when the sun set at 6:23 or so.

We didn't spot Jupiter right away, but by 6:34 or so, it was very easy to see. By 6:43, when the International Space Station came floating by, the sky was dark enough to see the star Antares. The ISS and Jupiter were quite bright.

It turns out that we were not in precisely the exact spot we needed to be in to see the ISS appear to hit Jupiter. We should have been a tiny bit further South. But it was still a fun exercise.

The photo shows the full frame of a four second exposure that I made with an 100mm lens. You'll probably have to click on it to be able to see Jupiter.

Space Station Double Header Today

The International Space Station (ISS) is putting on a great show for us here on Bonaire today.

This morning at 05:39, it passed right in front of the Moon, as seen from near the Trans World Radio transmitter site.

Tonight, at 18:43, the ISS will pass right in front of Jupiter. It won't be dark here on Bonaire, at 18:43, but Jupiter and the ISS are pretty bright, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to see this.

The place to be to see this event is on the road that goes around the south end of Bonaire, between Red Slave and the Fishing Hut/Kitesailing area. (closer to the fishing hut than red slave) I'll double check the ISS orbital elements this afternoon and try to position myself in the exact right spot. From what I've been able to figure out online and with the SkyMap Pro planetarium software, one has to be within about plus or minus 50 meters of the sweet spot in order for the ISS to appear to "hit" Jupiter.

If you happen to be on Bonaire, look for my white Samurai, and you can help me look for Jupiter in the twilight, and then we'll wait and see if I've nailed the location or not. I'm going to double check the coordinates this afternoon, with the most recent set of ISS orbital elements. As of right now, the place to be is 12.039157 degrees North and 68.263582 degrees West. You can look at it on Google Earth or if you are here on the island, you can try going there following your GPS receiver.

I tried taking a picture of the ISS and moon this am, but in my excitement I must have pushed the remote shutter release button crooked or something and ended up taking the picture just AFTER the ISS passed the moon. grrrrrrr I had fired off a few test shots before hand and the camera triggered quite promptly then. Here is what the moon looked like this am, well.... other than the fact that this picture is upside down! It's 1024x768 so you can use it as desktop wallpaper. I'll probably make it right side up and play with it some more before it ends up on my desktop however.

30 sec. Milky Way Photo

Some of you have commented on the star and cacti picture I posted on Sept. 21. I'm still scheming as to how I can get a picture with nice crisp cactus silhouettes on it. I could always make a composite picture on the computer, but I'd like to capture a real life image if I can.

I was out in our back yard last night to see an Iridium satellite produce a -6 magnitude flare of reflected sunlight. While I was waiting for the Iridium flare, I pointed my camera to the southwest over our house and Kaya G.N. Debrot and snapped a shot of Jupiter hanging out by Antares and the other bright stars of Scorpius.

I was surprised at how many stars turned up in this 30 second exposure. Now I had to work it over in Photoshop quite a bit, and there is a good deal of digital noise compared to images made up of a stack of longer exposures, but I'm still pleased. That is the roof of our house in the lower right corner, and it isn't that blurred.

So it looks like these settings of 30 seconds, at F2.8 and ISO 400 might also bag me a good cacti and stars picture. I'll have another go at it soon, if I can. Some of the newer cameras produce less noise than mine, so 15 seconds at ISO 800 or even ISO1600 wouldn't be out of the question. It seems to me that a 15 second exposure with a 28mm lens could be made from a stationary tripod instead of sitting on top of a star tracking telescope. Hmmm, Milky Way over Brandaris... that would be a cool picture. :)

That black blob at the bottom of the picture is the tube of the telescope I had the camera sitting on. The big white blob in the upper middle part of the picture is Jupiter. Antares is the bright red star to Jupiter's lower right. A little above the left end of the telescope blob is a pair of stars that make up the stinger of the Scorpion's tail. To their upper left are M6 and M7, a pair of open star clusters.

