Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: A Gegenschein Observation
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents The Light Pollution Edition. This episode features our guest Dave Chapman who shares his unplanned observation of the Gegenschein from the Winter Star Party in Florida, US.
Bio: Shane and Chris are amateur astronomers who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and performing outreach where they help the eyes of the public to telescope eyepieces.
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Transcript:
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Chris Beckett: Welcome to episode 136 of the actual astronomy podcast the gag and shine addition i’m Chris and joining me is shane and joining us again is Dave Chapman.
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Chris Beckett: And we are all amateur astronomers who love, looking at the nighttime sky and this podcast is for anyone else who likes doing it under the stars welcome back Dave.
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Dave Chapman: i’m really happy to be here thanks excellent.
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Chris Beckett: So let’s let’s see.
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Chris Beckett: we’re going to talk about the gig and the gang and shame we’re talking about how do you how do you say it, how do you say this word.
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Dave Chapman: Well, I say gig and shine and i’m not going to change, right now, so.
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Chris Beckett: Okay, and I keep thinking when I see this word.
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Chris Beckett: I think about that Stanley kubrick movie with where the guys chopping through the wall that’s not the gig and chino.
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Dave Chapman: that’s that’s the shining isn’t it.
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Chris Beckett: sick in my mind, I thought it was like a supernatural power, but apparently.
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Chris Beckett: Okay, apparently it’s not.
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Dave Chapman: Well, it is an astronomy podcast and the gig and shine is a is a phenomenon in the sky, which is.
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Dave Chapman: extraterrestrial, and by that I don’t mean it’s this the Aliens are the source of it, it means that it’s not on the earth, or in the atmosphere it’s actually out there in space and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
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Chris Beckett: All right, well let’s yeah let’s see let’s hear about it, you you, you had a bit of an observation.
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Chris Beckett: yeah.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah let’s let’s just get you to jump right in and start.
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Dave Chapman: let’s just let’s just say what.
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Dave Chapman: The word gig and shine means it means literally means counter blow.
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Dave Chapman: And what it is, is it’s a it’s related to zodiacal light that you guys have seen so dial light yeah both of you have either of you seen what I call the gig and shine.
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Shane Ludtke: I don’t know if I have to be honest, so I was quite looking forward to this episode to learn a little bit more.
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Dave Chapman: about you, Chris if you.
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Chris Beckett: Well boy I think I saw it once.
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Chris Beckett: it’s very subtle yeah it’s it’s kind of like almost directly overhead and and sort of the late late winter early spring is to kind of see.
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Chris Beckett: Exactly, so it wasn’t really sure, but.
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Dave Chapman: So.
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Chris Beckett: I think i’ve seen it.
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Dave Chapman: So what it is, is it’s a glow in the sky related as a dial light.
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Dave Chapman: Which is at the anti solar points so if you imagine, where the sun is at any particular time, think of the anti solar point like where where the your shadow would be if you can see it and that’s where you’ll see this counter glow this guy can shine and what it is, is that.
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Dave Chapman: it’s it’s a kind of a local brightening of the zodiac a light in principle, this is a dial light is a band of light which goes, all the way along the ecliptic.
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Dave Chapman: And it’s meant to be reflections off of particles in orbit in the in the plane of the ecliptic micro micro meteorites are dust particles.
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Chris Beckett: So the ecliptic is is basically the area in our solar system where the planets live and hang out.
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Dave Chapman: yeah In fact I would say yeah the plane, more or less than a plane like to think of it as a family.
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Dave Chapman: So you don’t normally see this a dial eight spin all the way around usually a see it after you know after dark in the spring you’d see it in the evening sky after it’s officially dark.
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Dave Chapman: You would see this cone of light coming up from the sunset position and then in the in the fall you’d see it in the morning, a cone of light coming up before sunrise, and the reason for those.
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Dave Chapman: seasons and times is just the angle of the ecliptic is very high, very steep relative to the horizon so that’s the best chance, he would see it yeah and it’s reasonably bright if you’re in a dark sky, so you know you need to have.
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Dave Chapman: You know, you need to have a clear sky, you need to have a transparent sky you can’t have any kind of light pollution or any kind of moonlight.
