A day of wonderful experiences for all!

Eric and Philippe stayed at Taiohae to allow students and people from the village to watch the transit. Cédric built with his students a cardboard-based camera obscura (actually a few of them!) which proved to be very effective! Philippe found a problem which arose on his refractor at the end of the star gazing yesterday. It was back in good shape in time for the transit.

All the college classes as well as the three elementary school classes came and took turn to see Venus in front of the Sun first with the eyes thanks to eclipse glasses brought from Hawaii and offered by the Mauna Kea Visitor Station.  The next stop in the Taiohae Venus Transit Tour station was Philippe’s reflector, with the whole Sun and many spots in addition to Venus itelf. The tour culminated with a close-up at Venus through Eric’s C11.

It stopped only when the Sun set, early, behind the mountains towering the village everywhere (but toward South…). The weather behaved, with only a couple of interruptions due to clouds passing by!

Christian left the village at 6:30am for Terre Déserte and the airport. A long winding road, half of it in the fog this morning. Its highest point is a bit above 1000m , cows or horses are free to wander around, and there quite a few places where there is just one lane… Fortunately, not that many cars: a blessing for this one hour long trip!

Set-up at the airport took some time, as the wind was blowing and not as stable as was hoped on Sunday when we arrived. The staff at the control tower was wonderful and I could get the equipment ready with some time to spare to check the setup. The weather was clear, but for a very small cloud which came in just at the time of the beginning of the transit.

The wind was clearly an issue, even though it was not that strong. The length of the tube joined to the need to make the base of the tripod narrow to accommodate the  8 deg latitude of the place did not help the mount to be as stable as it should. It was going to be difficult, if not just impossible, but could still work!

Nothing at the beginning of the transit… nothing a couple of minutes later… No just no aureole… but no transit. Something was wrong! Indeed, moving along the edge of the Sun (the field of view is very small) finally brought the transit area in the field. A severe misalignment! Too late to re-orient the whole coronograph… Still nice to watch, in-spite of the horrible shaking. Nothing aureole-wise as the coronograh was not used and the images are just too bad. More information on what happened once I know for sure about it… and once I am back in Hawaii. Our Expedition started barely three days ago and there is much to accomplish in the coming 12 days!

In addition to the staff of the airport, a few people walked up to the tower and watched the transit in the afternoon, including the crew of a military jet from the French Marines doing patrols and rescue missions in the area. We had a nice discussion about astronomy as well as about their job!

Calling CQ on the air for half an hour, using one of the HF antennas of the airport tower, did not bring any answer. I had a good contact with a station in ZL, and could not break in a few QSOs going for ages between “old friends”… So, we are done with TX5VT from Nuku Hiva. Let’s hope for less busy times on the next islands 😉 Stay tuned…

The sun was rapidly diving in the ocean, so time to pack everything and hit the road to at least ride part of it in daylight. The ride back took longer, with fog again, and more cows and horses on the road… In Taiohae, the rest of the team was happily waiting and we had a good dinner and more talks. Signing off now… (past midnight already!)

A busy day for our team, completely devoted to Education and Public Outreach.

We spent the morning at the College where we saw the students of more than 10 different classes in three groups. From 6th to 10th graders, all groups were exposed to the size, age, and diversity of our universe, from close to far way! it was a real pleasure for us to share the talking, especially when commenting CFHT wide-field images to illustrate the life cycle of stars, move to our galaxy, or describe the interaction between galaxies.

We briefly visited the primary school to tell the 3rd/4th/5th graders about the observations of the Transit of Venus the following day: an announcement which was received we much excitement manifested by the students!

After a short sightseeing at the Petit Quai, we came back home to prepare for the evening. Christian finished to prepare his talk about the Transit of Venus for the studenst and the population, while Eric and Philippe checked their instrument for the star gazing to follow.

The college is a boarding school and all the boarders joined us for the evening, with quite a few people from the village too! In spite of some clouds passing by, everyone had a chance to look at the Moon and Saturn and ask questions to team. A good time for all… A late dinner and much talking around the dinner table at Cédric’ and Kamel’s place led us to bed very late… too late to write something on this blog. before Transit Day. Sorry!