The spout of the teapot is a little way up on the left edge of the picture. A little above half way up on the left side of the picture are the Lagoon and Triffid Nebula, and some more star clusters can be seen above them on the left edge of the image. The WEB power plant would be just off the left side of this picture.

Satellite Watching

I've enjoyed watching satellites cruising across the vast Bonaire evening skies for more than 30 years now. One advantage of living on a relatively flat desert island is that one can see the sky from horizon to horizon. So satellites, meteors, low lying planets like Mercury are all readily visible.

Sandra and I saw a very bright Iridium flare last night. The Web sites CalSky and Heavens-Above both can predict all sorts of interesting goings on in the sky, once you enter your location. CalSky even sends customizable email alerts. The web sites also list exactly which satellites are visible on any given night, so we no longer have to resign ourselves to saying, "I wonder what satellite that was?"

The International Space Station will be visible here on Bonaire the next few evenings. The right coordination of orbit and sunlight seems to come in bunches. I may have a chance to see the ISS cross the moon as well as Jupiter if I am lucky.

The picture is from last night. An Iridium satellite flared right in the middle of the constellation Cepheus. Cepheus sort of looks like an upside down stick figure of a house. The five main stars are visible from our back yard, as are a few more in the general area. The three minute exposure shows so many stars that I can't figure out the shape of Cepheus, even though I know right where it should be. If it clear tonight, maybe I'll try a short exposure - because another Iridium satellite is going to be flaring in almost the same spot.

The Great Worldwide Star Count

Yippie, the moon was full 15 minutes ago, as I write this.... so it is going to rise around sunset tonight and then it will be coming up later and later each night. It's time to dust off the old telescope and hope for cloud free skies during the next two weeks.

If you don't have a telescope, be sure to head outside anyway. In fact, if you are into stargazing at all, and can find the Northern Cross in the Northern Hemisphere, or the Sagitarius Teapot in the Southern Hemisphere, you can contribute to an interesting science project examining the extent of light pollution around the world. Here is a Web page giving an overview of the project.

Here is where you can find out the details of how you can participate any time between October 1 and 15. I think I'll try it in my back yard in Hato and also maybe head out to Boca Onima or some other dark site and see if I can see more stars. Even if you live in a city or some other spot with lots of ambient light, your observations will still provide valuable information.

If any of you do this, how about commenting on this post with your location and results. Thanks.

Studio/Office Move in the DR

Joe Barker and Ivan Statia recently travelled from Bonaire, to the Dominican Republic, to help set up a new office and radio production studio for our TWR partner there. It will be a nice birthday present for Radio Trans Mundial Dominicana, which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary on November 11.

The old office and studios were on the middle floor of a three story building that they shared with some rather noisy commercial tenants, like a laundry. The team in the DR often had to come in at all sorts of weird hours in search of peace and quiet to record their radio programs. The new facility is in a converted single family house, which should be much quieter. From left to right in the above photo, you can see Georgina Thompson, the director of RTM-DR, Joe Barker and Ivan Statia-from Bonaire, and Helmut Menzel-TWR's globetrotting design engineer.

They had two weeks to convert the house into an office and studio complex as well as completely move every last computer, document, microphone and paper clip from the old facility to the new one.
I the above photo, we see Ivan and Joe working on the sound treatment for the walls of the new studio.
Check out that carpeting on that door. It appears that Joe and Ivan's previous career doing van conversions for hippies in the 70's was perfect preparation for radio studio construction. ha-ha If enough of you ask, I'll post of picture of Ivan from that era.
Here the control room of the studio is beginning to take on a recognisable form. I hope that air conditioner unit is quiet. The old studio had a fan in it that we could sometimes hear in the background on some of the programs the produced for us to air on Bonaire. I could remove the noise with Adobe Audition, but a quiet room is always better, of course.
Hooray, it's moving day. The TWR staff, contractors, and volunteers were able to complete the two week project on time. Thank you, Georgina, for sending us these pictures.

By they way TWR's Spanish language Web site has been re-done since the last time I saw it. There is even a link to streaming audio from TWR in Uruguay, and it looks like audio from Venezuela will be coming soon. I got some Javascript errors when I browsed the pages but I could still read them, but hopefully all that will be fixed soon.

