I get up around 7AM and make some coffee, and others soon join me. This is a day with nothing planned, so we can recover from our travel. After everyone is up and have breakfast, some of us walk around the ranch fence line. It is quite pleasant since the weather is cool, clear, and sunny. I fly my DJI Mavic Pro drone this morning, capturing some nice still photos, panoramas and video of my friend’s property.
Aerial of Dragoon Ranch looking NW from Garry’s place
Some of the group have afternoon naps, but I stay up familiarizing myself with my new Sony a7 III mirrorless camera, in order to get ready for imaging in the dark this evening. I also get my list of targets for the big imaging telescope ready, since the skies are clearing this evening. When it starts to get dark, we go out to the observatory to start an imaging run using a 20″ Newtonian astrograph telescope, and the visual observers setup with their own equipment and also use a 25″ Newtonian telescope.
The procedure for imaging in the observatory uses a script to conduct the imaging runs automatically. After troubleshooting this system for the next hour or so, we successfully get our imaging runs working, which run all night automatically until dawn while we sleep. My target for this evening is the Jellyfish Nebula – a galactic supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini. My observing report
Garry reserved (a few days ago) the Big Room Tour for the Kartchner Caverns for this afternoon. We depart around 1PM so we have time to look around the visitor centre before the tour starts. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed, and they even insist that we leave our cellphones behind in a locker. The tour starts by everyone being taken up the hill in a tram, and then we enter the caverns through a series of doors and air locks. The Big Room is indeed very big, and the history of the caves is interesting, with lots of stalagmites, stalactites, and other cave objects to see. We also learn about the bats who inhabit the cave and use it as a nursery.
On the way back, we go to the Benson Golf Course for dinner. It is a modest place, but the food is good and reasonably priced. This is our last meal together, since we leave tomorrow for home or further travels.
We head back home to do some observing – my last night observing from this special place. We struggle to get focusing working while using the Ha filter, and eventually have to admit defeat. Once the system is restored back to normal settings, I image an object that interests me – NGC 2174, an emission & reflection nebula. I stay inside the house to keep warm while the system takes the images automatically until the series finishes at 2AM. A couple of my astronomy buddies get up at this time to observe Omega Centauri (photo), so I join them to have a look before heading off to bed. My observing report
Today is a “down day”, meaning we have no daytime activities planned, so the group can relax and do what they want. I catch up with my social media and email, and work on my journal entries. My blog is still behind – the last entry was for Victoria-Seattle – the first days of my travels, but at least I now have the material to write those blog posts.
It is my turn on the imaging telescope this evening, but when we try to take some flat frames before sunset, the sensor ices up. This means the desiccant inside the CCD camera is saturated with moisture, and needs to be baked so it dries out to make it effective again. Dealing with this issue delays my imaging session of M1 the Crab Nebula by an hour and a half, however I am imaging on the 20” Newtonian Astrograph by 9:20PM and wind up my run just after midnight. Without a doubt, this is my best image of the Crab Nebula. The detail within the object is fantastic, and this is the first time I’ve imaged the green fringe around the nebula! My observing report
As mentioned in my previous post, today’s early morning hours are my last evening under the dark skies at La Ensenada “Star” Lodge, so this will be an all-night effort to observe and photograph celestial objects. I have a good sleep after yesterday’s dinner, awakening at 12:30am and go down to the ridge line where my Astrotrac is setup. My mission is to photograph a widefield of the Southern Cross to Eta Carina region in the southern hemisphere region I can’t see from my home on the west coast of Canada. Once I polar align the Astrotrac, I setup my Hutech-modified Canon XTi dSLR and set my 70-200mm zoom lens to 70mm – just wide enough to frame the Crux and Carina constellations.
There are some clouds drifting by midway through my photo run, but I end up with enough two minute exposures to do credit to this field rich of many wonderful celestial objects, including (from left to right): the Southern Cross and Coalsack dark nebula, IC2944/8 nebula, Stock 13 cluster, the Eta Carina nebula, and the Southern Pleiades cluster (IC2602). I’m so excited by what I see in my images, I stay up until after 4am processing them, which results is a wonderful resultant image – just what I was aiming for on this trip!