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Dave Chapman: has to be absolutely dark to see it that’s why most people haven’t seen it, because very few people you know, find themselves in those circumstances.
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Dave Chapman: Now the gag and shine is like a like I said a local brightening because there’s a physical phenomenon, which happens at the empty solar point where the intensity of that back scattered light is enhanced.
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Dave Chapman: By a physical effect i’m going to explain that later, but i’ll tell you the story of how I found it.
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Dave Chapman: So I was at the winter star party which is down in the Florida keys, which is about as far South you can go and still be in the United States.
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Dave Chapman: And the folks down there have a star party usually in February around the new moon date and a lot of people go there i’ve been there three times it’s a great time.
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Dave Chapman: It doesn’t have perfect skies because along the Florida keys there’s this highway and it’s all built up, you know along the highway so to the east and the west it’s actually there’s a fair bit of scope of light pollution, but a very wide band.
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Dave Chapman: On the southern and northern meridian is pretty dark Okay, and the other neat thing about that location is that from there, you can actually see the southern cross and alpha centauri and betas and Tory and omega centauri and some of those.
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Dave Chapman: features that are considered to the southern sky objects they’re pretty low to the horizon, but if you have a good sky, you can see those things and and not leave North America, so so that’s one of the reasons you go there, so the last time I was there was in 2017 in late February.
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Dave Chapman: And I was observing out on the berm I just like like the beach, and of course the cool thing about.
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Dave Chapman: Being down in Florida in February, is that you can observe in your T shirt and shorts and just relax and have a good time.
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Dave Chapman: And my friend and I Tony Tony shelling because I really quite a good observer here in Halifax he was working on his explore the universe, and he was.
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Dave Chapman: He was like going through the various double stars and coma Baron he says and draco and.
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Dave Chapman: And I was kind of I was kind of with him kind of validating his observations, because he was getting lost a little bit you know, and he and I were both looking at, at the same thing binoculars.
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Dave Chapman: I couldn’t take a telescope you know because I fly down there, so I took in all my seven my 1215 by 70 binoculars.
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Dave Chapman: And anyway, I was relaxing in my chair having a cold beverage and it was just after midnight and i’m kind of like i’m just kind of laying back looking up in the sky looking up at least because leo’s really high up in the sky like almost overhead.
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Dave Chapman: And i’m looking at Leo there’s not much you know there’s not much going on and Leo you can see the the concentration is quite large but there aren’t any really super bright stars, except regulus.
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Dave Chapman: or anything else to look at and I see this patch of light and i’m like what the hell is that.
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Dave Chapman: So I decided not to say anything about it because I thought, well, maybe it’s just a cloud, you know i’ll watch it for a while, so I watched it for 10 or 15 minutes and it wasn’t moving it was relative to the stars, it was it was stationary.
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Dave Chapman: And I asked Tony I said, you see that and that’s the cool thing about like observing with somebody is because.
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Dave Chapman: You know, you can trick yourself that you can see something, but you know there’s somebody there next to you, you know.
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Dave Chapman: You say hey Tony Can you see that, and you know he looked up, it took him a while, but he said he confirmed that there was a patch of light there.
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Dave Chapman: And we talked a little bit of what it could be, and so on, so forth, and then I came to me, I said.
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Dave Chapman: geez wonder if that’s the gang in China, like what’s The anti solar point so what I did was I went into my little you know my iPhone and I have sky safari and I figured out where the sun was you know, on the ecliptic and.
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Dave Chapman: If you know what’s hundred and 80 degrees, you know around from that and ecliptic longitude and you know this and that and I figured out that that’s exactly where it would be if it was getting shine it would be in Lille.
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Dave Chapman: And, and so I was quite excited because i’d never seen it before.
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Dave Chapman: i’d only help her TV, I remember one time at a star party Roy Bishop was gazing up at the sky, he told me he was looking for again I can shine and I looked I couldn’t see anything.
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Dave Chapman: I can’t remember if he can see anything either, so I kind of knew it was out there, but I never really looked for it even on this occasion I wasn’t looking for it, it just came to me.
