Posts Tagged ‘stars’

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Looking Forward To: The Night Sky

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Continuing from yesterday, another thing I’m really looking forward to when returning to Maui is the night sky. While we weren’t able to fit in the Star Gazers Maui tour this trip like we had hoped, we still have one trip up to Haleakala that might be full of stars prior to sunrise (weather permitting).  But besides viewing from Haleakala, any stretch of sand along the shore is good enough for me.

Drawn to the Stars over Maui
Galaxies and Stars above Ka'anapali BeachMore than likely, a major part of my attraction to the stars above Maui at night has to do with growing up in the suburbs of a large metropolitan city. One could also argue that by heading further out into the unpopulated areas here in the Midwest that you could see just as many stars as you could from Hawaii, albeit not the same exact stars given the difference in latitude.

Regardless, Maui has a way of magnifying all the wonderful things I enjoy, and just making them that much more special to me. And while gazing up at the stars from Maui is one of the few wonders the islands of Hawaii offer that may be readily available throughout the mainland, I can’t think of a better place to participate in the hobby.

Mixed Luck Lately
Perhaps I’ve been thinking about stargazing again on Maui more this weekend because of the fact we had to scrap the Star Gazers tour. Come to think about it, our star gazing efforts have been somewhat of a mixed bag as of late.  The first experiences (’06 and ’07) were absolutely amazing.  Call it beginners luck, call it happenstance, call it “the first one’s always free.”  Call it whatever you want, it hooked me in.

Last year, though, we had some challanges.  First, we were fighting a full moon, which in itself can also be beautiful. The drowning glow of the lunar sphere was scaring away stars like sharks chasing tourists (at least in the movies). If that weren’t enough, we had another foe we hadn’t even heard of …Vog.

Vog, as it turns out, is a term for Volcanic Smog caused by the erupting Kilauea on the Big Island. Given the right conditions, Kona Winds (the opposite of Hawaii’s Trade Winds) will carry this vog northwest throughout the entire island chain, starting with it’s closest neighbor, Maui. This not only increased some of the cloud cover during the day while we were there last April, it also had a hand in drowning out the stars for us at night. We had hopes of doing the Tours of the Stars activity at the Hyatt Maui Regency, but after rescheduling twice, it was a bust.

I’m a little more hopeful this time, however. As crazy as it seems, we actually consulted the lunar calendar when scheduling our trip this year, and planned it around a new moon (Feb. 24th). Hopefully it will pay off.

Our Stargazing
We like to do our stargazing (and on occasion, photography) right there on Ka’anapali Beach. On some occasions, we’ll be out for an after dinner/dessert stroll back from Whalers Village, and not help but stare at the sky while walking. Every once and a while, we’ll even be caught off guard by a wave splashing our bare feet when we’re not expecting it, and that water is cold at night!!

Other times, we’ll just be relaxing on our lanai overlooking the ocean, and just watch them from there. It’s usually later in the evening at that point (after 10pm or so) and we sometimes just decide to head down on the beach on a whim. By that time, the torches on Black Rock have already gone dark and we have even less light interfering with our view.  Sometimes I’ll bring my smartphone with me, and the Pocket Stars software I have on it to tell us what we’re looking at. We’ve only recently started with naming things in the sky, and usually we just enjoy the view itself.

Photographing the Stars
Early on, after the initial numbing fascination with the entire sky sprinkled with stars, I decided I wanted to bring all of them home with me. It took a little practice and research at first, but I managed to get the hang of it after awhile. What I took away was a handful of photographs that only pretend to match the brilliance of seeing the stars in person, but are good enough to be hanging on the wall in my office at home. Like other aspects of my photography, though, I still have a lot to learn.

I wanted to share a few of those photographs to help further illustrate, for those you haven’t witnessed it, just how magical the night skies look over Maui. It is certainly something I’m looking forward to seeing next month, especially from Haleakala (if possible) as well as from Hana during our overnight trip. When I think further down the road, past this upcoming trip, I can only imagine how wonderful it will be to have these stars overhead all year round should we make Maui our home someday.  Now THAT is something to look forward to.

Mahalo and Enjoy.

Maui Stars and Galaxies

More Night Sky Glitter

Stars above the Sheraton

Black Rock at Night

More Stars

Ka'anapali at Night

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Trip 4 – Final Plans

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

Whale TailAnother big week for the planning of our next trip, so I wanted to post an update. We finalized (or tried to) our final activities for our little 2 weeks of heaven on Maui in February, and we’re entering into our last trip preparations leading up to our flight.

