New Improved English Papiamentu Dictionary

Betty Ratzlaff is on Bonaire right now for the official launch of the new improved second edition of her English/Papiamentu - Papiamentu/English dictionary. You can read all about the new edition of the dictionary, and even buy it online, at http://www.papiamentudictionary.com/
Appropriately enough, the web site is available in both Papiamentu and English. Trans World Radio helped Betty publish the first edition of the dictionary, with first and second printings in 1992 and 1995. It has been out of print for quite a while now. Alan Gross and Jane Townsend, and Michael Gaynor approached the TWR Dictionary Foundation with a plan (which was accepted) to introduce a revised edition of the dictionary.


The TWR Dictionary foundation licensed Jong Bonaire to revise and reprint the dictionary, and provided seed money to help get the project off the ground. Jong Bonaire secured a bank loan for the remainder of the funds needed for the project. Jong Bonaire is handling the production, administration and accounting, and Michael will take care of the warehousing and distribution.

Profits from the sale of the dictionary will go to help fund the Jong Bonaire youth center. A percentage of the sales will also be set aside for the next printing of the dictionary and for printing inspirational Christian literature in the Papiamentu language.
In the above photo Betty is presenting a copy of the new improved dictionary to Bonaire Governor Herbert Domacasse. Below you can see the stores on the ABC islands that will be selling the dictionaries.
There is an initiative to encourage companies and organizations to purchase dictionaries for the schools on the islands. You can read all about this on the web site too.
Betty is holding a book signing at Addo's book store, here on Bonaire, this afternoon. Some eager beavers couldn't wait 'till today, so Betty held an impromptu signing session after the press conference on last night.

We are quite excited to see the dictionary back in circulation again, and want to express an especially big thank you to Alan and Jane for contributing their enthusiasm, drive, and professional skills to make a dream come true for Betty and the TWR Dictionary Foundation.

Jonathan Griffiths Wed

Some of you may remember Jonathan Griffiths from the years he spent here on Bonaire with Trans World Radio. You'll be glad to know that he is alive and well and working with TWR in Austria.

You might also be interested to know that Jonathan G. and Bärbel Kirchner were recently joined together in marriage on 17 May, 2008.


Congratulations and best wishes to the happy couple, and a big thank you to TWR - Europe for the photo.

Bonaire Triathlon 2008

The sixth annual Triathlon to benefit the Jong Bonaire youth center took place early Sunday morning on the beautiful Kralendijk waterfront. I posted a bunch of pictures on Photobucket.

There were classes for teams as well as for individuals. There were two distance categories too. In the Fun Category, the swimming distance was 850 meters, the bike route was 11.6 kilometers, and the running route was 5 kilometers. In the Pro Category, all those distances were doubled.

The swimming leg started at 7 am. I had to leave at 8 to go set up the PA system for our church service at the high school, but I got to see some of the short course competitors begin the run and the long course people head out on the second lap of the bike course. There were a couple scary moments when the Pro class bikers came blazing through the start finish area on their way to the second lap of the bike leg, while fans, and the Fun class and team class people were scattered all over the road transitioning to the run leg.

One Pro class competitor, who shall remain nameless, endured some good natured ribbing, when he hopped off of his bike to begin the run after completing only one of the required two bike laps. Can you say "oxygen debt?" This same competitor had been heard to exclaim, "I almost drowned" as he exited the water after the swim leg. Ain't sports fun!

At the end of the bike leg, one of the kids executed a beautiful Cyclocross style transition from riding to running, except that instead of picking up his bike, he just dropped it in the street. As he went running away, someone yelled to him to take off his helmet, so he popped it off his head and left in in the middle of the road as well. Maybe next year I ought to bring a video camera to catch the action. I think this kid would have been a hit on YouTube.

June Planetary Parade

Mars is "zooming" across the evening sky, on it's way to a meeting with Saturn later in June. Mars and Saturn are bright enough to be seen, even if you live in a region with more ambient light (light pollution), so anyone can enjoy this show.