Fun Food Fridays at TWR

Friday has become food day here at TWR - Bonaire. Marie Franke almost always brings in some sort of exotic muffins that we eat right after our morning mini prayer time at the start of the day.

Then, to make things even more interesting, Donna Gassert and the Frankes have been ordering from the China Nobo five Guilder takeout menu for lunch each week. Most of the rest of us, recognising a good thing when we see and smell it, have joined in. The food is quite tasty, and the price can't be beat.

Coincidentally, I recently received an email from the Bonaire Insider, alerting me to the fact that the China Nobo now has a Web site. You can check it out here. There is some historical information, some details about the food, an online menu, and downloadable versions too. There is even a place for making dinner reservations online!

Starry Starry Nights

The moon is getting pretty bright right now, but back a couple weeks ago on September 4th, we had a clear dark night or two. I headed out try to get some Milky Way pictures with a cactus foreground. This picture was taken looking south from the dirt road just before you get to the Indian inscriptions at Boca Onima.

The sky glow on the left side of the picture is probably Radio Nederlands, or maybe Sabadeco. The glow on the right edge is Rincon. I drove along until the setting Milky Way was located mid way between the two glows.

This was a three minute exposure at ISO 200 and F2.8. The cacti came out blurry, even though they were pretty far away, because the camera was tracking on the stars. If we have some clear nights next month, I'd like to try some other settings, like 1.5 minutes at ISO 400, or 45 seconds at ISO 800 to see if I can get crisper silhouettes with shorter exposures.

This is all assuming that my camera hangs in there. It is having some shutter problems and I have to turn it off and back on in between each exposure to reset everything, so I can see my picture and then take another one. Sometimes I only end up with a partially exposed frame. That's why this picture has a panoramic sort of aspect ratio. The top part of the frame, which should have been loaded with stars, was black, so I just cropped it off.

Puppy Pix

Well it's another week and time to post a new puppy picture.

We're taking pictures quite frequently because they grow so fast, ha-ha.

Clicking on the picture should theoretically get you the 1024x768 version that we'll probably be using as desktop wallpaper for a while.

Shimaruku Follow Up

Sandra and I zoomed out to the Dos Pos area Sunday afternoon to see if I could photograph some Shimarukus. Sandra was hoping to eat some, which she did. It was overcast and getting kind of gloomy by the time we got there, so I used the flash. I like the effect, so I may try this more in the future.
There were a few of these cacti with fallen Shimarukus stuck on them. It looks like some nimble birds must have eaten some of the ones on this cactus.

Shimaruku Surprise

It was pretty cloudy yesterday, which made for pleasant bike riding conditions. Cars visiting Washington Park during the week had pounded out some of the worst of the ruts caused by the recent rains so the ride wasn't as bumpy as last week either.

The highlight of this week's ride was the bumper crop of fruit on the West Indian Cherry or Shimaruku trees in the park. We had a Shimaruku tree in our yard when we lived on Kaya Rotterdam, so the sweet Shimaruku smell brought back pleasant memories as I pedaled along.

My tree book says that three Shimaruku cherries contain as much vitamin C as an Orange! I encountered a number of Bonairian families parked along the sides of the road and enjoying the harvest. Birds and lizards like the Shimarukus too.

Another Airline Option

Delta Airlines will begin flying direct to Bonaire from Atlanta in February. If I were to fly to the TWR office in near Raleigh, North Carolina, this would definitely be my preferred way to go.

The flights leave Atlanta at 10am and arrive here at 3:20pm. The flight back to Atlanta leaves Bonaire at 4:15pm and arrives in Atlanta at 7:45pm. I checked online and found that the round trip fares for the last two weeks of February were $407 including the various taxes and fees, which seems pretty good to me.

Breakfast Buffet

The International Bible Church of Bonaire (IBCB) had a men's breakfast at Den Laman last Saturday. We enjoyed Eddy and Sonya's great breakfast buffet and talked about church goals and plans. The sky was clear, the sea was calm, and early bird snorkelers were already in the water.
A panoramic version of this scene can be found here.

