Lockwood
Custom Optics at the
|
Fighting the homebody syndrome For some reason, the longer I stay home, the more that I have to fight against becoming a homebody. I don't mean avoiding leaving the house to go get groceries, to have beer with friends, or to generally be social, I mean leave the state for an extended period. I get comfortable, and I start planning things to do or finish projects, and then the possibility of a trip comes up and it almost seems and feels like an interruption in my plans. I've got my optical shop to keep me entertained, and believe me, there is always something to do. There are also plenty of unfinished house projects that I would love to finish, but sometimes you just know that it is time to make yourself travel and take a complete break. Keep in mind, I really enjoy building things and making home improvements, so saying no to that does take some determination, but it was time to leave. I breathed a sigh of relief as I rolled south and west from my home and navigated the grid of country roads to I-57. This trip was in a different order than most previous trips. I was first headed to various locations in New Mexico, and then I would attend and speak at the Okie-Tex Star Party on the way back. In fact, I had several stops to make before my final desintation of the Okie-Tex Star Party, one of two astronomy events I attend annually (in normal years).  It was great to be on the road again after over a year of panic, irrationality, and bad information. (Reminds me of some optical test reports!) I have to say, I didn't fall for all of the bad news, and life has been fairly normal. The neighbors' parties were bigger than ever, and there were only signs of excessive worry when I went into Champaign-Urbana. As I headed southward, I tried to clear my head and seek some assurance that some trace of normalcy was appearing. I was happy to leave the state of idiocy.... which I can confirm with certainty is actually called Illinois. As I continue to write this in a very busy 2022, I see a lot of changes before me and behind me. It is a disrupted world, and a world without a number of opticians. It is a world now without Steve Swayze, one without John Hall, and one now that has gone over twelve years without Dick Wessling. It seems our (optical shop) ranks are shrinking, and I realize that I have to make sure that my company continues on in the future doing things as I have done them for the last 16 years (including part time work). It is an interesting feeling to know what 16 years of work, experiences, trips, conflicts, victories, setbacks, lucky breaks, difficult clients, wonderful clients, new friends, new places, old friends, and friends that have moved on, feels like, and to contemplate the time that has passed and the passage of time itself. I have been working to re-balance my schedule a bit between making mirrors and doing other personal projects. I have put a lot of hours in in the last 13 years (of full time work), and that balance needs to shift. Therefore, I'm working on being more efficient, and trying to make more time for myself. Similar mirrors get scheduled together to save time, as well as similar tasks. Next spring will mark 20 years since I finished my first mirror, an 8" f/3.9, which occurred in April of 2003, and I think I'll have to make sure that I celebrate that in a big way. It *does* feel like 16 years, actually. I've put in a lot of hours, but I am proud of that and of the products that I have produced. It has been a great journey of learning, and it continues with some more challenging professional jobs in the future, I hope. Don't worry, I don't plan to go anywhere, and I like what I do. It has been long enough that I reached a somber landmark with this trip - I put together my first retrospective talk for this year's Okie-Tex, and it included my favorite photos from that star party and tributes to friends and colleagues that we had lost recently. This included Howie Glatter, Rick Singmaster, Doug LeGrand, and Jon Joseph. (I had hoped to include Dick Wessling, but there was not room, and I have resolved to do that in a future talk.) Perhaps the reason that this article has taken so long to write is that I have been processing the weight of their lost presences and an odd feeling of nostalgic retrospective that can come about after a long period, along with being busy and working to alter the balance of my life a bit after a long period of hard, but rewarding, work. Every business owner must put in their time to learn their craft completely if they are going to stay in business. There is no substitute for absolute mastery of a skill. It seems to be a rule that at least 10,000 hours are required to truly learn a skill, and I've definitely taken care of that requirement. However, as technology evolves, more time is required to perfect new skills, and to refine others. Time management and efficiency are the things I am still learning and fine-tuning, as mentioned above. As I rolled southwest-ward, I just hoped I could get through my talk without being overwhelmed by the memories of the friends that I would be talking about. As it turned out, it went better than I expected, and I had nothing to worry about. On this trip I was a mule - a beer mule. My cargo was legal and delicious. I had a cooler full of local beer that I had been keeping cold throughout 2020 and 2021. It sat there at 36° F next to other beer that was being stored long term. I could not deliver it due to the cancelled 2020 star party, or as I call it, the lost star party. So, there was twice as much chilled cargo as I would normally bring