To make it even easier, the moon will be right by Mars on the evening of June 7 and right by Saturn on the evening of the 8th. So you can use the moon to locate the two planets, and then continue to watch them as they come together over the course of the next couple weeks.

Comet Boattini Again

Its been a while since I've mentioned Comet Boattini. But we've been observing it every evening, clouds permitting.

This picture is from Saturday evening, when the comet was near the bright-ish star Rho Puppis. This is a stack of about 34 thirty second long exposures at F 2.8 and ISO 1600. You can see the comet, even in the thumbnail image, as a fuzz towards the upper left of the picture.

The comet moves quite a bit from night to night. On Monday night, it was just to the left of Xi Puppis and made a nice sight with M93, which is to the right of Xi Pup.

By tonight, (Wednesday) the comet will be closing in on the big triangle that forms the hindquarters of Canus Major. The comet is heading towards the sun, so it is getting lower in the western sky each night. It is still easy to see here in the Tropics, but we do need to have clear skies along the horizon in the evening.

Tower Painting Update

The antenna painting crew is about halfway down the tower. They started at the top and are working their way down. The top of the tower looks great in its new red and white paint. This is the same picture I posted a while ago, but I lightened it after seeing how dark it looked on some of the computer monitors at work.

Bonaire Biking

I recently posted kids pix from the mtn. bike race on Sunday. Here is a shot of the adult group getting ready to go. The five women who participated are pretty much hidden in this shot, but they made their presence known once out on the course. I rode with the group fun ride Tuesday. The kids from the race were there and a whole bunch of adults too. We did a fairly long ride, passing through the hills east of Antriol, some kunuku roads north of Tras di Montana, up over Sero Largu, up to Republik, and back to Eden Beach by way of Hato. I'll have to bring my GPS next time so I can post the route. It was a good ride.

More people are out and about on road bikes this week, because there is a Triathalon this weekend. I think road biking here is making a mini comeback these days, after being pretty invisible for a number of years following the demise of the Bonaire Cycling Club.

Bonaire Wellness Month

Bonaire Wellness month started of with a challenging mountain bike race on Sunday afternoon. The course for the fall mountain bike races is pretty user friendly, but this one, used for the spring races is tough tough tough. There were fewer kids racing this year, but more adults.
The kids all had the same expression on their face as they waited for the start of the race. I know the feeling.
The kids did a great job, and I'm sure they'll be encouraging their friends to try the next race this fall.
Above is a post race picture. I love that look of satisfaction and accomplishment.

The adult pack races off to the dangerous downhill section, while the next generation is chomping at the bit.

Can't get Here from There

Travel to and from Bonaire will get a little trickier this fall, when American Airlines cuts back on flights between North America and its San Juan, Puerto Rico, hub.

The Bonaire Insider has a good overview of the upcoming changes.

Sunday Mtn. Bike Race on Google Earth

I have uploaded a Google Earth KML data file for this Sunday's mountain bike race. Miguel has included a jpeg screen capture of the course in his blurbs about the race, but you can see a lot more detail if you open the data in Google Earth for yourself, and then zoom in.


The Google Earth projection doesn't give one much of a feel for the elevation changes of the race course. This chart from my GPS track has the altitude in Meters and the Distance in Kilometers.



It looks like one person, besides me, has already downloaded the KML file of Washington Park roads that I posted yesterday.

Washington Park on Google Earth

I recently mentioned that the annual open house at Washington Park is coming up on June 1. I also recently noted that Google Earth has added some hi-rez views of the northern part of Bonaire. There are still some areas of Bonaire that are fuzzy and there are some clouds that get in the way, but the new imagery is still a very welcome improvement.

Here is a link to a Google Earth KML file that shows the track I obtained on my GPS receiver as I bicycled through the park. I took the long route (along the seashore) on my way in to Slagbaai and the short route (the only one open these days) back out to the park entrance.

So download this file, and save it to your hard drive. Then fire up Google Earth and click on "file" and "open", and navigate to the KML file that you just saved. On my computer, if I simply double click on the KML file, it all happens automatically.