My favorite Meteor Photo

It is actually pretty difficult get pictures of meteors, even dedicated images who set up whole banks of cameras don't get that many. Check out this setup.

Here is a link to my favorite meteor photo. The meteor isn't very bright, but the overall effect is wonderful. Ginger Mayfield's images are amazing and a real inspiration to me.

Actual Thickness of Meteor Trails Measured

One thing I appreciate about living on a flat desert island is that one can see a vast expanse of sky, compared to the hilly, forested northeastern USA where I grew up. So Bonaire is a good place to spot meteors, and I've seen plenty over the years even if I'm notoriously reluctant to arise in the wee hours of the morning during the recognised meteor showers.

So this article on space dot com about measuring the thickness of meteor trails caught my eye. It turns out that they are pretty thin.

Party Animal

While the big dogs faithfully guard our humble abode, the precocious puppy likes nothing better than to belly up to the bar and watch dinner being prepared.

We plugged in our web cam the other day and let our son and daughter in law enjoy his antics live on Skype.

Neighborhood Watch

I wrote about our Hato neighborhood watch a few months ago. Among other things, it is used to alert us to suspicious activities and the like.

Here is what our neighbor wrote about what happened last night. This morning at 5 AM there has been an attempt to steal a scooter from our property. The big gate was locked. The thiefs came in and began to cut one of the wired fences to be able to get the scooter out of the yard. They were disturbed when our Rottweiler discovered them and jumped up and ran to them. The other dogs were then alarmed as well. The thiefs dropped the scooter and ran. After about ten minutes they came back to see whether they'd have another chance, by then I had turned on all the lights, went outside and lett all the dogs out. The intruders then disappeared. I didn't see anyone, they were behind the bushes, only my dogs saw them.

I had been wondering what sort of cute comment to write about this photo I shot the other afternoon, but in light of the above, I think there is nothing more to say. Well.... other than to comment that that coconut has since been consumed by the pictured MSU (mobile security unit), and that if you want to learn about the chair, click here.

Instant Forest

The Tree Elves were busy on Sunday. While most of us were cruising around the island looking for signs of damage from Hurricane Felix, they were busily transforming the grounds of the new shops across the street from TWR from a barren wasteland into a tropical garden.

Bonaire in the News

A friend emailed me to say that CNN had mentioned Bonaire in connection with Hurricane Felix, but that they spelled it "Bonair".

Fortunately Scuba Divers know how to spell Bonaire, and how to get here. The September issue of Sport Diver magazine has a six page article on diving and dining on Bonaire. The Bonaire Insider web site has a link to a downloadable PDF version of the whole article!

We don't eat out much, so I think I'll save this story and consult it if anyone ever asks me for recomendations. :)

Saturday Bike Ride

I try to get in a long bike ride on as many Saturday mornings as possible. This past Saturday, I got back home just before a big rain squally hit us, whew! This week, I started in Hato and rode to Rincon on the upper one of the two dirt roads that begin just north of Sabadeco. I continued to and through Washington Park, and then road home along the East coast, on dirt roads as far as Boca Onima and then on the main paved road. The red line on the map shows the track of my ride. The short section where the loops merge to one red line is the area of the Washington Park entrance. The lowermost point of the red track is at the traffic circle by the TWR offices. I would normally ride out to the Park on the East side of Bonaire, to take advantage of a tail wind, and then come back on the West, in the relative shelter of the hills, but because there wasn't much wind this past week, I rode it backwards so to speak.
The chart shows elevation vs. distance. For those of you who are into Miles and Feet, the ride was 38.95 miles. It took three hours and 28 minutes. That's pretty slow, but I think of this ride as more of a survival thing than a race, due to the roughness of the Washington Park roads and the summer heat here on Bonaire. Race pace (for me) on this route would be about three hours.

The Washington Park loop part of the ride was 29.4 kilometers.