out to a friend in Los Alamos, and I was headed straight there over the first two days, after an overnight near St. Louis where I visited long-time friends from graduate school. We walked around in downtown St. Charles, and then ate at an actual restaurant, something we in Illinois have not had the pleasure of doing much for the last year or so thanks to the iron fist of an overzealous governor, the same governor that sent his family to Florida to avoid his own mandates. After a good night's sleep, the next stop was Liberal, KS. From there, the drive to Los Alamos was not that long and was fairly scenic after crossing the New Mexico border. I checked into another hotel, and then arrived at my friends' place with a cooler full of beer just in time to help him can some homebrew beer. Yes, there is a theme here, and I seem to be beating it to death. After some pizza for dinner, it was time for some relaxing on the patio and catching up, and then a good night's sleep.   In the morning I actually got a good workout in on the treadmill at the hotel, and considering the altitude of ~7500 feet, I was pretty damn happy with my conditioning. That meant I ran for 25 minutes and didn't have to stop. After a quick breakfast and a shower, I headed back over to my friends' place and we took a drive in the jeep up to a point where we could hike up to the top of one of the highest peak in the Jemez Mountains, Chicoma Mountain, at 11,561 ft.  After a wrong turn or two and a couple of hours of slow driving, the hiking began, and we both had to slow down due to the altitude and probably my earlier workout. After working our way up the side of the mountain over many fallen trees, and hearing what we thought was some large animal, possibly a bear, with the aid of phone GPS we finally came to the clearing at the top of the mountain. A well-worn benchmark embedded in a rock marked the peak, and we climbed up on a pile of rocks for some triumphant photos. The benchmark is in a rock at the bottom of the rockpile, so I'll call it 11,565 ft officially, and the beer made it up to 11,575 feet for the photo. One of the local beers and a stein had been carefully stashed in my backpack, and we split the beer, took pictures to make the brewery owners (friends of ours) happy, relaxed for a while, and then headed down to the jeep, covering ground much more quickly than on the way up because we were now a bit behind schedule. It was just as slow driving downhill, though, and we had to take our time due to rough roads, rocks, and dropoffs with no guard rails not that far from the edge of the trail. These were true mountain roads, but the views and fresh air were worth it. Other than stopping for a minute to converse with a hunter who has successfully bagged an elk in the mountains, we didn't waste time getting home because with the arrival of the beer, mostly Oktoberfest, there was to be a large, semi-authentic Oktoberfest celebration that evening. There was chicken to prepare in a German style, pretzel dough to make, and other preparations to make. The family pitched in, and soon many other friends appeared and the food was ready. It was a feast with great beer that had aged gracefully due to impeccable cleanliness in the beer making and canning process, and continuous cold storage. The mini-fridge was nearly bursting at the seams, and the shelves were bending under the load of brew (see photo at right - it's really true), but the load was lightened quickly as the superb, true to the German style, Riggs Beer Company Oktoberfest cans were emptied one by one. There were plenty of other beverages to choose from, but with a large group you could sample a lot of things and not overindulge. And the natives rejoiced. We also enjoyed some of my friend's great homebrew, which really shouldn't be called that because he helped start a brewery, so maybe I'll just refer to it as pro-brew. He had just kegged his own Oktoberfest, and it was excellent as well. Pretzels and chickens emerged from the oven and grill, and a feast was had (photos below). I have to say, it is very difficult to beat a crispy, delicious pretzel straight out of the oven with some good mustard and/or butter. I really need to make some myself. Overall, it was an outstanding day, and a kind driver dropped a few of us off at our homes and hotels. After a great night's sleep, the next day I checked out and headed back to pick up a few things, and then it was down the hill, through Santa Fe, and on to Albuquerque to visit a client there. After a good dinner and catching up, I did some grocery shopping in anticipation of the coming several days in a place far, far from a grocery store. I had a lazy Monday morning, and then packed all of the food in the car (including too much dessert courtesy of my friend) and left after lunch for Pie Town, New Mexico, about a three hours drive to the southwest. It was a leisurely drive because I did not want to arrive too early as the client I was visiting had just arrived himself. I took my time, stopped to stretch my legs, and then for the first time headed west through Socorro and up into the mountains. New Mexico is one of my favorite states due to the variety in geology and terrain. There is everything from deserts, prairies, farms, ranches, rolling hills, and forests all the way up to mountains and dormant volcanoes. Driving up into the Magdalena mountains for the first time was quite scenic, and it was a new road to me. The colors were vibrant until I got into some clouds heading west.   