Once you have the track through the park superimposed on the Google Earth image, it is pretty easy to take a virtual tour of the park. Zoom in on one your favorite spots, like Wayaka, and it is almost as good as being there.

If you still have a hard time identifying the various points of interest in the Park, have Google Earth running in one window and this map of the park open in another. (scroll down on the page a bit to get to the map)

Let me know how this works for you. I plan to add more Google Earth tours of Bonaire, from my bike rides, if it proves practical.

Gas Pains

The price for regular unleaded gas here on Bonaire just jumped up to about $5.86 per gallon (once you convert it from guilders and liters) this week.

The good news is that we don't drive that much these days. Maybe I should figure out how many miles I would need to ride to equal the price of a new bicycle, ha ha.

Comet Boattini Update

Sandra and I zoomed to the south end of Bonaire last night and observed Comet Boattini, and a bunch of other fun stuff in the southern skies. It got cloudy and hazy after a while, but it was still worth the drive to get away from the the ambient light of town.

The comet is easily visible in probably most any binoculars, but we still didn't spot it with our naked eye. This picture is a stack of 10 four second exposures, and shows the comet at the upper right of the middle of the picture. There are two "X"s that show roughly where the comet was on Thursday and Friday evenings. The comet is moving from upper left to lower right as one observes it in the western sky. There is a star at the bottom middle of the picture with a "y" by it. Its gamma Pyxis, and it and the star to it's upper left are visible with the naked eye. One of the stars to the left of the lower "x" is also visible with the naked eye.

This was our first night out with our binoculars in really dark skies and we were not disappointed. The area around the Southern Cross and Carina was really really beautiful in both pairs of binoculars. The keyhole nebula wasn't quite as nice as what I saw in Pierre's 22x60 Takahashi binos (probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in the sky other than a total solar eclipse), but the views, especially in the 10x50 Fujinon fmt-sx, were still exquisite. I can't wait for a look at the Sagittarius Milky Way star clouds this summer.

Leo was directly overhead and I could see M65 and M66 in both the 20x80 and the 10x50 binos. M65 looked more like a fuzzy star in the 10x50s. I could also just detect the nearby galaxy 3628 in the 20x80 binos. It was right at the limit of vision, but when I got home and compared what I saw with the binos, to a hi-rez view on the star charts at Cal-Sky dot com, I was spot on.

Tower Painting Update

The clear skies we've been enjoying this week are making for great stargazing. They also allowed me to get some nice telephoto shots of the crew that is cleaning and painting one of our antenna towers.The guys have to chip and scrape off all the rust, down to bare metal before they can apply the primer and paint, which is hard hard work even at ground level.
Benny says that they were working about 350 feet up when I took these pictures on Wednesday. Yikes!

Comet Update

Wow, there were no clouds in the evening sky last night. And the moon wasn't due to come up 'till 9:30 or so. Sandra and I set up the binoculars in our back yard, applied insect repellant, and did some comet and star gazing.

The comet had moved a little bit since the previous evening. That was encouraging because it confirmed that we were really looking at comet Boattini and not some miscellaneous background object in the sky.

Mars had also moved and was right in with the stars of the Beehive Cluster in Cancer. There was a little too much ambient light in our neighborhood to see the Beehive with the naked eye, but it was a beautiful site in the binos.

If the skies stay clear this weekend, we plan to head to a really dark site and see the stellar splendors in all their glory

Outdoor Activities on June 1

Miguel, of Bonaire Wellness, is kicking of a big month of fitness activities on June 1 with an afternoon mtn. bike race. The short but challenging course begins near the radio towers on the hill overlooking Rincon. Part of the race route is on donkey trails that most people have never seen. There are categories for all ages and levels of experience.

Also on June 1 is the annual Washington Park open house. There are all sorts of (free) fun and educational activities, and the park roads have been repaired for the event. This is the time of the year that I usually try for a personal best time when cycling through the main park loop. Smooth dirt roads are a lot faster than eroded and rutted ones. I've been sick a couple times this year, so my rides in the park these days are more survival rides than speed runs.