Booked: Vacation Portrait Session

This was something I inadvertently left off the previous planning posts, but was something I was really interested in arranging this trip. I had seen a little kiosk setup at Whalers Village last year, and thought it was worth looking into.  Well, we booked our session for Friday, Feb. 20th with photographer Natalie Brown.

It is going to be an hour session at Keawakapu Beach in Wailea, just before sunset. The spot was recommended by Natalie, and based on some of the photos in her portfolio, we know it’s a safe bet that things are going to be wonderful. She was also kind enough to recommend two top restaurants in the area, Sarento’s On The Beach and Five Palms Beach Grill. Both look wonderful, and regardless of which one we choose (or yet another option), this has all the makings for a magical evening on Maui.

Booking: Whale Watch and Dinner Cruise

The plan was to book these two this morning and then be done with all the pre-booking stuff, but issues with the Pacific Whale Foundation site were keeping me from crossing this off the list. We know there are other fish in the sea (pardon the pun) when it comes to these whale watches and dinner cruises.  We’ve just grown accustomed to PWF because of all the work they do on the islands and for the environment, and plus, they sure know a lot about whales.

West Maui CoastlineAccording to our early week planning, Wednesday, Feb. 18th is going to be our afternoon whale watch out of Lahaina Harbor. This is essentially the same one we did last year, but a little later in the afternoon (and hopefully with a lot less motion sickness). It’s a two hour affair, and with all the whale activity going on in Maui waters this time of year, I’m really, really excited.

The second booking with PWF will be the Dinner Cruise on Thursday, Feb. 26th. We had scheduled this last year as well, but after the rough waters on our whale watch, the three of us (my mom being the 3rd that trip) agreed to stick to land.  We like to opt for the premium seating on the upper deck, and really enjoy drifting along the West Maui coastline just at sunset. We’ve done dinner cruises on the Maui Princess in the past, so we pretty much know what to expect.

Scratched: Star Gazers Maui

It soon became obvious that we had a tad too many things going on for our two week trip. Unfortunately, the Star Gazers Maui tour planned for Friday the 20th had to get scratched, and we’ll only be making one trip up Haleakala this time around instead of two. If things go well, we might be able to leave a little earlier for the sunrise so I can get some star photos before sunrise. Just don’t tell Cindy. ;)

What’s Next

Well, tomorrow will mark 3 weeks before we leave for Maui. At some point next week, we’ll start figuring out what we’re packing, do a trial run filling up our luggage, and any last minute shopping between now and the time we leave. I’ve been meaning to pick up a different carry-on bag, and as if we didn’t think it was possible after last year, I’m bring along even more techie toys this trip. Yikes!

There are still some other site updates I’m hoping to wrap up here before we leave, as well as dust off my Maui Twitter page. Seeing that Twitter is a bigger part of my life these days, I shouldn’t have a problem remembering to tweet with updates. I really liked how my Twitter posts from last trip went and the final output ending up in our Itineraries section.  You can read more details about what to expect here.

That’s all for now. Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone.

Mahalo.

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Trip ’09 Plans – A Haleakala Decision

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

For almost the last year now, I (alone) have been gearing up to make the trek up Haleakala bright and early to see the sunrise. And as our next trip gets even closer, we have a tough decision to make…

Haleakala Sunrise vs. Haleakala Sunset/Star Gazing?
There was a similar question posted on Go Visit Hawaii back in October, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it at the time because I had my goals set on a sunrise. Yet, looking at a few guided sunrise tours (which as it turns out, there are only a few) that 2am-3am departure time from Ka’anapali still seems a little underwhelming. We were planning to do go up to Haleakala that first morning we were there, which is recommended because of the time difference and the jet lag coming in from Chicago, but we still aren’t that sure about it.
Seeing the limited selection, and pricing, of the guided Haleakala Sunrise tours, I started weighing the option of driving ourselves, and not knowing the road very well. As a comparison, we’ve taken two guided tours on the Road to Hana on our past trips, and it’s only now do I think I’m ready to brave the drive myself.
Then I started rationalizing against the sunrise on Haleakala this trip because we’re planning to spend a night in Hana, and could see a spectacular sunrise off the East Maui coast. Added to that, I began comtemplating a replacement for the Haleakala sunrise by doing a star gazing tour with Star Gazers Maui. That would include both the sunset and star gazing on top of Haleakala, and includes dinner, down jackets, and hot chocolate to keep us warm. There is no transporation provided, however, so we’d still have to drive to and from the summit ourselves.
There wasn’t a lot of information on the Star Gazers’ website, so I emailed them a few questions yesterday and am waiting to hear back. I did find a few reviews on Trip Advisor that seemed very encouraging. Cindy’s aunt and uncle also did this tour a few years ago and had nothing but good things to say about it.
A Tough Decision
While this is turning out to be a tough decision to make, I guess by most standards, this is a relatively nice problem to have. At this point, I’m starting to lean towards the side of caution and just saying we’ll do both. Driving up to do the sunrise ourselves would still mean leaving too early and not knowing where we’re going, but doing a trial run down from the summit in daylight will certainly help for when we’d have to do it in the dark for the Star Gazers.
There’s a lot of information on the Haleakala sunrise in guidebooks and in the blogosphere, but not too much about stargazing up there. I know you can see the stars from Haleakala before sunrise, too, but I think a night tour would give me more time to add to my Maui Stars collection. We’ll probably make up our minds sometime next week depending on what we hear back from the folks at Star Gazers Maui. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions, experiences, or other guidance that you’d like to share about either of these options (or doing both), we welcome your input.
Mahalo.