Of course, on this route one comes across a very famous telescope that is effectively miles and miles by miles and miles across. Not too far west of Magdalena, the road crests a hill and then starts to descend. A massive valley is laid out before you, and a driver's eyes may be distracted by the mysterious radio dishes strung out in formation across the valley, spanning many miles. This, of course, is the famous Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope complex, with dishes riding on railroad tracks so they can be moved into different formations depending on the observing task at hand. The image at the start of this article is the railroad crossing where the dishes would be moved across the two-lane road that bisects the valley. I know a bit about sensor arrays from my previous job involving processing signals from multiple microphone arrays, so I understand why mobility enabling different antenna configurations is good. Of course a stop and some photos were necessary. The drizzly weather was a far cry from the scorched, dusty landscape seen around the VLA in the movie Contact, and Ellie was nowhere to be found. However, it was early fall, and the monsoons had greened up the landscape a bit.  You might be wondering - when am I going to get to Okie-Tex? It's going to be a while yet, please keep reading....... After killing a bit more time, it was on for the final drive to just beyond Pie Town, where a phone call was required to help me find the right gravel road leading to my client's astronomy complex complete with a beautiful new 40" f/3.5 StarStructure Horizon telescope, featuring a quartz primary mirror that I made. Of course it was raining. Why is it whenever I go to New Mexico, it rains? I guess I'm just lucky that way, or late September is still hanging on to monsoon season. Anyway, the whole state was covered in a stubborn system that kept bringing rain, just in time for Ed, keeper of Elvira, to arrive with his camper. We would both be heading to Okie-Tex after spending some time in this beautiful corner of the state..... well not quite the corner, but a beautiful region. We got situated, and we weren't too stressed by the rain, in fact, just the opposite. It was good excuse to relax, BBQ and cook, and do a little bit of beer tasting. With myself and Ed there, we did not come anywhere close to a beer shortage, and we quickly set to trying to corrupt our host, which he thoroughly enjoyed, I must say. We had a relaxing few days through the week waiting for the clouds to part, and some overnight clearing gave us a glimpse of very dark skies. On Tuesday night I did a couple of quick shots looking south off the porch. With all of the moisture around, the transparency wasn't perfect, but overall conditions were very good to excellent. We passed the time doing random things, and I tackled a few small projects around the property to keep myself busy. I got in a few workouts at the relatively high altitude of ~7500 feet, and we ate well, grilling most evenings. I grill meat and vegetables pretty frequently. I have to admit that now, as I finally finish this article after about 11 months, I remember observing, but I don't remember which nights were good. I know that we did have two good nights, one with a small group and one with a large group, but it's difficult to remember what we looked at, and I wasn't able to take notes. So, I'm doing my best, using the dates and times on photos that I took. Some photos of the observatory show its somewhat unique design, a roll off quonset hut roof. After getting some troublesome roof leaks sealed up, it was working fairly well for the owner, and it provided ample space for moving the telescope and ladder around. The photo below shows the Starstructure telescope in the closed building.  The weather improved, and (according to the dates of photos that I took) we got our first observing in on Tuesday evening. Several of us enjoyed a beatiful evening that ended up a bit early due to frost forming on everything! By a bit early, I mean around midnight, but we could have gone on a bit later. Frost was quite unusual for New Mexico, because usually there isn't enough moisture to form frost. I recall that we had to be careful not to slip on the painted floor and steps as we stowed the telescope and ladder and got the building closed up. Here is the proud owner with the roof rolled off in daylight.  It was a good night, and it is always quite an experience observing with a 40" telescope under very good skies. I recall looking at Saturn through less than perfect seeing, and visiting the showpiece objects. Nightvision was deployed throughout the evening on a variety of objects, and I managed to take several photos using the nightvision monocular. I recall looking at a very nice planetary nebula with the telescope pointed nearly straight up. Here's what the telescope looked like at night, with humans for scale and the summer Milky Way for decoration. I have a rolling ladder in my workshop, and this one is almost identical so it was instinctive to use it. Great minds think alike!   The image scale and detail shown in these rather crude photos gives you an idea what such an instrument can do, all at very low power due to the use of nightvision. Typically I use a 41mm Panoptic, Televue 55mm plossl, or 67mm Televue eyepiece (55mm plossl with special converter lens) for the widest field possible. I recall having dew start to form on eyepieces and the secondary mirror, and I believe this is what shut down our observing on this first night. All in all, it was nothing to complain about, and we got lots of sleep. Here are three showpiece objects, photographed with my trusty Canon G15 through my TNV-14 nightvision monocular, using a narrowband h-alpha filter. The level of detail visible to the eye with such large aperture under good skies is quite staggering, particularly the faint tendrils and wisps in the Crescent (NGC 6888). The photos below show the image scale, but never quite gather all of the detail visible to the eyeball view through the monocular.    