Antenna Tower Work

Jim and Connie Hulse, and two others from Towers for Jesus, are here on Bonaire for a few weeks.  The are upgrading the guy wires on out towers with new corona rings and insulators.

Pictures are Bob (upper left) from Towers for Jesus and Lionel (lower right) from TWR Bonaire up on a tower.  You can see the new components on the ends of the guy wires.

Cloudy Skies

It has been generally cloudy for the last week or so.  And not the usual fluffy fast moving Bonaire clouds, but big heavy duty rain and thunder type clouds.  Like the ones I saw at noon today.

Moon occults Venus Friday

If you are here on Bonaire, the Moon might occult Venus tonight from 7pm to 7:30.

According to the "Stellarium" software on my laptop, the dark side of the teeny tiny crescent moon will pass right in front of Venus tonight, beginning around 7pm. Looks like Venus will be completely hidden by 7:30pm.

If the skies are clear tonight, be sure to check it out, especially if you have binoculars.

Planet Update, September 1

1.  Be sure to look low in the West right after sunset on Friday to try to spot a teeny tiny crescent moon near Venus and Jupiter.

2.  Higher in the sky, Mars has continued to zoom to the left (East,) leaving Antares and Saturn behind. Tonight, they are supposed to form a perfect Isosceles triangle.  You can compare the planet's positions in this shot with ones I posted last week.

The picture below is a test panorama made up of nine shots. The final image will be made up from 42 shots, and I'll be able to print it poster size. It probably won't look much different here on the Internet through. There was a surprising amount of haze down low in the sky that night, so I'll always be hoping for clearer skies.

Venus and Jupiter Conjunction

We could see both Venus and Jupiter tonight with the naked eye, but they are quite close together. The photo on the right shows about how the planets looked visually from our back yard.

The bottom photo is through a telescope. Venus is to the upper right in both photos and Jupiter is to the lower left.




Jupiter's four main moons are lined up nicely to the upper left of Jupiter. The one waaaay to the upper left of Jupiter is Callisto. Europa (L) and Ganymede (R) are side by side much closer to Jupiter. And last but not least, Io is the one closest to Jupiter.

Planet Parade This Weekend

Venus and Jupiter are getting close together in the evening sky. Check them out Friday evening a little after sunset. Look again Saturday evening and try to see if you can spot both planets without the aid of binoculars! They should be super close together on Saturday evening.

This picture is a screen shot from Stellarium software and shows what you should see in the west on Friday evening shortly after sunset.

The picture below is the Scorpius region of the sky as seen from Spelonk last night. Mars has noticeably moved more to the left of that imaginary line between Antares and Saturn.

Mars Moved, Whoo Whoo!

 
 
Mars moved between last night and tonight!   Last night, Mars was just to the right of an imaginary line drawn between Antares and Saturn. Tonight Mars is just to the left of said imaginary line.

The shot to the right is from last night's session at Coco Beach (where Hotel Bonaire used to be.)

The shot below is from tonight, as seen from our back yard in Hato.


You'll probably need to look at the larger versions to see my labels.

Mars and Saturn in Scorpius

Mars and Saturn are close together near the head of Scorpius.

Antares, Mars, and Saturn made an almost straight line tonight, and will do so again tomorrow night.

Here is a shot from the beach across the street from the TWR offices, by the traffic circle in Hato.

Venus, Mercury and Jupiter

Venus, Mercury and Jupiter are pretty close together in the evening sky right now.

Venus is to the lower right. Jupiter is in the middle, and Mercury is to the left.

On Saturday, Aug. 27, Venus and Jupiter might be so close together that you'll need binoculars to tell them apart. That sounds like fun. I hope we have clear skies.

Starry Nights

 
 
We had some very nice clear skies Thursday and Friday nights.  I went down to the south end with different groups of people each night.  Besides just enjoying the starry beauty, I shot some pictures with a 14mm lens on Thursday and then many more with a 35mm lens on Friday night.

Here is a preliminary panorama made from the 35mm shots.  I've got some more images of the slave huts that I'll try compositing over the distorted huts in this picture.  There are enough pixels in the original file to print it at 39" by 21" at 300dpi.

The second picture is a cropped out section of the large image, to show some of the detail that is there.

Moon and Planetary Parade

The moon and planets put on a show last night.

Venus is between two palm trees towards the lower right. The moon is towards the middle with Mercury just to its upper right. And then Jupiter shines towards the upper left side of the frame.

It was quite a site, more dramatic in person than in the pictures, unlike the Milky Way.

You'll probably need to look at the large version of the image to see the Planets well.

Visits to TWR360 from 226 Countries / Territories in June

Many of the radio programs that we have on the air here at TWR Bonaire can also be found online at TWR360.  There is now audio and video content in 45 languages, and from 144 ministries and churches.