Tim Klingbeil Visits Bonaire

Tim Klingbeil, the TWR international director for the Americas region,was with us here on Bonaire this past Wednesday and Thursday. It was Tim's first visit to Bonaire.Tim is talking on what Sandra and I call "the batphone" an IP phone that appears as an extension on the TWR, North Carolina, office switchboard. In the foreground, you can see the old school video projector that we use to participate in the North Carolina office staff meeting each week. The tech. guys have tried a few different methods, but we usually video conference with Skype, believe it or not.
We had a staff dinner party with Tim Klingbeil at the office on Wednesday evening. On the left side of the picture, you can see Cees and Clary Bijl, who have just arrived from Canada, to join us for three months as volunteers.

Tim Klingbeil was with on when we joined the Cary, NC office staff meeting on Thursday morning. It was an interesting experience for him, since he is often on the other side of the camera at these meetings. The highlight of Thursday's meeting was an auction of no-longer-needed office plants to raise money for the Americas region Poster Antenna Project. (I'll have to fill you in on poster antennas soon.)

We were able to participate in the auction through our Skype connection, but shipping the plants to Bonaire would have been a bear. So a number of the Bonaire staff members successfully bid on plants to be placed in Tim Klingbeil's North Carolina office. You can see the results in the above Carol Witthun photo. Tim retaliated by winning the auction for a plant and designating it for a co-workers' office.

Hurricane Felix Misses Bonaire

Hurricane Felix missed Bonaire last night. We are very thankful for that. The storm wasn't that organized Saturday morning, but by the time it reached our longitude, it had developed into a for real hurricane.

It was just far enough north of us that we only had a bunch of rain and some strongish backwards winds. The backwards rain found its way into buildings that normally don't leak, and I know of two yachts washed up on the shore.

The airport remained open all night and we heard the KLM flight leave on time. American Airlines and Continental Airlines flights were delayed but still flying.

The power also remained on all night, our AM and FM transmitters stayed on the air, and most resorts on the island have checked in and reported no damage. You can read updates at the Bonaire Insider web site.

I was awakened by one of the computers at Trans World Radio, which was calling to report "dead air" on the FM station. I actually got a number of calls between 04:30 and 05:15, but I kept the radio on and they all turned out to be false alarms, grrrrrr. Since we were awake, we went out and checked up on the dogs. They were dry and in good spirits. We also watched the Tropical Update on the Weather Channel at 04:50 and saw that Felix was just passing due North of us.

The rain pretty much tapered off by 8:30 am. and the wind is back to the correct direction and the sun is out now. (5 pm.)

Our House

It was so nice to see the sun yesterday afternoon, after a very stormy weekend. When I got home from my after work bike ride, I ran out and snapped few pix of our house with the trees all green.

I was a few minutes late, so the setting sun was on the trees, but the house was in the shade. Maybe I'll try again sometime.

A bigger version of the picture can be found here.

Lunar Eclipse

We had windless, rainy weather all weekend here on Bonaire. So, when the skies began to clear up Monday afternoon, I started thinking that I might catch a glimpse of the eclipse of the moon on Tuesday morning after all. There were scattered clouds this morning, but I got to see the moon become completely eclipsed before it sank into the haze along the western horizon.
I played around with framing the moon between the arms of a friendly cactus.
The next time we have a total eclipse at dawn, ha-ha, I'll have to find a suitable cactus that is further away, so it is more in focus. I think that would be interesting.

Lasting Fruit - Changed Lives

During the thirty years that I've been associated with Trans World Radio, I've observed a number of attempts at summarizing what it is that TWR is attempting to accomplish as a ministry.

The current TWR vision statement is, "To reach the world for Christ by mass media so that lasting fruit is produced." This image of lasting fruit is probably drawn from Jesus statement, recorded in John 15:16, "You did not choose me. I chose you and sent you out to produce fruit, the kind of fruit that will last..." TWR used to talk about "changed lives" which is probably a similar concept.

An example of lasting fruit, is seen in this letter from a young woman from Peru, who recently wrote to the Petrito el Pulpo radio program for kids.