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Dave Chapman: And so I was pretty excited so I took a picture, with my camera it wasn’t anything exciting was just like a.
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Dave Chapman: Well, I don’t know it was like a maybe a 50 degree lands or something.
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Dave Chapman: And it was on a tracker amount, but it probably didn’t need to be it was only about a couple of minutes long you know it’s like a very.
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Dave Chapman: Very simple picture nothing fancy and and when I ended up looking at the photograph I could see that I had captured this this patch of light and it’s quite subtle I mean.
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Dave Chapman: You have to process it a bit to really bring it out, so that he shows up in a in a magazine, and so I thought was pretty cool.
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Dave Chapman: But the thing that bothered me about it after coming home and thinking about it was that I thought it should be right dead on the the ecliptic.
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Dave Chapman: And you know, like regulus is pretty close to the ecliptic right and and the ecliptic.
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Dave Chapman: goes past regulus on an angle just below Leo and in fact regulus is one of the bright stars that’s regularly colored by the moon, so you know it’s one of those ones.
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Dave Chapman: So you know it’s pretty darn close and it seemed to me that it the patch on like should be lower by four degrees or six to ease and it bugged me was like I don’t understand that, but you know that’s what I see and that’s what the camera picked up.
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Dave Chapman: And so I didn’t think very much about it at the time I just I think I poked around a bit I found some articles about how the zodiacal light may not always be right at the ecliptic but it might.
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Dave Chapman: The the long the ladder to the ecliptic latitude of the brightest part might vary as you go around the.
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Dave Chapman: The the the circle of the ecliptic but you know if they were very academic articles and it’s kind of hard to understand them, but there was some evidence that there may be some irregularity about it.
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Dave Chapman: And only recently.
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Dave Chapman: I came across an article, we only came up a couple of months ago.
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Dave Chapman: And it was about the Juno spacecraft.
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Dave Chapman: And so, some guys had had published some data from the Juno spacecraft, which is a spacecraft that they sent out to Jupiter.
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Dave Chapman: And they were looking at the solar panels and.
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Dave Chapman: Or the cameras and they were picking up all these little bits and they came to the conclusion that.
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Dave Chapman: The stuff that made up zodiacal light wasn’t actually confined to the plane of the ecliptic.
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Dave Chapman: But when they figured it out and fit different orbital parameters and stuff they decided that this this material was in the plane of Mars is orbit.
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Dave Chapman: Okay, so wasn’t in the ecliptic was in the plane of Mars is orbit so that implied that the stuff was coming from Mars, and then being distributed all around the orbit and so on, so forth.
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Dave Chapman: So there’s still a bit of a mystery, because nobody can figure out how this stuff gets away from Mars, but we know that Mars is dusty and it has low gravity in a thin atmosphere so maybe someone figured that out.
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Dave Chapman: But that made me think well when we admit it, maybe that’s why maybe that’s why the gag and shine on that date.
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Dave Chapman: look like it was coming north of the ecliptic so I did a very simple thing, and this is in the article that’s going to come out in.
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Dave Chapman: In the journal The rfc but it’s already on the line.
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Dave Chapman: In the rsc Halifax Nova notes, and you can give people the link to that it’s already there for people to look at I did this very simple thing I said, well, what if I just project, the orbit of Mars onto onto the sky, which you can do easily in.
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Dave Chapman: sky safari i’d never had a reason to do that ever before to project, an orbit into the sky, and when I did that Lo and behold, it turned out that the.
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Shane Ludtke: orbit of Mars.
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Dave Chapman: When you look at it it’s several degrees kind of above the ecliptic plane at in that direction.
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Dave Chapman: And so it doesn’t completely explain everything I saw but it’s in the right direction and about the right amount, but of course this is a very fuzzy patch, but I feel like.
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Dave Chapman: I feel like.
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Dave Chapman: That might be a clue as to why I saw it in the wrong place because everybody always says it’s the dial light in the gig and shine is on the ecliptic.
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Dave Chapman: and hear it clearly isn’t.
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Dave Chapman: So that’s kind of the story, in a nutshell.
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Chris Beckett: cool.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’s very interesting.