Here is a link to a page outlining the various attractions and activities at Washington Park on June 1. The cyclists in the picture at the top of the page are me, Miguel, and Frank.

Oh No! Another Comet

It seems like I've barely finished filling these pages with reports and pictures of Comet Holmes, and now there is a new "bright" comet gracing the evening skies.

Wednesday night was the first really clear night that we've had in a couple months. Fortunately it happened the night after the full moon. The moon wasn't scheduled to come up until 8:30, so Sandra and I zoomed out to one of our darkish star gazing spots to try out our new and "new to us" binoculars, and to try to spot Comet Boattini.

It turns out that the comet was easy to see in both the 10x50 and the 20x80 binos, but looked more interesting in the 20x80s. We couldn't spot it with our naked eye. We were quite pleased with the overall quality of the views delivered by the binoculars.

I took some 10 second long pictures and stacked a bunch of them. The comet is visible in the pictures, but not as impressive as it looked visually. I'll try to get some real pictures if the sky stays clear. The moon won't be up 'till about 9:30 tonight, whoo-whoo!

We have also seen three very nice International Space Station passes the last three evenings.

Here is a web page with a good chart showing where comet Boattini is each night.

Mars on the Move

A couple weeks ago, the planet Mars was right in line with Castor and Pollux, the Gemini Twins. It looked like there were Gemini Triplets!

Since then, it has been zooming (relatively speaking) towards the constellation Cancer. Over the next few nights Mars will sweep through the stars of the Beehive Cluster. It will be easy to see Mars change position from night to night, especially if you look through binoculars.
You can read about it online here.

It's still pretty hazy and cloudy here on Bonaire, but we'll head outside in case it clears up enough so that we can see the moving Mars show.
There is also an Iridium flare tonight and a International Space Station pass too, so it will be a good night to try out our new binoculars, weather permitting.

Tower Painting Time

Its that time of the year again, so a brave and hardy crew has assembled to clean and paint one of our antenna towers.
Its a loooong way up to the top!

Blasts from the Past

Sandra knew Sallie and Alex Turoczi (pictured below right) back when she was a kid living in Monte Carlo, Monaco. I met them in NJ 20+ years ago. The Turoczis have served on Guam with Trans World Radio as well. They recently visited TWR Bonaire, with their long time friends, Mel and Jan Albright. Pictured below are Don and Dianna Strong. There were here on Bonaire when I first came here in 1975. Their Spanish language program was the last thing on the schedule each night, before we turned off the transmitters and headed home around 2am. (Another team came in to resume broadcasting at 3am)
The Strongs were here with their kids, Everard and Miriam, and their families. I did shoot a few family portrait type pictures, but with their cameras, not mine. Maybe they'll email me one.

Pre-Race Photos

I recently wrote about doing some trail maintenance on one of the single track sections of our North race loop. I got so enthused in my bush cutting that I hurt my wrist and couldn't ride in the pre-race last Saturday. So I manned the stop watch and camera.I think a good title for the above picture is "are we having fun yet?" While riding around on a bike is a lot of fun, bike racing is a surprisingly painful endeavor. Sam, shown above, did his first lap at about the same pace as he did in last year's race. He slowed down on the next lap because his legs were still tired from the Kralendijk to Rincon running race he had participated in earlier in the week!
Miguel did four laps and rode a LOT faster than last year. When Miguel and some of our riding buddies go for a brisk before work fun ride, I have to ride at an all out race pace to stay with them. Shameless wheel sucking helps a lot too. :)
I don't think that John, shown above, did this race last year. He got in three good laps in this pre-race, even though his tire was slowly going flat. He should be ready to deal out some punishment to his riding buddies in June 1's race. The start/finish area, shown above, is the only smooth flat spot on the course. The rest is either super bumpy or super steep.

Clouds, the Moon, and Mercury

Yikes, it has been quite hazy and cloudy for weeks here on Bonaire. That was a good thing when I was out the other Saturday, clearing the thorn bushes from a bike riding trail, but it has wrecked the stargazing.