Hello! I just pass by to greet you and tell you that your programs have been a blessing in my life. I have been listening to them for a number years and I never get tired. Now I am not a child any more, but still wait anxiously to hear your stories, and even more, they are an inspiration in my preparation of the lessons for the children in my church. (Now I am a Sunday school teacher). Keep going onward!!! May God bless you richly!

Hola! Sólo pasaba a saludarlos y decirles que sus programas han sido una bendición en mi vida, los escucho desde hace ya varios años y no me canso. Aunque ya no soy una niña, los sábados espero con ansias escuchar sus historias, además de que ahora me inspiran para hacer la lección para los niños de mi iglesia (ya que soy maestra de escuela dominical). Sigan adelante!!! Y que el Señor les siga bendiciendo en gran manera!!!

Of course, changed lives can take many forms, in widely divergent circumstances, as this letter from Africa illustrates. “My family has rejected me since they found out I am HIV-positive. I’m a Christian, yet my life has become a heavy cross to bear. But today something has changed—God is answering my anguish through your counseling and educational program. My hope is renewed.”

The TWR initiative Africa Challenge, launched in 1986, focuses on topics like agriculture, HIV/AIDS and other relevant issues. One of my early posts in the fall of 2003 covered some of the these topics. Unfortunately, all the links in that post are broken now. Here is some current information from the TWR-Africa web site.

In a related note, TWR announced this month its associate membership with the Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations (AERDO). AERDO is a professional forum for nonprofit Christian agencies and individuals engaged in relief and development work. TWR also participates in the AERDO HIV/AIDS Alliance, a group that pursues collaborative involvement in HIV/AIDS projects around the world.

Indoor Windsurfer

It hasn't been very windy lately, here on Bonaire, so it seems like an indoor windsurfer is just the ticket. In fact you can use one too, even if you are living far from the inviting waters of Sorobon.

All you need is some card stock, some aluminum foil, a computer printer to print the template from this web site, and a wireless router. The indoor windsurfer is a parabolic antenna that you can use to focus the signal from your wireless router. I don't know why they called it the Windsurfer, but it is a clever design, easy to assemble, and actually seems to work. Sandra says she has "lots of bars" out in the living room now.

So it appears that the signal from our router is now concentrated in our living room instead of splattering all over the place, including the apartments next door and the Golden Reef Inn behind us. We're running WPA encryption, of course, but controlling the signal has to be good thing too.

Google Earth Does It Again

Every once in a while I find myself moved to wax eloquent about some new feature of or use for Google Earth.

Well, they've done it again. If you download the newest version of Google Earth, you can now see the night sky above your location.

I played around with it last night and I must say that this new feature certainly enhances the time wasting allure of GE. The basic view when I started it up was dark and blurry. Not at all impressive compared to some of my other online and offline astro software. I don't think I'll be using GE to find my way around the night sky...

BUT when I zeroed in on a patch of sky and started to zoom in by rolling my mouse wheel, well .... my mind was boggled. Pick something like the Andromeda galaxy (you can probably do a search if you don't know where it is) and slowly zoom in. It pretty seamlessly goes from a naked eye view to a Hubble Space Telescope quality view.

The "coat hanger" wasn't that impressive, but just about everything else I looked at was very very interesting. The "double double" in Lyra wasn't resolved, but the nearby ring nebula was great. There are bazillions of interesting objects labeled and worth investigating. Besides the great images, there are also links to pretty good text descriptions of the objects.

WEB Work Continues

The work of taking apart the WEB generator building near Hato continues. I'm not sure where all the steel is going, but I have seen a lot of generator parts, giant crankshafts, cylinder heads, engine blocks etc. behind the Consales building. Here are a couple big generator parts sitting on a flatbed trailer. One looks in pretty good shape. The other was obviously involved in the fire at the WEB site a few years ago.
Here are some more generator parts. I wish I could have included something to give a sense of the scale, but I was shooting the pix through a fence. These parts are on a 40 foot flatbed trailer.