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Shane Ludtke: So, I guess, for you know if listeners haven’t picked up on this yet, but you were just using your eyes right Dave like.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, absolutely ladies yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah.
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Dave Chapman: No, no, I mean you yeah cuz I mean this thing is what.
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Dave Chapman: it’s pretty wide what did I say it was.
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Dave Chapman: It was quite a few degrees across.
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Dave Chapman: Well, I was using a 14 millimeter lens and it was pretty big in that.
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Dave Chapman: I drew a circle about 20 degrees across which, to my to my view in the picture captured most of the light so it’s a 20 degree wide object, so if zooming and even even with.
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Dave Chapman: A wide angle binocular you would lose it, you know you wouldn’t see the contrast so it’s definitely with my eyes.
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Dave Chapman: And then the camera.
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Chris Beckett: I just dug up the Nova notes from the hell.
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Chris Beckett: yeah sorry I see Center sent sent them along to shane and yeah like you mentioned you, you took over my column in the REC journal up.
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Dave Chapman: Well, I didn’t think of it that way, I would, I was editing that column, I always had guest writers, but.
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Chris Beckett: I say that just joking because.
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Dave Chapman: yeah yeah Dave Dave was the original.
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Chris Beckett: author of the column and and the bequeath to me.
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Chris Beckett: he’s.
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Dave Chapman: Old stomping so I want to go back to the physics of this, though yeah, why does this happen.
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Dave Chapman: And it’s a really cool physical effect and and it also occurs on the moon and terrestrial type planets like Mars.
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Dave Chapman: So what happens is like when you look at the brightness of the moon and MARS and whatnot as as it as they sort of go through their phases in the sky, you know their brightness.
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Dave Chapman: they’re roughly a uniformly illuminated and then brightness varies according to the phase of the of the.
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Dave Chapman: Of the of the disk you know see if he could calculate what percentage of the disk is illuminated you can calculate how much would be dimmed but a really funny thing happens when it’s in the anti solar point and you get this boosted reflectivity, and this is why.
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Dave Chapman: If the object is rough like the moon, or even like a micro meteor.
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Dave Chapman: I mean when I say rough I mean that the the irregularities are large compared to the wavelength of light very much larger.
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Dave Chapman: The the rough shape of them and the relief of these objects cast shadows, so when you’re seeing things obliquely, not only do you have the phase effect, but you have this shadow effect where.
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Dave Chapman: The lightest casting shadows, so not all of the disk is actually emitting light towards the observer because of the shadow effect.
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Dave Chapman: But when the object comes into the anti solar of direction all of those shadows disappear there’s you don’t see any shadows, so all of the light that goes in.
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Dave Chapman: can come out and get this boost in brightness and it’s known to happen with the full moon and it’s also known to happen with Mars like there’s this little extra boost of intensity.
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Dave Chapman: Around opposition and it’s the same physical effect here, so all of that stuff is all out there and it’s all reflecting and scattering light, but in the anti solar direction you get this boost because of this physical effect the no shadow effect hmm and it’s actually.
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Dave Chapman: If you read the observers handbook Roy talks about this in one of the one of his essays.
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Dave Chapman: This effect and that’s the physics behind it that’s why it looks.
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brighter there.
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Shane Ludtke: I I can’t get over how faith, that is, you know i’m looking at your photo.
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Shane Ludtke: And I see your camera settings so your ISO 800 F 2.8 and yeah nearly four minute exposure and it is still faint like.
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Shane Ludtke: Something else.
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Dave Chapman: This is bad ass faint I mean.
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Dave Chapman: And this is why this is why, like don’t look don’t look for this now.
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Dave Chapman: yeah because the anti solar point, you know that is right in the Milky Way.
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Dave Chapman: there’s no way you’d see this.
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Dave Chapman: And, even in the winter, you have to avoid you know you have to avoid where the ecliptic crosses the the Milky Way you’ve got to be to one side or the other.
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Dave Chapman: And so, like Leo is a perfect place like it’s the most unreal key you know it’s one of the most and Milky Way parts of the sky.
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Dave Chapman: And I don’t know what the opposite is somewhere below Pegasus I think.