Last night the slender crescent Moon and Mercury were right next to each other in the west after sunset. We could see the moon peaking dimly through the clouds, but Mercury was hidden. I just saw a cool picture online from someone who had clear skies in Ireland.

Mercury is well placed in the evening sky for a week or so now, so get outside and look for it if you have a chance. Here is a brief article about where to look and what you'll see.

Trail Maintenance-Google Earth Map Improved

Bonaire Wellness has a couple mountain bike races coming up in the near future. A practice race is set for May 3 and a real race is scheduled for June 1. Of course, here on Bonaire, even a real race is pretty low key, and all ages and abilities are welcome. As I write this, the Bonaire Wellness website seems to be broken and my emails to it are bouncing back to me. So if you would like more info about either of the races, or if you would like a .kml file of the race course that you can open in your own copy of Google Earth, just email me. Above is the course profile. The altitude is in meters and the distance is in kilometers. The loop that makes up the race course is only about 2.4 miles long. The level of difficulty is deceptive however, especially if one does multiple laps. There is no place to rest/recover/regroup. The course is either super bumpy, which tends to beat you up physically, or it is climbing uphill. Different race classes ride from one to four laps of the course.
Above, you can see the course plotted on a Google Earth view of Bonaire. You'll have to click on the picture to see it bigger. Google Earth has greatly improved the resolution of their map of the North part of Bonaire. I'm really psyched about that, even though there are pesky clouds hiding some key areas.

I spent last Saturday morning cutting back thorn bushes that seem to grow like crazy and block the "donkey trail" part of the course each winter. Those thorn bushes don't give up without a fight and my arms and legs look like a cross between a pin cushion and a cat's scratching post. Miguel and Sam recently did a trail clearing session as well. So now we should be able to ride the course without collecting a bunch of cuts and bloody scratches. Miguel, of Bonaire Wellness Conexxions, calls them "souvenirs." I guess being an optimist is the first prerequisite to being a personal trainer/fitness program director!

White Coats

Renvi, one of the students at the St. James Medical School, invited us to their recent graduation - white coat ceremony, held at the beach level, north of the Lions Den restaurant.
Outgoing student govt. president, Rhett Nelson, pictured above, came to the school from a career as an EMT - paramedic. EZ, pictured below, came after a tour of duty with the US military. Rhett and EZ were regulars at the International Bible Church during their time on Bonaire. We'll miss them.

There are a couple nurse practicioners at the school, a married couple who are both still serving in the US Army, and of course, some kids right out of college. A whole bunch of nationalities are represented, making for a diverse and interesting student body.
In the picture below, Renvi and some of the other 35 graduates are reciting the Hippocratic Oath.

Long time readers of the blog may remember that the first graduation ceremony was held at the TWR activities building some three years ago. We continue to be very impressed by, and enjoy interacting with, the top quality young people participating in this intensive 16 month program.

Wide Eyed Wonder

TWR staff member, Ivan, is on the right. On the left is a pastor and denominational leader from Colombia who is visiting a sister church on Bonaire.

He told us that he's been listening to our Bible based radio programming for 40 years. He didn't have to tell us about the impact TWR has made on his life. The smile on his face and his wide eyed wonder as he toured the studio building said it all.

Church on the Move II

The International Bible Church of Bonaire held its first Sunday service in the High School auditorium last week. I recently posted a picture showing the location of the High School relative to some other downtown Bonaire landmarks. To make sure that no one gets lost, Walt parks his pickup with this sign at the end of the school driveway. The school auditorium was perfect for our group, and had great cross ventilation to keep us cool.
A big thank you goes to Lucy for these pictures!

Cruizerz

I heard this week that we are almost at the end of cruise ship season here on Bonaire. I know my biking buddy, Miguel, will be relieved. If he had a guilder for every person who asked him "where's the beach" while basically standing on it, he could retire a rich man. Long time Trans World Radio volunteers, Perry and Sally Zavitz dropped in at the office recently, when their cruise ship was in port. It was great to catch up on what all they've been up to since their last time on Bonaire.
We were hanging out at Rum Runners and saw this great Iguana sunning himself on the wall. Perry snapped this colorful image.