Three languages spoken on the Indian sub continent were added in June.  They are Punjabi, Gujarati and Tamil.

The International Bible Church of Bonaire is on TWR360  as well.

In June there were almost 581,000 visits to TWR360 using a browser.  The top five countries in descending order were:  Brazil, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and USA.

There were about 10,000 visits to TWR360 using Android and iOS apps last month.  New improved TWR360 apps should be in the app "stores" by mid to late August.

There are also 7,500 TWR360 followers on Facebook, 1,168 followers on Twitter and a little over 1,000 users coming to TWR360 from Roku devices, as well.

Larger Panorama

This is a panorama made up of more frames than the one I posted yesterday.  My laptop didn't have the horsepower to assemble this large scale pano.  But, my desktop was able to do it.

This pano is made up of 35 separate shots.  I filled in a couple gaps, so this isn't a scientifically accurate image.  But I'm happy with what I was able to do with just a camera, tripod and the two second timer on the shutter release.

You can click on this thumbnail to see it larger.
This would print at 27" by 21" at 300dpi. but I'm still hoping for a clearer night, maybe this year, maybe next...

Scorpius

Here is another picture from the other night.  Still a ten second exposure, but it is a stack of five of them, which helps reduce the noise.

This frame shows the level of detail contained in the panorama, if one were to print it in a large size.

The second image has the outline of Scorpius, as well as various Messier objects and NGC objects labeled.

You can click on the pictures to see them larger.

TWR 360 Update

Many of the radio programs that we have on the air here at TWR Bonaire can also be found online at TWR360.  There is audio and video content in 42 languages and from 133 ministries and churches.  The International Bible Church of Bonaire is on TWR360 now as well.

New improved TWR360 apps for iPhone and Android will be unveiled in June.  Most visitors currently use Web browsers though.

In April there were almost 600,000 visits to TWR360 using a browser.  The top five countries in descending order were:  Brazil, India, Indonesia, Ukraine, and USA.  There were about 10,000 visits to TWR360 using Apps last month. 

There are also almost 7,000 TWR360 followers on Facebook, and a little over 1,000 users coming from Roku, as well.

Southern Cross and Red Slave

I took a LOT of pictures both Thursday and Friday nights and then combined them into a five rows by three columns panorama.  I could have imaged the whole thing with a wide angle lens, but I wanted to catch as much detail as possible.

I used an 85mm lens on a Canon T1i (500D) crop sensor camera that has a modified IR filter.  This allows as more of the red nebula color to reach the imaging sensor.

If I were to print the original image at 300dpi, it would be around 25inches by 30 inches.  (63x76cm)
Here is a downsized version.  I'm still thinking of making a copy with the various clusters and nebulae labeled, but I won't get to it today.

Starry Nights

It has been very cloudy and hazy lately, which is great for bike riding and for working outdoors, but not good for stargazing.  Last night was quite clear.
I'm working on a picture similar to my recent Large Magellanic Cloud over the slave huts picture.  This new one will have the Southern Cross and Eta Carina Nebula over the slave huts.
The LMC picture was a single image.  This one will be a three row by three column panorama, which I hope I can print big.  I've got the top row stitched together, but haven't yet worked on the middle row or the bottom row.  So I still don't know if this is going to work or not.

The original pano is 8500 x 3500 pixels in size.  This image has been downsized to 1024 by 400-ish.  The Southern Cross is on the left side of the image.  It looks like a diamond shaped kite.  The bottom three stars are bluish and the one at the tip of the kite is yellowish.
The Eta Carina nebula is the large reddish blob towards the right side of the picture.  There are quite a few other nebulae and clusters visible in the image as well.
For example, IC2602, the open cluster at the bottom edge of the image, below the Eta Carina nebula, is commonly known as the Southern Pleiades.  There are also nice clusters to the upper left and lower right of the Eta Carina nebula.  There are a few small clusters in and around the Southern Cross.  And then there is the "Coal Sack" dark nebula to the lower left of the Southern Cross.

Antenna Tower Project Completed

On April 15, our guys finished up the first phase of a multi-year project replacing all the cross braces on all four of our antenna towers. Phase two will involve the double braces on the towers.

They've been working at this since 2009, as far as I can remember. The old cross braces were rusting out, so the new braces are thicker and have more galvanizing on them.

Here is a picture of some of the first batch of replacement parts and paint that were delivered in back in 2009, and of some of the old cross braces that were just replaced this year.




Each year, we received an additional shipment of parts and paint like the one pictured above.

New Version of the LMC

I just did some more work on my picture of the Large Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy as seen over Red Slave on January 30.  I tend to think of all of my astronomy images as "works in progress."  I frequently go back to the original raw files and try out new processing techniques.