Tired but happy, I have a couple of hour’s sleep before waking around 6:30am. It is time to pack all my stuff that has spread itself out all over the cabin. Getting it all packed into my main suitcase take some doing, but it all fits and I’m ready to go to my last breakfast at La Ensenada by 8am. All the meals are served buffet style, and have been very good. We say thank you to our staff, have a group photo taken, and then we are on our way by bus to San Jose.
We travel the same route we took to get out here until we reach the Central Valley, and then divert to the town of Sarchi. This is a crafts area, and is also our lunch stop. The buffet at Las Carretas Restaurant is very good, and includes complimentary beer or wine, so I have a local Bavarian Gold beer with my lunch (recommended by Jorge). I’m not a shopper when travelling, however I actually purchase a few souvenirs this time. We have another group photo taken, since Jorge was missing from the one taken at the Lodge, and then we drive into San Jose and the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.
Our farewell dinner is held in the Marriott this year – an improvement over last year when we were in a noisy restaurant. This year we could converse, listen to Gary’s and Jorge’s speeches, and enjoy ourselves and the lovely buffet dinner. It was a very nice ending to a trip which I think everyone enjoyed. Goodbyes were said, tips were given to Jorge, and the evening ended. Jorge shared a list of 75 birds he showed the group during our time together, but I certainly didn’t see that many!
Most of our group leave for their respective homes tomorrow, but some of us are staying in Costa Rica for another week. Five of us Canadians are travelling to the Tamarindo area in the northwest corner of Costa Rica tomorrow to get some beach time and just kick back. Walter and Pat (a couple from New York) are going to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica for a deluxe tenting experience for a couple of days.
I join the early morning wildlife walk at 6AM since I’m still up from the previous night’s observing. The horses are in the field as the sun rises, and we see a big iguana along with some birds as the Howler monkeys look down on us from the trees. Time for breakfast and a nap.
I go on the boat trip to the mangrove swamp, showing up at 2PM down at the dock with my Canon 50D and the 17-85 zoom lens. However after we spot our first birds (Pelicans), I wish I had brought the 70-200 zoom instead. The birds we see are pretty close, but the extra reach of the longer zoom lens would have given me better image scale. We follow a similar route as last year, seeing lots of birds busy catching fish, spoonbills in the trees, and a Pelican colony at close range. It is cooler than I remember the boat trip from last year, and the water isn’t as rough on the return trip. After we return, I have a swim in the pool before going for dinner – very refreshing!
This evening I look at M42 Orion Nebula through a 15” Obsession Dobsonian telescope one of our group has brought with them on the trip. Our astronomy leader Gary thinks this telescope holds the record as the largest aperture telescope brought on the tour so far. All I can say is the views through it are superb. The breathtaking view of M42 reveals the beautiful blue colour of the reflection nebula – a first time for me with any scope I’ve used on this showpiece object. We also have a look at the Sombrero Galaxy, where the dust lane is evident, and Comet Lulin’s spectacular dust tail.
Later in the evening, I do some astrophotography using my dSLR mounted on an Astrotrac tracking mount on a tripod. It works very well, but my choice of targets: the emission nebulae in Vela turns out to be underwhelming. Later I change targets to a widefield of M42 Orion Nebula, including the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula, and am rewarded with a breathtaking resultant image.
After midnight, I turn my camera to Comet Lulin and have yet more success. I take relatively few frames to capture the comet’s tail, but stacking 62 light frames referenced to the comet head shows just how fast this comet is moving through the cosmos indicated by the star trails. I go to bed tired but happy after a busy night of observing and photographing the night sky.