Dog Bed Upgrade

Well, we've upgraded and augmented our guest bed setup, adding a new futon in the TV room and moving the sofa bed to the carport. But anyone who wants to sleep on the sofa bed will have to clear it with the dogs first. We had thought of selling the sofa bed for some nominal sum, but we also needed new dog beds. We calculated that the cost of the materials for making dog beds would be as much or more than what we could sell the sofa bed for. So the dogs inherited the cushions, and the bed as well.
Actually we keep the sofa bed closed in sofa mode so we can pull the dune buggy right up to it in the car port. The dogs love sleeping on their new "couch cave."

Beach Bash

A bunch of the students attending the St. James medical school have been attending the International Bible Church. Graduation is coming up next week, so the IBC had a hang out with the med students beach party last Saturday. Here we see the students with Pastor Baran. The church has had activities for the med students, off and on, over the years. The young people are always fun to be with, sharp as a tack, and focused.
Amado Felix provided some shade tents to provide some relief from the sun.
There was LOTS of food.

Bonaire Bargains

Some necessities of life, like electricity at a little over $.40 per kilowatt hour, are pretty expensive here on Bonaire.

But some things are real bargains. For example, last week we took our three dogs to the vet for checkups, and the annual shots for two of them, and a wart frozen off of one. All that, plus a previous visit for a "barf shot" to empty the puppy's stomach after he ate a poisonous blue tail lizard, only cost us $59!

Yesterday, Sandra and I flew to Curacao for the day to see a medical specialist. During her lifetime, Sandra has seen this type of doctor on three continents, likes this one better than any of them, and the office visit yesterday cost us a mere $30.90. What a deal. Over the next four months Sandra is going to transition into a new medication, which we hope will work better, with fewer side effects, than what she has been on for the last 25 years or so. If our next family photo shows her with two heads, you'll know that it didn't work!

Of course, travel to the Dr.'s office yesterday cost us about $250, so we'll just chalk that up as a one day mini vacation. After all, creeping around Curacao's ring road in bumper to bumper traffic, and eating lunch at Mc Donalds IS a big change from Bonaire. ha-ha

By the way, I want to put in a good word for the ticket and gate agent (same guy) of Divi Divi Airlines in Curacao. Because of those traffic jams, we got to the airport at the very last minute and it was only because Divi Divi went above and beyond the call of duty that we weren't stuck in Curacao for the night. Thank you Divi Divi!

IBCB on the Move

The International Bible Church of Bonaire is moving to a new location. After calling the activities building of Trans World Radio home for nine years, the IBC is going to be having its Sunday morning services and Friday evening kids club in the auditorium at the SGB or local high school.

The IBC is planning to build its own church building in the Hotel Row / southern Hato area. The church has a building fund goal of two hundred thousand guilders for a user friendly, but not elaborate facility. The building fund stands at about thirty thousand guilders right now.

The IBC has a new Internet presence too, at http://www.bonaireibc.org/. You can visit the site, but there is no actual content there as of this morning. That will probably change soon.

The picture I've posted here shows the location of the church's new home at the Aula, or high school auditorium, relative to some other Bonaire landmarks, like Cultimara and the big satellite dishes of Flamingo TV. You can click on the picture to see it full screen. The Sunday morning is at 9 am and visitors are always welcome.

Reworked Comet Holms Picture

I posted a picture of comet Holmes and the California nebula back on March 10. I've played around with that picture a bunch more since then, while the moon was bright during the non-stargazing part of the month.

I've come up with another rendition of that picture that I like better.

But I'm not completely satisfied yet, so I'll continue to experiment with that picture as I learn more about astro-photo processing.

The star at the lower left corner of the image has a fuzzy area by it. It is IC348 and shows up well on this renditionof the picture.

The moon is gone from the evening sky now, but we haven't been out observing yet. Maybe this weekend.

