Getting ready for eight nights observing as part of a twelve-night run at @UCNZscience's Mt John Ōtehīwai Observatory at Takapō. Undergrad students will be along remotely, as we balance level 2 with acquiring data for the research proposals that they designed

Here we go

Good sunset

Peaceful Mackenzie

They're good mountains.

Backlit rainfall - but in the distance - and Moon

The 1.8 m getting ready to begin the night

Early night pause as the new camera being tried for the first time tonight on the 0.6 m is unbolted to go briefly back to the workshop #instrumentcommissioningisfun

15 mm of removed metal later, we have nice multiband photometry of Jupiter and moons, and working out way through photometry of an open cluster

A few planetary nebulae, galaxies and more Jupiter later, we're through to face-on spiral time

Soft blanket of rising fog has wrapped the domes. Telescopes closed up against the damp chill. See you in the morning, Mt John.

The weather held off for just long enough to give the students an online video chat walking tour of the observatory site in the late afternoon. Otherwise, yeah, nah, not the clearest night (cf. http://satview.bom.gov.au/ )

Full cloud in dark-of-the-moon is a strange effect: go out to check the sky hopefully, and there is so little light that eyes start to see twilight where there is none, hours after darkness fell.

Occasional "sucker holes" provide a tantalising glimpse of a bit of sky: Southern Cross and gone again. The occasional sideways-drifting snowflake reminds not to be lured into opening the dome.

Spent the cloudy hours excavating the archaeologically layered corners of the 0.6 m control room. Strata of 25-year-old collaboration conversations, installation instructions for image analysis software on extinct computers, and occasional treasures:

a glossy mosaic of a Magellanic cloud, lovingly detailed technical drawings of an early-generation imager, enough Japanese novels to fill an entire shelf back on the observing accommodation's bookshelf, and a lone punchcard.

As people explained to me what VAXes were, so now do I explain what IRAF on Sun (and a punchcard) implies. #circleoflife #computingstrata

Computing manuals and install instructions for e.g. 1995 Linux somehow feel just a touch forlorn. A file box was reserved for charming and piquant ephemera of history we came across, but they'll not quite reach either.

3 pm wake-up sight. Not the most hopeful there, sky

Sky of ice and fire.

Over snow-mountain shine

Let sleeping domes lie; await a clearer sky.

A night of dome flats in fourteen filters, and the control room entirely cleared of detritus. Tonight's finds: an INTEGRAL overview from 1993 (wave @FiPanther), two pointillist portraits with swirl-patterned ties, and architect's drawings for the dome of the telescope next door

Rain patters on the window; wind swirls in the dome lee, swings up the mountain and buffets the roof.

Got the biases for the imager underway. Going to be a cold night

The path goes ever onward

Clouds lift, the light comes, to lakes of glacial hue

Carved by the kō of Rākaihautū; lateral moraines and stranded shorelines remain

This way to the once and future glacier

It might be clearing to the south...

Soft light on the glacier-rippled plain

Time to bid the cloud-hidden sky farewell, and go in search of cozy warmth.

Using Saturn to fix up the pointing with eyepiece and telescope hand paddle is a delightful indulgence. Saturn is such a tiny perfect jewel

Ok narrow-band filters are fun #Jupiter

Feeling like we get to go through the full smorgasbord of astronomy tonight. Such citadels of stars

I have to admit, sidereal observing is just so...chill. There are catalogues and things just stay put. Clusters never get lost. I can see the appeal #nonsiderealastronomerproblems

Getting to play my preferred observing playlist which is 80% NZ artists while observing at an observatory in NZ for the first time in...a very long time. Lot of feelings.

Narrow-band filters are the Best

Everyone likes looking at Jupiter tonight it seems https://twitter.com/spacetelelive/status/1298253828282822656

Seeing the sky flats in.

Dawn comes to the observatory.

The mountain wakes; the astronomer sleeps.

Dawn gathers in the Mackenzie.

Halfway through the run. From tonight onward it's solo observing. The daily routine of wake up at 3.30 pm, run, set camera calibrations going, eat breakfast, watch the light change on the mountains, is settling in

Contemplating satellite mitigation issues of a morning
(this is not a Starlink, though it took a while to work that out because there were seven Starlinks passing during this exposure)

Wind's picking up

The promise of a clear sunset is matched only by the frustration of a cloudy first-half-of night

Sprinted up the hill to telescope, opened up in record time (imager already cold), and managed to get a whole decent set of six-filter sequences of Jupiter and moons. Take that, sucker hole

Dancing with clouds. You say clear patch, I say Jupiter; you say wispy tendril, I say Saturn; you say wall to the west, I say Mars; you say ten-tenths. I say cup o' tea.

Pondering why the telescope dome cupboard contains a hairdryer.
This may date to when there were liquid nitrogen dewars that needed de-icing. Or not.

My ongoing control room excavation has netted a 1975 1 c coin, complete with tiny curve of fern, and email printouts from 1996 requesting the best solution to clean "mouse things" off a motherboard, since the floppy disk drives no longer work. "Know where we can get a 4 cm cat?"

Any ideas who these two portraits might be? Tucked among old observing notes from visiting Japanese observers

Ragged end to the patchwork quilt of a night: cloud and sky, stitched together with wind and scattered stars.

It started with such promise; at least the spectroscopists had a good few hours

Most nights, mountains hold close the cloud, leaving all the blue for Takapō

A moment, for all who need it, that stretches from mountains to sky.

Frosty dawn, sung by skylark.