More Cheap Airfares to Bonaire

We are looking forward to having some of our family visiting us the first two weeks of November. They are taking advantage of the low low American Airlines fall fares I wrote about back a bit.

Well, if you missed out on American's fall fare fest, there is still hope. I heard just this very morning, that the daughter of a Bonaire friend of ours has just booked a round trip to Bonaire, from Newark NJ, on Continental, during Regatta Week, for $309 plus tax! This is a non-stop direct flight, and that price is amazing.

This once a week Continental direct flight from Newark, arrives on Bonaire early on Sunday morning, but it leaves Newark just before midnight on Saturday night. So if you are searching on the Continental web site for this flight to Bonaire, you would need to put in Saturday night departure dates and Sunday morning return dates.

Goto Lake Panorama

This panorama of Goto Meer is pretty big. The file I've posted here is about 900k in size. I'm not sure what Blogger will do to it so I've posted a 1.6 meg version here, for those of you with big monitors and broadband connections.

Feathered Friends

Sandra and I drove through Washington Park yesterday to see what we could see. This little bird seemed to really like our Samurai. He was pretty feisty too. These flamingos took off as soon as they saw us and headed over to the safety of the flock on the other side of the salina.
This Wara Wara wasn't as skittish as the flamingos. We stopped the car, but didn't get out, and after checking us out, he continued rooting around in the nooks and crannies of the coral. We saw another Wara Wara (or Cara Cara) by Yuwa Pass. This one looked like a juvenile compared to the other one.

Mountain Bike Madness

The picture below is copyright David Swanson, all rights reserved. Used by permission. Miguel of Bonaire Wellness Connexions held a mountain bike race on the afternoon of July 29. Visiting freelance writer and photographer from San Diego, David Swanson, (no relation) hiked around part of the punishing course and took some action photos.
The race course plummets downhill from the start line. (four riders crashed on this hill during the first lap of last month's test race!) It then traverses on an extremely rough and bumpy donkey trail which beats up one's whole body. Finally it climbs back up some very steep pitches to the start/finish line. Take this yo-yo course profile, add in a hot Bonaire summer afternoon, and you end up with quite a workout. The yellow graph shows miles and feet. The blue one is in kilometers and meters. They show four laps of the course.
I was very happy to see about 12 kids riding in the one and two lap kids categories. In addition to the kid's race, there was a two lap class for adults, as well as a four lap one for those with more brawn than brains. I completed it in just under an hour, which is what I was shooting for. The fastest riders in last month's test race were just under an hour as well. This time, they didn't have to stop and fix a flat tire and Sam Williams of the Parrotwatch group finished in just under 50 minutes!

By the way, the winner of the one lap kids race was Siegal Francees, son of Steve Francees, who now lives on Aruba but grew up in North Salina.

The next race is scheduled for December 2. BWC is also hosting supported Mtn. Bike Tours on the afternoons of August 18 and October 6. I addition, there are mountain bike group rides leaving the Bonaire Wellness Center every Tuesday and Saturday at 5pm. Be sure to stop by BWC at Eden Beach Resort if you are on Bonaire and want connect with enthusiastic mtn. bikers of all ages.

You can rent Fuji bikes right at BWC. I also know of people who have been pleased with the Trek bikes they've rented from Andre at Cycle Bonaire, and the Giant bikes they've gotten from Frank at De Freewieler.

Cactus and Star Fields

The recent rains and the low winds here on Bonaire have made for nice blue skies during the day time and inky black skies at night.

On Monday night, I headed out to a deserted clearing a little to the west of Kunuku Roi Limunchi to take some more pictures for my growing Milky Way panorama.

Here is a picture of the Milky Way star fields appearing to rise up out of the cactus fields of the Bonaire mondi. The tail of Scorpius is at the top of the picture. The colored horizontal streaks are low lying clouds that were illuminated by the lights of town. I kept the thumbnail small but you can view a 1024x768 version by clicking on it. I'll be using it as desktop wallpaper for a bit.