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Dave Chapman: You know pisces or somewhere like that Nice it’s where you see all the you know you see all the galaxies and jazz like that and globular clusters, but you don’t see any star.
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Dave Chapman: Open clusters or any kind of Milky Way stuff but yeah wouldn’t work you have to, we have to have all of these things that line up you got to have clear sky no light pollution, no moon.
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Dave Chapman: Transparent sky they say no light pollution, no light pollution and no Milky Way like the six things you got to get right.
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Chris Beckett: To see the cold wait wait cold beverage was in their back.
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Dave Chapman: it’s funny because you know.
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Dave Chapman: I shouldn’t say this on air I suppose that’s.
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Shane Ludtke: Fine.
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Dave Chapman: we’re casual they have they have they have this like.
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Dave Chapman: ironclad rule no alcohol right.
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Dave Chapman: And my friend Quinn, and I would be observing and we’d be and when we turned to me, and they say Dave i’m thirsty i’m going to go back to the cabin and i’m going to get a Pepsi would you like a Pepsi.
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Dave Chapman: yeah so he go off and he come back with too cold beers right, and this would happen, a couple you know, a couple of times a night like when we weren’t seriously observing when we’re just goofing off.
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Dave Chapman: And then, when you get up in the morning you go back to the observing site that’d be this that’d be this trash bin full of beer.
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Dave Chapman: Not just ours, but everybody was doing it is the trick is you don’t you don’t want to get caught.
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Dave Chapman: in the dark, no one.
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Dave Chapman: In the daytime nobody can connect you with it so.
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Shane Ludtke: The perfect crime.
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Chris Beckett: teenagers teenagers getting in there.
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Dave Chapman: So that’s about it for the gig and shine i’ve seen the dark light it a lot of different places, I know when to look for it, where to look for it.
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Dave Chapman: One of the best times I saw it was when I was down in Chile, actually, that was the same year, I think 2017 or is that.
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Dave Chapman: done in the atacama desert, and I was out.
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Dave Chapman: In the morning before sunrise and down there and you’re at like basically at the Tropic of capricorn but I don’t know how that geometry worked out, but the cycle light was like this almost completely vertical pyramid of light coming up from the mountains.
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Dave Chapman: I was waiting to see mercury, but I was, I thought I forgot about the zodiacal light, but there it was there, it was in that in their fall.
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Dave Chapman: And anyway, well, what if there’s no seasons down there really, but it was an amazing sight to see it, and I saw it, both in the morning and the night because down there the ecliptic is always very steep rise, and I saw it on both occasions.
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Dave Chapman: But that’s how dark it was yeah.
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Chris Beckett: wow.
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Dave Chapman: The first time I saw so dial light was when I was looking for a Comet I could tacky back in 96 and I went out to you know amount unique is Nova Scotia right yeah.
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Chris Beckett: The other model airplane field.
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Dave Chapman: No, that was beaver bank.
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Dave Chapman: Oh yeah cuz a museum house and we used we had permission to observe from there and I decided to go out there for dark skies to see hi ECHO tacky.
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Dave Chapman: And I got a picture of I think I got a picture there, I saw it anyway, but I complained to Dave lane, the next day I said geez you know there’s some like.
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Dave Chapman: Some some like bad light pollution out there mount Union I said, it must be Windsor he said no, no that’s that’s the wrong direction.
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Dave Chapman: Well, this was march okay yeah and then I figured out that I had seen so dial light for the first time in my life that I just again I just discovered it and figured out afterwards, what it was.
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Dave Chapman: I thought it was light pollution, but it was it was light and it was interfering with my appreciation of the Comet.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah both.
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Chris Beckett: matt yeah I just say matt uni actors famous for for being home too rich to Friday you rap star buck 6565.
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Dave Chapman: Okay i’m a bit i’m a bit of a fan of his actually.
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Chris Beckett: I went to university with them.
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Dave Chapman: Oh yeah.
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Chris Beckett: I think one class of them, or something okay he’s pretty interesting guy yeah.
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Chris Beckett: So.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, I was just I was gonna make a comment about both the sabbatical late in the gig and shine.