I believe that the rains and clouds returned for a couple of days, but I got some runs in during nicer weather, and I was able to stay caught up on emails, conversation, and beer tasting. Overall, it was nice to have some down time. My visit to Pie Town aligned with the somewhat unofficial Enchanted Skies Star Party for 2021. On Friday afternoon I gave a talk about the mirror making process to a good crowd, all inside the spacious 40" roll-off-quonset-hut-roof observatory! A local astronomer had brought a projector, and we used a sheet of something for a makeshift screen. After some socializing following the talk, we all headed off to various locations to have dinner before a night of observing. This is what the observatory looks like from the ground during the daytime, looking northeast. Of course the roof rolls off to the north.  I belive we had 10-15 observers on Friday night, and I remember working on taking photos with my new Canon R-alpha mirrorless camera. It is my first dedicated astro-camera. The moisture was still present, so skies weren't pristine, but they were still quite good, and I recall a 21.5 SQM reading approximately. I don't remember what we observed, but I do remember staying up later than the other night. Additionally, Ed had set up the wonderful Elvira on the ground just south of the observatory building, and he was entertaining observers. This helped keep significant lines from forming at either telescope. Ed's superb 24" f/2.75 provided a wider field of view, and he had his own nightvision monocular, so I could use mine in the 40". Here is Ed, set up in front of the observatory.  As usual, for first-time nightvision observers, exclamations, and some expletives were heard through the darkness as, for the first time, and in real time, their eye could see nebulosity that was formerly only visible in photographs, or very faintly. Additionally the field of view was much wider than was possible with plain visual observing because much longer focal length eyepieces are used with nightvision. Of course, the purely visual views through the 40" f/3.5 were quite stunning, and produced its own litany of exclamations and some expletives, and it seemed like every object was a showpiece object. I do remember just about the best view of Stephan's Quintet that I can remember seeing. I also recall a somewhat inebriated individual that I was concerned about being on the rolling stairs. As dew set in, this time not quite frozen, the party broke up, and headlights swept the trees, and hillside as vehicles departed and disappeared into the distance. Without other lights around, it is always interesting to see how far you can track a car after it leaves. It had been a good first public observing night for the 40". Here's one last view of an observer on the ladder with Andromeda just above it.  One thing that I noted about this area of New Mexico was that the wind completely stopped after sunset. It was quite nice observing in rather cold conditions but not requiring arctic gear to stay warm. It was nearly down to freezing but I was wearing a fleece jacket and insulated vest over that, as well as a hat and gloves. With wind, I would have needed a lot more, and it would have probably been a much shorter night, not to mention telescope images shaking. After packing up on Saturday, I stopped in Pie Town to grab a couple of pieces of pie (expensive, but good) at the Pie-o-neer (photo below) and then headed on to Albuquerque, making a stop at the VLA to take some photos in sunshine rather than cloud. I did more grocery shopping, a little bit of beer shopping, and then got up early Sunday morning to make the drive to Okie-Tex. I recall eating Saturday night's leftovers in Clayton, NM for a late lunch out of the back of my car, just a short drive from the Okie Tex site. I arrived around 4pm and offloaded food into friends' fridges to keep it cold.  I am told that on Saturday night a crowd of about 50 people had showed up for observing with the 40", and while I would have enjoyed meeting everyone, I was happy that I wasn't fighting for eyepiece time that night! When you get to Okie-Tex and see these guys, be sure to thank them for all their hard work. They are at it constantly during the event, as well as long before, making sure disasters are averted and things run smoothly. There are also a large number of other volunteers that make everything come together, as well as the dedicated team that feeds most of the star party.  My Okie-Tex notes say that we had a beer tasting, and the observing was good on Sunday night. At this point, this article has gotten quite long, and I'll just let the photos do the talking, since my memory of some specific days has completely faded. On Monday, I worked on my talks, and got those finalized. We had a large group for beer tasting, and another night of good observing. On Tuesday, the new building was dedicated at Camp Billy Joe. It is a beautiful new metal building with a large space for meetings and presentations, restrooms, and some other space. It is air conditioned, which really makes it quite pleasant for speaker and audience. Previously a tent was used for talks, and during the day, there was always a compromise between closing flaps to keep light out (so the projector worked better) and opening them up to keep the temperature down. Now that problem is a thing of the past.   