Our bus driver Walter at Restaurante Caballo Blanco
After a sumptuous breakfast at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel, we board the bus and leave for our journey to the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Unlike last year, the upgrading to this section of the Pan American Highway appears to be finished, so we make good time to our lunch stop at Restaurante Caballo Blanco (the White Horse restaurant). As we experienced last year, the meal at this restaurant introduces everyone to the wholesome food Costa Ricans typically prepare for their guests at every meal. Lots of fresh fruit juice, a choice of chicken, beef or fish, vegetables, rice and beans, and a nice dessert to finish. The only downside to this part of the trip is when we find out that our new bus is hermetically sealed, so the engine is kept running the whole time we are in the restaurant in order to keep the cabin from overheating. Some of our group find this to be environmentally irresponsible.
Our guide Jorge tells us a bit about Costa Rica and its people, and what to expect for the next few days as we drive toward La Ensenada Lodge. La Ensenada is as I remember it from last year – a working ranch and farm, raising both cattle, a variety of crops, as well as producing salt from ocean water. It is about 40 degrees Celsius in the hot afternoon as we arrive, and the owners and staff are on hand to greet us and to give us some cold drinks to sip as we are assigned to our cabins. We are also greeted with howler monkeys and iguanas, the other local residents!
Howler Monkey eating cashew fruit
I have a quick dip in the pool and a shower, and then it is time for dinner. The meal routine for the next few days is: breakfast at 8am, lunch at noon, and dinner at 5pm. We are eating dinner earlier than what is normal for Costa Ricans so we have time to setup equipment and get out on the observing field before it gets too dark. As anyone knows who had travelled to the tropics, the sun sets promptly around 6pm, and it gets dark rapidly when there’s no light pollution around.
Clouds cover about half the sky this first night, however a fellow Canadian from Calgary brought down one of the biggest telescopes ever used at this event, so I try out his new 15” Obsession Ultra Compact Dobsonian. The views of M42 Orion Nebula are nothing short of astounding – the blue colour was visible in the reflection nebulae, and the view is very bright with lots of detail. For those who either stay up or wake up around 3am, the clouds mostly disappear by then, giving some of us observing opportunities in the early morning.
Feb 8, 2008 – Friday – La Ensenada “Star” Lodge, Abangaritos, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
This is our last full day at La Ensenada “Star” Lodge. Before sunrise, I see Rigel Kentaurus and Hadar in the morning light. I then go on our final nature walk this morning as the Sun rises. We spot lots of interesting wildlife, including a Cane Toad in the dining room as we gather, and then a Green heron on a snag in an algae-covered pond, a Clay-coloured Robin Clay-coloured Robin, Southern white-crowned shrike, Squirrel Cuckoo, and a Tropical Kingbird perched in trees.
I sign up for a horse ride this morning. We all have a good time; especially considering none of us have ridden horses for many years. The last time I rode a horse was when I was an early teen. The horses are very well trained, and the ride is an interesting two hours going all around the ranch. We go to the top of a hill overlooking the coastline, and ride around the hill where the tractor ride took us previously. I take some video which captures the experience pretty well, despite all the bouncing around I was doing while on horseback. We even see a pair of Double-striped Thick-knee birds run across the pasture grass.
After lunch, two musicians play the xylophone tandem in the bar/lounge. Otherwise, our afternoon is free of activities. I have a nap after dinner, waking up around 7:30pm to clear skies! This is the opportunity I have been waiting for all week. I take a time lapse of the southern horizon over a 3 hour period until midnight, which shows some of the southern celestial objects in the sky as they rise. I then setup the Astrotrac after finding a spot where I can see Polaris, finally getting a good polar alignment. Now I’m cooking! I image the Eta Carina region, and then move to Crux, imaging the Southern Cross and the Coalsack dark nebula.
Feb 9, 2008 – early morning, Saturday – While the camera is imaging the Southern Cross region, I process the Eta Carinae images, since I can see they are quite good. Finally, I’m happy with some results from this dark sky location! Both my friend and I are up until 4am imaging the night sky, since this is our last chance. Several of our group pull all-nighters, since the sky is so wonderful. I think it is perhaps the all-time best observing evening I’ve ever experienced. It is warm, the magnitude 6 sky is steady and crystal clear, the temperature is very comfortable at about 25º Celsius, and there are no mosquitoes!
