I’ve been busy the past week…

Arrived in Fortaleza about 7:30 on Tuesday (2/16/10) evening and I was met by 7 members of the Clube de Astronomia de Fortaleza. Three club members joined me for dinner after a quick stop at the Holiday Inn to check in and freshen up after 21 hours of travel.

Dennis Weaver

I met Dennis Weaver through Breno Giacchini, IOTA Coordinator for Brazil. Dennis, a high school astronomy teacher in Fortaleza, arranged for the expedition to use the school’s 25cm Meade LX200 GPS  telescope. Also at dinner was someone with an excellent command of the English language, Doctor Hilbernon Almeida Filho, a medical school graduate fulfilling his residency requirements. We were joined by his lovely friend Tatiana Papilio who works in the offices of one of Brazil’s premier cashew nut companies. We had fish and something new to me, sun-dried steak, along with vegetables, beans and rice. My first real meal in Brazil (not counting McDonald’s at the Sao Paulo airport) was very, very good.

Our plan was to meet the next night at the high school where Dennis teaches, and set up the telescope under the dome to check out the MIT POETS camera on the scope we’d be using for the first station, and hopefully to find our target star.

On Wednesday Hilbernon took me to Croco Beach where we feasted on a delicious buffet at a shaded table right at water’s edge. Vendors made their rounds selling linens, hats, sunglasses, sandals, and there was some crazy guy beating a cardboard box with a stick while making sounds like a terrified cat. I have no idea if he was selling something or just looking to incite a riot, but it sounded terrible –  not many people were laughing. And of course there were the sunbathers, beautiful Brazilian people enjoying the great weather and warm waters of Norteste Estada Ciera.

Cartier Ramallo, Dennis Weaver, Me, Hilbernon Almeida Filmo, Paulo Regis

After lunch, Hilbernon and I went to the home of Paulo Regis to look at the telescope we’d be using for the second station. Paulo had a beautiful 16″ dob and a Meade LXD-75 20cm f/5 Schmidt-Newtonian. We’d be using the Schmidt-Newt for the occultation because the equatorial drive would make it easier to find and track our target. We were joined at Paulo’s by Cartier Ramallo from CASF, Dennis Weaver, and Paulo’s mother, girlfriend and nephew.

Astute northern-hemisphere astronomers might notice something amiss with the equatorial mount in this picture. That’s right, the RA axis is level, or actually at 3°. Meade didn’t design the mount to be set to this latitude, and Paulo was having a little trouble because the counterweight shaft hit the tripod.  A little adjustment set that right, but it got me to thinking – how the heck do you polar align when Polaris is 3° below the horizon and southern pole star is just 3° above. I left that up to the equatorial (geographically-speaking) experts.

Next – practice sessions at the observatory…