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Hawaii Sky Watching in November

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

I read a nice article from the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday that I wanted to pass on here for fellow stargazers who also fancy the islands in the Pacific:

Venus and Jupiter light up the night in November

Anyone that has spent a nice, romantic, after dinner stroll along their favorite beach in Hawaii has no doubt noticed the incredible display of stars that can light up the sky on a clear night. If you’re like me, you can’t help but be mesmerized by the vast amounts of sky glitter that you otherwise might not be able to enjoy back home near the big cities. Just another one of the many things that makes Hawaii so special.

More Night Sky GlitterFor me, it’s not just enough to see them while we’re there, but to capture the moment to have whenever I miss those quiet, peaceful nights along the shores of Ka’anapali Beach just staring up at the sky in amazement (oooh, chicken skin moment). One of my favorite photos that I have ever taken (so far) was of the Milky Way over Black Rock in Maui. And although I didn’t know it at the time, I was actually staring straight at Jupiter as mentioned in the article above (minus Venus, of course).

If you’re looking for more, you can read about stargazing on Maui as well as view my Stars over Maui set on Flickr. You can safely bet that I’m already planning time to spend watching the skies on our next trip in February, and it’s no coincidence that the two weeks we chose for our trip include the night of a new moon (Feb. 24th). Not too geeky I hope. :)

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Monday, Week 2

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Aloha,

It’s our second Monday on Maui this trip, and Cindy is getting ready for her spa day at the Westin. Normally, she likes to jump right to the spa in the first couple of days, but this year, her silly husband booked almost all of our activities the first week, so it was delayed just a little. She still enjoys it, though (and she certainly deserves it).

As for me, I’m just working on some of my homework for my digital photography class and trying to come up with a few more good poster-quality photos while we’re here this year.

Yesterday was a little slow, which most of this last week will be. The focus now is really on unwinding and relaxing before we have to head home to our stressful jobs. Speaking of stress, I must have spent 3 hours yesterday trying to save my whale watching videos in a file format that YouTube wouldn’t absolutely destroy the quality of. At this point, I haven’t had any success, but will keep trying.

We went to the new Outback Steakhouse last night across from the Lahaina Cannery Mall, which was somewhat of a taste we’re used to back home. They’ve only been open for 7 days, so the service still needs a little bit of work. It was quite a bit of food, though, so no one went home hungry.

Last night, the clouds did stay away long enough for Cindy and I to lug all my gear down to the beach. I tried taking a few photos of the the stars, but it wasn’t long before than giant full moon came in and had plans of it’s own. We were down their pretty early, too, relatively speaking. It was about 8pm, so the torches on Black Rock were still lit, and many of the rooms at the Sheraton still had their lights on, so it wasn’t the ideal conditions we had last September.

Either way, we just put the camera away and took out the binoculars instead. Using my handy little PDA and a very cool little piece of software called Pocket Stars, I spent the next hour playing tour guide and astronomy teacher with Cindy. It was a pretty entertaining and productive night for the most part as the clouds stayed over the mountains where they belong. We ended up finding both Saturn and Mars, saw Orion, Gemini, Leo and parts of Taurus, just to name a few. Gaging her interest and her willingness to listen to me ramble on and on, I think tomorrow’s Tour of the Stars at the Hyatt is going to be just as much fun for her as it will be for me. That is, if it doesn’t get canceled again.

Really not much else to report at the moment. Not as exciting to blog about, but still worth it’s wait in gold being out here and not having a care in the world.

Mahalo.

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