Just too much to do to find the time to put TX5VT on the air. For anyone waiting, please be patient!

Night was at Roland’s home, very short (2hr!) as we happily talked for too long and had to be at the airport at 4am to register the freight which came with me from Hawaii. Philippe and Eric arrived a bit later, as their boxes had been registered yesterday. Waiting for boarding the plane passed very fast as we had much talking to do: it was the first time for our little team to physically meet!

A short stop on Hiva Oa and we arrived at around 11:00am on Nuku Hiva. All the boxes were there, looking pretty good!

Eric and I met Pierrot Tata, in charge of the airport for Aviation Civile. He offered us a convenient  location for Venus TEx close to the “control tower”. A nice office with power and a good outside space facing west well protected from the prevailing winds (coming from the East).

We have a vehicle  for the three days we are here, which will come handy on Tuesday when our team splits between Taiohae and Terre Déserte.

The drive from the airport to the village took us more than an hour, as we stopped here and there to enjoy the wonderful landscape and take some pictures…. Finding Cédric was also challenging as we mixed up names… but we made it! A wonderful early evening afternoon gathering with Cédric and Kamel, with the Moon rising over the bay and even an ISS pass,  was concluded au Petit Quai at chez Henry for a late dinner. Now back home writing this blog while enjoying a wonderful dessert prepared by Kamel.

Time to go to bed…

Did I mention that the equipment  was checked and looked good so far? More tests tomorrow!

Bien arrivé à Tahiti !

The boxes are here too, and they look good 😉
Here is Box2 showing up at the baggage claim.

Claude, Philippe, Roland and Tupuai welcomed me at the airport and I received the traditional leis (like in Hawaii!).

One flight already behind, waiting for the next one (Honolulu to Papeete). More packing between yesterday afternoon and this morning, after a second Venus-TEx setup which went very well.

Two boxes for the freight (30kg and 21kg – not too bad).

– Box 1 with the tripod, the two halves of the telescope, cables for the radio setup and various other power supply cabling.

– Box 2 with the mount, the telescope lens, the radio, accessories for the mount and radio, radio laptop, CCD camera and filter/polarizer.

The rest is spread in my carry on and computer bag.

Box 2 was opened (very carefully…) and checked for explosive traces in kona. Box 1 was left alone… a good thing as its packing was challenging!

They both made it in the plane to HNL.

More from Tahiti!

Time to put this blog to good use…

Venus Transit is in four days, and departure from Hawaii in just one day… and quite a few things still to do!

The past few weeks have been pretty busy organizing from afar the activities on the first two Islands (Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa). We are in good shape, thanks to Cédric and Benoît, our correspondents on site. We finally got our tickets and the new schedule is on the web. Go check it if you want to know when we are where…

The Aviation Civile has cleared our stay at the Huku hiva Airport for the Venus-TEx observations at the time of the transit, while public viewing will be set up close to the middle school in Taiohae.

The Venus-TEx equipment has finally been checked, once issues with the mount (IEQ-45) were solved. I had not realized that, at low latitude, the tripod of the mount comes in the way of either the counterweight or the telescope itself. You should use a pier instead of a tripod. Too bad… I finally added metallic shims between the top of each tripod leg and the mount base. It makes the tripod less open, enough to let the mount move all around while keeping the overall balance of the tripod good. I cut a piece of wood to add on top of the original tripod securing plate to accommodate the smaller spread of the legs, and it works well. You can see the piece of wood and barely make out the shims on the two visible legs on this picture.

The Venus-TEx telescope is definitely big… Was good to have high ceilings in the living room during all this fiddling with the mount!

Made tests in my garden and tracking is reasonable with a careful setting of the tripod (to North and horizontal). So, no need to set up at night using Polairs. Good!

Never checked how bad the seeing (the stability of the image of heavenly bodies after their light goes through the atmosphere) was at home… and it is very bad, especially with the trade winds blowing over Waimea and clouds passing by! I guess usually observing at Mauna Kea sets some high standards seeing-wise… Very short exposures don’t help either when looked at in a movie: it is really dancing all around the place! Overall, things look good. I will set everything up again later today before packing the equipment.

More later…