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Shane Ludtke: You know the like your comment Dave about the transparency there’s been nights where i’ve been out in the transparency isn’t very good and I can know.
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Shane Ludtke: After seeing your photos of the gig and shine and seeing the sabbatical late myself, you know if that error is dirty it’s pretty easy to.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah probably convince yourself you’re seeing some of this stuff when you’re just seeing the effects of you know, a dirty sky.
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Dave Chapman: yeah and.
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Dave Chapman: True, and that it’s a testimony to how clear the air is there on the right day.
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Dave Chapman: Even though there’s light pollution.
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Dave Chapman: To the right and left like bad light pollution there’s this band of darkness like you’re looking towards Cuba right.
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Dave Chapman: cube is maybe I don’t know 50 nautical miles away but there’s nothing coming that from that direction.
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Dave Chapman: So there’s this kind of band there’s quite a wide band and everybody’s like observing in that band and then through the night that kind of the sky kind of washes over that but it doesn’t it’s hopeless to try to look in any other direction.
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Dave Chapman: Well, not hopeless but.
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Dave Chapman: But it’s not it’s not the perfect skies that you might imagine it would be, but no places, so I found I haven’t found a perfect place yet.
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Chris Beckett: You got to come out and observe with.
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Chris Beckett: US we got a.
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pretty good.
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Dave Chapman: But it’s not civilized.
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Shane Ludtke: that’s true it’s.
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Chris Beckett: What are you talking about the company or the location.
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Shane Ludtke: or both.
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Dave Chapman: I like ketchum kojic it’s.
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Dave Chapman: it’s not perfect, but it’s about the darkest place i’ve seen yeah and I just mentioned, you before Chris that.
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Dave Chapman: Despite being in the atacama desert and being on you know and being a 9000 feet above sea level, and all that goes along with it, I didn’t find it that dark.
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Dave Chapman: I mean, it was a glorious sight to see all the southern objects, but my host that was there, he got quite put out when I suggested it it didn’t seem that dark.
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Dave Chapman: And and and I wasn’t I wasn’t really criticizing and I was just making an observation, it was just like it’s not as dark as I thought it would be yeah.
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Dave Chapman: Now, but on top of that it’s got these brilliant you know stars and.
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Dave Chapman: Deep sky objects which I mean they’re not even deep sky objects because they’re so damn bright enough magellanic clouds and the transient and nebula and they’re just beaming out you don’t really need a dark sky to see those things.
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Chris Beckett: yeah.
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Dave Chapman: I mean it’s still a beautiful view but, but when you move away from the Milky Way and take an Indian taken an objective reading on the.
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Chris Beckett: On the deep you know, on the darks, what do you call it, you know.
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Dave Chapman: yeah yeah the dark sky meter.
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Chris Beckett: One of these.
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Dave Chapman: yeah you know you get a number.
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Chris Beckett: Okay there’s a battery.
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Dave Chapman: You get a number and and you know, I was down there and I was like you know, taking my measurements like I said well you know, to be honest it’s it’s i’ve seen darker skies and kitchen kojic National Park.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah but it depends on it depends on the landscape like and what the vegetation is and.
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Dave Chapman: stuff like you know they have a serious air glow problem down there it’s.
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Chris Beckett: Like big lithium minds, or something.
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Dave Chapman: No, no, no it’s not terrestrial it’s.
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Chris Beckett: it’s it’s.
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Dave Chapman: it’s it’s something like the ozone layer, or something and the stuff coming in and the air glow is like it’s when, then the ions get.
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Chris Beckett: yeah we get that.
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Dave Chapman: The gaskets Ionized but it’s really bad down there, to the extent that it interferes with the Alma radio telescope.
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Chris Beckett: yeah we can sometimes see it here, I have, I have a photo.
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Dave Chapman: yeah you can see it in kg to to an extent, but but it’s bad down there yeah a whole like it’s not it’s a known thing if you look it up like there’s this like big pole over South America let’s in this let’s say in all the rays that create the sky go.
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Chris Beckett: Oh yeah yeah I think I.