Dog Update

I haven't posted a puppy update for quite some time. The black dog in the foreground, without a collar, is the 9 month old puppy. The black dog with the collar is the 9 year old and the brown and grey/black one is 6 years old.
They love chasing the ball. Actually one dog chases the ball, and the second dog chases and attacks the first dog. That's why their collars are off. Grabbing another dog's collar is considered cheating. It's much better sportsmanship to just grab a mouthful of neck.

Southern Cross in March

If one stays up late enough, the Southern Cross comes up in the far south. This picture shows the southern cross at the lower left corner of the picture. It looks like a kite, or diamond, with three blue-white stars at the sides and bottom, and a yellow one at the top. The dark area at the corner of the picture, to the lower left of the Southern Cross, is a dark nebula called the Coal Sack. Sunday night was the first time that Pierre observed it from Bonaire, and the second for me. Now Pierre has seen it really well from Namibia and Chile, but that's another story.

The Eta Carina nebula and some big open clusters are towards the upper right of the picture.
The nebula is reddish in color. It looked absolutely amazing Sunday night in Pierre's 22x60 Takahashi binoculars. I liked the view even better than the big Orion nebula. Those large star clusters were naked eye objects Sunday night. Bob Fitzgerald used to call them "lights in the sky" and that's certainly what they resembled that night.

I didn't do that much post processing to this picture, as opposed to the one of the comet that I posted a day or so ago. I stretched the contrast of that one like crazy to make the comet and nebula show up. This part of the sky looked great right out of the camera, which is cool, since it looked so awesome live.

There is some haze at the bottom of the image that I could probably clean up. I'm hoping to image this part of the sky some more in the months to come, so I probably won't invest too much time in this picture... unless we have cloudy nights and I get the star gazing stir crazies.

There is a larger version of this picture here.

March Milky Way Madness

I usually get excited about the Milky Way a little later in the year, when Scorpius, Sagitarius, and Scutum are high in the sky. But this past Sunday, the Milky Way running from Orion, on down to the Southern Cross was just beautiful. Pierre and I were set up out at our South End Roadside Observatory. Since he and Marlies are heading back to Switzerland soon, this was probably Pierre's last moonless observing session on Bonaire. And boy was it a good one.

This picture, a combination of two shots made with a 85mm lens, shows a part of the Milky Way that was running a little to the East of Canus Major. I've labled some stars and lots of star clusters, most of which we've observed in Pierre's big binoculars. There are a few objects that turned up in the photo that I'll still need to chase down in the sky some day.

There is a larger version of this image here, for those of you who have a fast Internet connecton and want to see a little more detail.

Comet Holmes (one last time)

Well, maybe for the last time. Comet Holmes has been in the vicinity of the California Nebula for a while now. We finally had a clear dark night last night so I could try to capture the pair.

These objects are quite faint, as seen from Bonaire. If we head to a dark site we can just barely see the comet in 10x70 binoculars. I've never seen the California Nebula, except in pictures.

The skies were about as good as it gets on Bonaire last night. Pierre did a lot of binocular observing and I shot a bunch of pictures Sunday night, at our South End roadside observatory. I'll post some others over the next few days. And then I'll probably revisit these images in the future as my astro photo processing skills improve.

The California Nebula is the long red thing. The comet is the round thing to its immediate right.

American Airlines Fare Sale

The Bonaire Insider sent me an email alert that American Airlines is running a Spring fare sale to the Caribbean that includes travel to Bonaire.

You have to book your tickets by March 18 and travel between April 1 and May 22.

So if "time is money" is your motto, you may still prefer the direct Continental and Delta flights. But if cost is a consideration, these American Airlines fares just might be the hot setup.

800AM Listeners Visit Bonaire

There were two cruise ships in port, here on Bonaire, the other day. We had four groups of visitors stop by the TWR studios. These two guys met on their ship, through their wives, got to talking and discovered that even though they had lived in different countries before emigrating to Canada, they had something in common. Both had listened to TWR Bonaire back in their younger years. So when they landed on Bonaire, they made it their mission to try and locate the station that was an important part of youth.
Peter, on the left, originally from Guyana, and Kennedy, originally from Barbados, shared with us many fond memories of radio listening during their growing up years.