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…