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Dave Chapman: Ever blow sorry Eric Eric Hello.
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Chris Beckett: yeah I was there, it has to do with.
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Chris Beckett: Lack of magnetism in the area it’s like a weakening.
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Dave Chapman: The magnetic field oh OK so i’ll take down some magnets next time.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah problem solved.
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Chris Beckett: It will go well with your tinfoil hat.
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Dave Chapman: But it, but that my host it was a there was a funny moment there my host was saying was very dark sky blah blah blah, and he he he he he took out his dark sky beater not unbeknownst to me, and he came over and he said i’m reading 23.0 on my on my meter and i’m going.
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Chris Beckett: Really reading it like this.
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Dave Chapman: And I said, you know i’ve seen those numbers on my meter but only when i’m pointing it in the wrong direction and I walked away.
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Dave Chapman: Seriously, if you have it backwards you’re looking at the ground it’ll come up 23 anyway, he came to me about 10 minutes later and confessed that he had been doing it upside down anyway, we mean made friends, after that, because.
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Dave Chapman: And I wasn’t I wasn’t trying to get at him I was just being me, you know, I was just making this observation hey you know it’s not as dark as like and it turns out that there’s a reason for it, so it was a perfectly valid and scientific observation you know.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah there’s a lot of factors that make for a dark sky but yeah I got to see down in the grasslands i’ve certainly seen more of those darker nights i’m gonna have to get out there, I guess yeah you gotta come out yeah you got a good place to stay will will put you up in a.
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Shane Ludtke: In a tent to find his tent in southern Cisco.
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Chris Beckett: minus 10 they’re.
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Chris Beckett: Fine, with it, with a few hail holes in it.
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Dave Chapman: So getting back to the gig and shine one of the reasons I wanted to publish it in the journal, not just the Nova notes it’s not because the Nova notes isn’t good enough.
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Dave Chapman: But the thing about the journal is it’s an archival publication, so when I publish it there it’ll be it’ll be indexed in the Harvard abstracts okay.
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Dave Chapman: So when people are doing research on this it’ll pop up you know my little article will pop up and it’s you know it’s not as highly scientific.
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Dave Chapman: Publication and I didn’t have any controls or any you know it’s just a random observation, but I think it’s unique I don’t think anyone else has reported that and so, if anyone does want to research, this seriously.
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Dave Chapman: I may have contributed to the science of the topic by just saying this is what I saw and the date and where I was and here’s a picture you know, so I figured that’s worth you know that’s worth of recording and an archival journal yeah yeah.
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For sure.
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Chris Beckett: Well, I think, I think that pretty much covers the topic yeah same do you have any any further questions for Dave.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no, no questions, maybe just a comment about the winter star party sort of on topic, but off topic.
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Shane Ludtke: we’ve we’ve had a few listeners reach out to us via email and talk a lot about the winter star party and.
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Shane Ludtke: You know that combined with your observation here Dave and you know, the fact that you’ve gone there a few times you know it’s this is starting to rise as a higher priority on my list to attend this star party so.
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Dave Chapman: So the thing is, is that from time to time it gets hit by hurricanes and and i’m not sure i’m not sure what the physical state of the place is like it was never.
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Dave Chapman: The facilities were never like awesome they were always like pretty primitive and the last time when a can’t remember the name of the hurricane but it went right through there and the little grass huts that.
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Dave Chapman: They call them chickpeas they were demolished like gone.
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Dave Chapman: And, and then most people stay in our TVs and stuff so when we would go down, we would we would get we would get like five or six guys that we would we would rent one of these chickpeas and get in really early so we could get one so.
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Dave Chapman: I just don’t know what the state of the facilities are like what I don’t even know if they had it last year.
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Dave Chapman: But you know they will need to because it’s it’s unlike a girl scout camp, or something like that, but the facilities are like.
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Dave Chapman: I mean it’s it’s a lovely event but it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty rudimentary i’m going to tell you i’m going to confess to you when I go down there with those guys I pay my share for the hut and I stay with my wife in a proper hotel.
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Chris Beckett: there’s no shame in that.