There was a short dedication and ribbon cutting before we went in for the first time. It's a beautiful space, and a lot of work was done by club members to get it ready in time after numerous construction delays. I hope I get to give many more talks there in the future. I was honored to be the very first speaker in the building, and I thought it was fitting that my first talk was the retrospective talk about friends that had passed away, most of whom had attended Okie-Tex. I got through the talk with my composure, speaking to a packed house. Then I launched straight into my second talk, the same as on the previous Friday, about mirror making. The new room made giving two talks a pleasure, with good sound amplification and no heat to make speaker or audience tired. My notes say that Tuesday night was our best night of observing, with better clarity than others. Here is photo of Ed and Elvira, giving a good feel for the night time star party atmosphere. The large cylinder-shaped object on the rear of Elvira is an air filter, sort of like the type that sit on top of a carburetor, through which air is drawn for Ed's mirror cooling system, which itself is a subject for an entire article, as are many other parts of a remarkable telescope!  Wednesday brought a now-established tradition - sushi at Okie-Tex. A few attendees do this every year with salmon that they caught themselves in Alaska and then froze, and perhaps through a lapse in judgement, I got invited, and now they can't keep me away! It's an annual event - with sake, great company, and good cheer no matter the weather. In the past Jon Joseph had joined us, too, but sadly he had passed away earlier in the year.  Sushi is usually followed closely by a less intense beer tasting, due to the sake, and a very small dinner due to mostly filling up on sushi. You see, we're an adaptable bunch. In this case, some of the sushi crowd joined us for beer and more great camaraderie. Of course there had to be a post-beer group photo for blackmail purposes, after the sushi crowd had fled, or perhaps this was on another evening after that. This group has impeccable taste in high-gravity beers, and they make coming to Okie-Tex far more fun.  All in all, the socializing makes for a great day. However, on this Wednesday evening, after traveling for quite a while and doing a lot of astronomy, I hit the satisfying next slightly guilt-inducing point that I call "observing saturation", also known as astronomy burnout. I remember reclining in my chair and not having the motivation to get up and see what people were looking at. I think it was a combination of a long trip and some dust in the atmosphere or skyglow that was making the sky look slightly brighter than normal that was responsible for taking the last of my motivation. I just watched meteors and listened to the postive comments as Ed showed off Elvira's images and features, and others did their observing programs all around me. Now I realize that some might be angry that I was not taking advantage of the excellent skies, but they were not as good as previous nights, and I needed a brain break. Or maybe it was the beer tasting....... On Thursday, Rex and I climbed the mesa to see Okie and Tex, the two flamingos that are the star party mascots. Here I am with the star party in the background. We wandered south down the mesa a bit to see a bit more scenery. I turned on my phone and managed to receive a few texts, but sending did not really work, so I turned it off again. My phone has never worked at Okie-Tex, which is usually a blessing.  Some of our friends had headed out earlier on Thursday due to scheduling conflicts, so there was a smaller beer tasting with Ed, Rex, and myself, and it was steak and veggies. My task that night was to take photos through a variety of h-alpha filters to see what worked best on various objects. The resulting image is shown here. The Baader High Speed appeared to work a bit better on certain objects. I am eager to measure it with my spectrometer at some point.  Friday was spent packing up and relaxing. Some clouds were coming in, so there wasn't much observing. I had a tasty brisket dinner, and Rex and I sat around chatting under the clouds. After going to bed early, I managed to get up early, get everything in the car and be on the road by 8am. The only surprise on the way home came about 20 miles from the star party. A scorpion ran up the back of my leg and managed to sting me before I could swat it away, and of course then scurried off somewhere into the car while I tried to smash it, unsuccessfully. Fortunately it wasn't bad, kind of like a bee sting, and after an initial search for the little bastard, I continued driving to Kansas City, did a little beer shopping as is tradition at Lukas Liquors in Overland Park (southwest side), and then went to my hotel north of the city a bit. It was an easy drive home the next day. With people spending more time at home, the optical business has continued to be busy since then, and I am just finishing writing the text of this article late on the night of September 6, 2022, just over two weeks from Okie-Tex 2022! Better late than never. (Edit - final editing on Sept. 15th) I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and dark skies again soon! Below is a parting photo to inspire you to get to dark skies. (Addendum: I found the scorpion in my garage about a month later and took care of the bastard. It's on display in my shop.) -Mike Lockwood, Lockwood Custom Optics  |