 

There are a couple more things i want to do with this image, but it is cool enough now that i made a version to use as desktop wallpaper.  This version is somewhat smaller.

 

That night, with my naked eye, i could just barely barely detect that there was a slight glow in the sky where the LMC was supposed to be located.  A three minute exposure with the camera pulled in a lot more photons and made the LMC pop.

 

Here is a link to my original post, back on Jan. 30.

Did you know that even if you can't hear our gospel programs on the air from TWR Bonaire, you can probably find them online at TWR360! There is audio and video from 126 ministries, in 42 languages on TWR360. Check out www.twr360.com today. There are also twr360 apps for your Android or iOS devices.

A new improved version of the TWR360 Web site went live earlier this year. Be sure to check it out if you haven't visited lately. Updated apps are also in the works.

TWR360 Video Network is now on Roku! If you have a Roku device, TWR360 is now available to you as a streaming app on that platform. More than 1000 Roku users downloaded the TWR360 Roku app during the first month.

Here are the top 10 countries, in descending order, visiting TWR360 from a Web browser in March: Brazil, Russia, India, USA, Indonesia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Sudan, Kenya and Mexico.


Here are the top 10 countries, in descending order, visiting TWR360 in March, using one of the apps: USA, India, Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Russia.

Iggy Iguana Visits TWR

We beam programming in the Portuguese language to the Amazon region of Brazil each morning from 3am to 5am. These radio programs come to us in real time from the São Paulo office on Brasilsat.

Pictured behind Iggy is the Andrews 4.6m dish that we use to receive the Brazil feed. The tower in the background is a small piece of the original antenna tower that was erected at the transmitter site back in 1964. It now supports STL antennas that point South to the AM transmitter site, and North to the FM transmitter site.

Washington Park Scenes

I went on a bike ride in Washington Park a couple weeks ago.  The sky was super clear that day so I ended up taking a lot of pictures and not riding all that far.  It worked out fine since I'm still working at getting up to speed after my cycling crash in December and being off the bike in Jan. and Feb.

There are always some great views when first entering the park.  The roads were in good shape here, but more rugged in other places.

Here is a view of a quite different type of terrain that can be found along the coast.

Moon and Planets

When I was up on Seru Largu this past Sunday morning setting up for the annual Easter Sunrise Service, I noticed Mars hanging out near Antares at the head of Scorpius.  They both looked Orangey-Red.  Mars will be getting brighter over the next month or two.

This morning, the Moon arrived on the scene, and Saturn, the Moon and Mars made a triangle in the sky.  The moon was still pretty bright, but I could still pick out the main stars of Scorpius.

The first image is a wide shot of the moon, planets and a few stars.   You'll probably want to click on these images to see them full size.

 

Below is a cropped shot where the Moon is properly exposed and Saturn and Mars are by the edges of the frame.  Mars is down in the bottom right corner of the cropped photo and Saturn is towards the upper left side of the frame.

Not So Brainless Quadrupeds

The Bonaire drivers manual back in the day warned us to watch out for brainless quadrupeds on the roadway.  I guess they might have been referring to donkeys, goats, dogs and the like.  Ever since then we've had fun identifying the various types of brainless bipeds we encounter on the roads here.

Well, the donkeys aren't so brainless after all.  These spy photos, taken from the TWR parking lot in Hato, have found them out.  The donkeys mill around looking all forlorn and woebegone, until they lure in some unsuspecting tourist type.  Then they swarm around the car and pounce, as seen in this action sequence.

 

 

View from the Back Door

Here is the view today, from the TWR Bonaire office here on Bonaire.

 

It was inspiring to walk out the door and see the blue sky and the blue Caribbean.

Sunset with Tower, Cacti, and Birds

Some birds flew through the frame during the sunset video I recently posted.  They really zoom by at the 4X playback speed.  Maybe a half dozen frames had birds in them. 

Here is one of the frames with the birds in it.

Sunset Video

Here is a video of the Sun setting behind one of the towers at TWR Bonaire.  It is at 4X speed so it only takes a minute to play, instead of the four minutes it took to film it.

Mystery Object

 

We found this extender card while rummaging around at the TWR Bonaire studios.

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what device it might be used with?

Sunset Video

Here is a two minute clip of the sun setting over the ocean.  There is a teeny tiny green flash at the end.  It looks best at 1080P and full screen.

Sunset - Moonrise

 

Sandra and I journeyed  to the southernmost point of Bonaire Monday evening to watch the Sun set and the Moon rise within a few minutes of each other. 

 

Here are a some shots of the sunset.

 

Sunset - Moonrise II

The Sun set around 18:41 and the Moon rose at 18:44 on Monday evening.