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Dave Chapman: And, and she what she does it’s like we spend the day together, and then we go out and have an early dinner and then she comes and drops me off at about I think seven o’clock because there’s like a nobody, no one can leave or come in with their vehicle after seven.
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Dave Chapman: So I get her to drop me off, and I spend I spend the night there, and if I need to sleep I go to the hut but in the morning, she comes to gets me and I go and have my Nice, you know my nice breakfast and have a nice shower and have a nice sleep and a real bed, you know.
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Dave Chapman: So I paid double accommodation, just to be comfortable.
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Shane Ludtke: And my.
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Dave Chapman: My bed or I can maybe the next time it’ll be an attempt, but it’s just like a place to crash when I get too tired to observe.
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Chris Beckett: Observing lifestyles of the of the rich and not so famous.
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Dave Chapman: i’m looking forward to going with Jerry and Judy black we’ve last several summers we’ve been getting a particular campsite at ketchum kojic lake site 15 on an island.
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Dave Chapman: big news island and it’s got a really nice speech you don’t see the whole Skype it has a nice southern exposure a little bit overhead and we get out there and it’s really dark and we have a lot of time observing and Jerry does a lot of time lapse type photography and.
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Dave Chapman: Okay we’ve done that, a few summers now and we’ve had some we call it the big muse island star party and it’s only ever had for people that.
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Dave Chapman: We have to paddle you know we have to paddle to get to it with all our gear like we can’t drive up right yeah so you have to bring all our camping gear and then we have to bring our astronomy gear so it’s quite a it’s quite a production to get there.
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Chris Beckett: But it’s worth it it’s worth it.
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Shane Ludtke: sounds awesome.
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Dave Chapman: yeah.
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Very cool.
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Chris Beckett: Well, I think we should we’re trying to do these little little short and punchy here for for the summer so that so that we can get some astronomy in or really we’re just working where these basic but yeah I think we should end it here unless people have anything more to add.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, thanks, a lot Dave really appreciate your time, and this was a.
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Shane Ludtke: This was an awesome episode, it was was interesting to hear about your observation, thank you well thanks.
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Chris Beckett: yeah thanks so much day I really.
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Dave Chapman: really appreciate you inviting me back and particularly because I know you guys are genuinely interested in that story like yeah like you guys are observers, so you can really appreciate what it was like I hope I conveyed it well enough what the experiments like.
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Shane Ludtke: Oh yeah but.
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Dave Chapman: You know, not everybody, you know if I tried to tell that story at a typical party with my friends like people would be nodding off in the first 30 seconds.
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Dave Chapman: You know you guys are.
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Dave Chapman: You guys are awesome because of you know your your love for astronomy and and and the all the different experiences that people have, and I think your your podcast is really great and.
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Chris Beckett: Well, thank you so much.
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Dave Chapman: Thanks for tuning in more regularly now usually.
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Chris Beckett: The garden or something i’ll.
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Dave Chapman: i’ll put my headphones in and listen to you guys well I weed the garden, you know.
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Chris Beckett: You were saying once that sometimes you like.
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Chris Beckett: Try to correct us yeah oh no wait they’re not there.
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Chris Beckett: To stop mispronouncing things.
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Dave Chapman: Oh no so much correct, but sometimes I just like sometimes I just want to comment and but it’s not really it’s not really handy like you know, like you.
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Dave Chapman: Say and then you forget, you know.
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Dave Chapman: But the point is that i’m listening with purposefully and i’m reacting to it so.
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Chris Beckett: Nice thanks thanks so much really appreciate you having having made a really interesting story for our listeners and yeah we received lots of.
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Chris Beckett: Observing stories from our listeners, and so, if anybody out there has has other stories that they wish to share certainly drop us drop us a note to lingering email addresses actual astronomy at gmail COM that correction.
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Shane Ludtke: perfect.
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Chris Beckett: There we go.
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Dave Chapman: All right, maybe, maybe if the other people that seem gagan shine they can send in there.
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Chris Beckett: yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah that’d be awesome.
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Chris Beckett: yeah that’d be waiting.
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Chris Beckett: Okay, thanks again.
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Chris Beckett: Thank you.
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bye bye.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
=====================
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