A few stars can be seen peeking through the body of the cactus. That is probably because the camera moved as it tracked the stars during the three minute exposure, which caused the cactus to block and reveal several stars during that time. I could remove those stars in the computer but I haven't decided if "with stars" is nicer, or "without stars" would be nicer. Maybe you can place your vote in the "comments" section.

It is not unusual to spend a couple hours tweaking an astrophoto on the computer. I put about 10 minutes into this one, so I'll most likely go back and spend more time with this one, some day. I might be able to get rid of that orange sky glow from town for one thing.

New Moon and Perseid Meteors

The predawn hours of this coming Sunday night / Monday morning are the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Sunday also happens to be the time of the new moon, so the sky should be nice and dark here on Bonaire, which makes for good meteor observing.

Speaking of the predawn hours, people living in North America can see a nice total eclipse of the moon on the morning of August 28. Here on Bonaire, the moon will be setting in the west as it becomes completely eclipsed. If you live further West, the eclipse will take place earlier in the morning and the moon will be higher in the sky.

Here is some info. on the Perseid meteor shower that I've shamelessly copied from an email from Space dot com. During the predawn hours of August 13, make time to step outside and cast your eyes heavenward. The Perseid Meteor Shower should be at its peak. At an average of 60 mph (meteors per hour), you’ll be sure to catch a flash across the sky every minute or so, weather permitting. As you pan the early morning skies, you’ll observe white or bluish-white streaks of light, as the brighter Perseids enter the atmosphere at speeds up to 145,000 mph. Following their spectacular display, many of the meteors leave behind smoke trails that can linger for several seconds.

Over the years, I have occasionally set my alarm and gone out in the wee hours of the morning to see what I could see. Since Perseus is a constellation that is located in the northern part of the sky, the radiant of this meteor shower never gets all that high in the sky here on Bonaire. This reduces the number of meteors that one might see, and I must confess that there is a good chance I won't be out there this Sunday night, unless the sky is completely cloudless, and exceptionally transparent and haze free. On the rare nights when that happens, it is great to be out viewing the stars, meteors or no meteors.

First ISS photo

Well, I've managed to get a picture of the International Space Station as it passed over Bonaire last Thursday evening.

I was hoping to see it cross right over the bright star Spica. It missed Spica by a teeny tiny bit, but it did zoom across the field of view of the web cam attached to my Meade ETX 90.

The web cam caught three images of the ISS as it zoomed by. This is a composite of two of them. No you can't click on this one to see it bigger. It is a teeny tiny picture of a teeny tiny object. :)

I hope to get better images in the future, but I'm really happy to have gotten any image at all at this point.

Another Month Another Milky Way Picture

The moon didn't come up until about midnight last night, so I went out to my Sorobon Stargazing Spot and took some more wide angle pictures of the summer Milky Way. The sky was quite dark and clear, not as good as last month, but still above average. I also saw some great lightning to the South, and a very bright shooting star - fireball.

I kept this picture fairly small, but you can click on it to see it bigger. If you are into the Milky Way, you can pan around on this larger image and see all sorts of star clusters and dark nebula. My camera is quite insensitive to the light of the red emission nebulae. They show up in the picture, but don't stand out the way that they should.

This is sort of a quickie working copy. There is a lot more computer stuff like applying flat frames, bias frames etc. that I'll get around to doing some day.

If I get a chance during the next week or two, I'll try to take some more pictures that I can stitch onto the top and left side of this one. If you would like to see a really big panorama of the entire Milky Way, made up of 51 images taken over a period of three years, check out this site.

The Milky Way was actually positioned vertically last night. The right hand side of this picture was actually down by the horizon and the stuff on the left side of this picture was higher in the sky, like maybe 45 degrees up or so.

Ivan's Birthday

Today was Ivan's birthday. He wouldn't tell us how old he is, but last month he celebrated 32 years of working with TWR so we figure he must have been born here. Benny was out at the transmitter site, so he missed out on the fun, but the rest of us got the famous five guilder lunches from China Nobo and had a party.