Sandra and I went out to Red Slave to enjoy the show.  We both were also capturing the scene with cameras.

Here are a few pictures of the Moonrise by the Willemstoren lighthouse.

 

Sunset Through a Telescope

Tyler and Tim were at the TWR transmitter site again last night. They are working on a super duper sunset time lapse. I got them situated and then drove over to the Sorobon road and shot a picture of the sun setting behind a tower as seen through a Mead ETX 90 telescope. According to Google Maps, i was 1.28 miles from the tower. (2.07 km)

 

That green rim at the top of the sun is not chromatic aberration from the lens, because a mirror telescope doesn't produce chromatic aberration. The green rim at the top and red rim at the bottom is the atmosphere acting like a prism and refracting the sunlight. This is basically where the green flash comes from. The green part of the Sun's image sets last.

 

Evening at the TWR Bonaire TX Site

 

 

I was out at the TWR Bonaire transmitter site last night to check out the sunset.

Tyler Gates, from the TWR office in NC is here shooting video and hoping to get a sunset time lapse at the transmitter site. So was hanging out there too.

I came up with a crummy time lapse, but got a couple interesting photos.

One of the sun setting right next to a tower, and one of the moonlit scene after it got fully dark.

Aerial Views of Bonaire 2016

Back around 2006, before there were affordable drones, I had a wonderful time flying around the island  in the flying club's plane with TWR missionary Ernie Franke, and shooting a bunch of pictures from the air.  You can find some of the shots on the blog.

Then in 2013, Susan Davis, at InfoBonaire, alerted me to some new aerial views of Bonaire.  These images were actually serving as an innovative advertising tool, but I loved seeing Bonaire from the unique aerial perspectives.  You can see our house on the right side of the Hato-North image, for example.

Recently, Paul Donahue, the man behind the Aerial Views of Bonaire visited us at the TWR office.  He shared how he came up with the concept and tested it in his home stomping grounds on the Gulf Coast of Florida.  Back before the Internet, these aerial views were printed on big posters and displayed around town, so to speak.  His business, Resort Graphics International, has really taken off since then (yes that's a pun) with great aerial imagery of quite a number of resort areas around Florida and the Caribbean.

Besides providing a unique advertising portal for a limited number of paying customers, Paul also donates some links on the Aerial Views maps to non-profit organizations.  So if you browse through the Bonaire images, for example, you'll see the Donkey Sanctuary and Trans World Radio identified.
So thank you very much Paul Donahue, for creating these cool aerial views, and for your generous heart as well.

Be sure to check out these awesome aerial images of Bonaire.

Orion Nebulae

I shot a couple pictures of the constellation Orion the other night.  It wasn't as clear as the night I got the LMC pictures, but it was still pretty good.  Seeing these images has me wanting to get back out and try to frame the constellation better.  I took four 3 minute exposures and combined them into a panorama in Lightroom.

I drew some lines on the wide field shot so you can see the outline of Orion, the belt and the sword.  Betelgeuse is the orange star on the left side and Rigel is the blue white star on the right side.  All the red stuff swooping around the scene is nebulosity.  It is known as the Orion molecular cloud complex.
For the second image, I cropped in to the sword and belt area so you can see more detail, like the flame nebula, the horsehead nebula, the running man nebula, and M42 the Orion Nebula.

If I don't get back out to image Orion again this year, due to haze, the waxing moon, etc.  I'll probably have another go at processing these shots.  I usually come back to them after some time ahs passed and try different techniques.

Another TWR360 Update

We're starting to promote www.TWR360.org heavily on the air, here at TWR Bonaire. An all new and improved version of TWR360 will be rolling out in two stages later this month. Check it out now and come back later to see the changes.

There is audio and video in 42 languages online now. There is a twr360 app for your phone too.

TWR360 received a record number of visitors in January, 639,524 to be exact, from 224 Countries and Territories.

There was a new one day record of 21,568 visitors on January 26.

Brazil again lead the way in visits from Web browsers. The rest of the top 10 countries, in descending order, are: Russia, the USA, India, Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Ukraine, the Netherlands and Mexico.

The USA lead the way last month, among visitors using Android and iOS Apps to visit TWR360. The rest of the top 10 countries connecting by apps include: India, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the United Kingdom.

Large Magellanic Cloud

I haven't seen the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy, since 2010.  But I've been hankering to try to get a better picture of it, with some foreground objects in there for scale.

 

The night sky looked pretty clear tonight, so I zoomed out to Red Slave to see if I could get a shot. The LMC is only about 6 or 7 degrees above the horizon at its highest, so the sky has to be very clear to be able to see it.

 

There was some light haze, but I was lucky enough to get a couple shots when the LMC was located in a hole in the haze. This is a three minute exposure with a 85mm lens working at f2 and ISO 800.