Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - Hitchhiker Preparations

Wow, I just look up and its already the end of November - yikes! This can only mean that the Hilo premier of a very special AstroTalk featuring seven research physicists and astronomers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa is coming to town (oh yeah, also that fat guy in a red suit). The "Hitchhiker's Guide to the End of Everything" will be held at the University of Hawaii at Hilo UCB Room 100 on Thursday, December 1st at 7:00 pm. A take-off on the recently released sci-fi comedy movie "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", this AstroTalk public lecture will share information about our chances of surviving real astrophysical perils, such as killer asteroids, colliding galaxies, exploding stars and black holes. Seven research astronomers and astrophysicists will deliver brief presentations on their respective fields of study, reporting on the latest understanding of the strange universe in which we live. The panel will consist of Gareth Wynn-Williams, who specializes in infrared emission from HII regions and hot dust in galaxies; Robert Jedicke, whose area of research include Near-Earth asteroids and high-energy particle physics; Jeff Kuhn, solar astrophysicist; Joshua Barnes, who studies stellar collisions and models interacting galaxies in computer simulations; John Learned, a particle astrophysicist; Michael Liu, a researcher in star and planet formation; and Nick Kaiser, Pan-STARRS lead with an interest in cosmology, large-scale structure and galaxy formation. The program will certainly be a must-see event of stellar proportions! (pun intended).

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - Onizuka Science Day Recruitment

Whew, has it really been a year since the last one? Okay, so we're not quite there yet, but soon will be, as the 20th Anniversary of the event will be held on Saturday, January 28th at the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus. We have a new workshop coordinator this year in Donna Kohara, and yours truly remains on board as the exhibit coordinator. Donna has done a great job in recruiting several very interesting hands-on workshops, and I have done nothing yet (kind of swamped under a barrage of things to do). So I must get off my duff and begin crafting a exhibitor invitation letter to send out to various individuals and organizations around the island.

Saturday, November 26, 2005 - IRTF DVDs, Another Clear Night

Today was spent toiling in the salt mines (actually, in my office in the Kukahau`ula Building in University Park) finishing up some IRTF 25th Anniversary DVDs I have been working on in my spare time over the past year. Yeah, I know it sounds like a long time (and it has been), but I would say I put in over 200 hours of my personal time cataloging footage from three camera angles, and editing over six hours of raw material into about 30 minutes of the historic discussion panel that was held last October. Today I put the finishing touches on (actually a beta-version) the DVD that includes the discussion panel highlights, and a slide show of historic photographs taken during construction and dedication of the IRTF, as well as the 25th Anniversary Banquet and discussion panel. After encoding the footage (which took about four hours on a PowerMac G5 1.6 GHz single processor), I burned 25 DVDs, affixed custom designed clear labels onto the disks, and packed them into jewel cases that sported custom double-sided cover and liner notes. The packaging turned out pretty good (if I must say so myself), and am quite happy with the outcome, considering that total expenditure for the project was about $60 for mini-DV tape, $50 for the printable DVD labels, and another $50 for the blank DVDs...oh yeah, and my 200 hours (which my wife says I should be compensated for). So, after a few breaks during my 10 hour day to swim with my family at a neighbor's pool, and to gain sustenance over sushi at a friend's house, I burned my last DVD, and headed home up the hill. Well, I was dead tired when I arrived in my driveway, but as is my custom every night, I took a walk onto my driveway to survey the sky. Well, blow me down if it wasn't another clear night Okay, so here are my options: I could forget about it and go to bed (it was 10:00 at the time), or I could get out my gear and observe a couple of hours. Well, I chose the latter, and got the Celestron CPC800 out into the night air. By the time I got the telescope on the mount, I noticed a haze moving toward the eastern sky, which was obscuring starlight behind it in the distance. Arrrrggh! No, not after all that! Okay, so we hope for the best as I aligned the finder scopes. In less than a half hour to set up (that included schlepping it out of the house and onto a cart down the driveway), the clouds had passed and I was ready for the sky. What I like about the Celestron (and undoubtedly my neighbors as well) is the smooth, quiet operation of the drives. Whether slewing across the sky or nudging to a nearby object, the CPC800 is a joy to operate. I have also outfitted the telescope with the Celestron Power Tank and the zero-power LED finder scope that mounts onto existing OTA mirror cell mounting screws (nothing could be easier!). Tonight, I had the telescope all to myself and was happily observing in my tee shirt and shorts on my front driveway until 2:00 am, when my eyes told me it was time to pack it in.

Friday, November 25, 2005 - Celestron CPC800

The last couple of nights has been absolutely fabulous in Hilo with very little cloud cover for most of the evening. With high hopes, I brought home the office Celestron CPC800 telescope for some observations in lower Kaumana. When I got home, my excitement grew, as the skies were clear, and couldn't wait for darkness to fall. As twilight draped us, I set up the scope and couldn't get my son Kaipo to finish his dinner. It seems he was excited for the evening's activities as well - I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, huh? This would be the first time observing from home in a number of months (Kaumana is most often blanketed in clouds, being located 2000 feet up the slopes of Mauna Kea), and it will be nice having the convenience of a friendly bathroom, pantry, and most importantly - warmth! So, we're aligned, and I am just checking the optics (superb airy disk, thanks Kevin), when Kaipo, some of his friends and some neighbor kids and parents gather around in curiosity. It was fun sharing views of the planets Venus (and explaining how Galileo observed its phases) and Mars (Percival Lowell and what he perceived as canals through today's research with the JPL rovers, and soon to arrive Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), and extended objects like the Andromeda and Sculptor Galaxies, Helix, Saturn and Dumbbell Galaxies, and various open and globular clusters. While my impromptu audience peered through the eyepiece, I was able to impart some facts on size, scale, origin, evolution and how astronomy is. Before long, and way too soon, some wispy clouds starting rolling in, while a thin ring of dew was forming on my corrector plate. Dang, I hate it when that happens! Oh well, I can do something about the dewing, but the clouds eventually shut us down - but not before I had an opportunity to share views of the sky with our neighbors of all ages.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - University Astrophysics Club

I had a meeting with several members of the University Astrophysics Club today, to try to get an understanding of their objectives. One of goals include the restoration and use of the UH Hilo campus 10" Newtonian reflector telescope and dome. Currently, both the telescope and dome are in disrepair, the dome needing the most work. Years of neglect have left it in a state of corrosive deterioration, and we suggested the club get an engineer to assess the structural integrity of the building before any more effort is put into it. With a positive prognosis, the club may be able to submit a proposal for funding to the UHH Physics and Astronomy Department. The University Astrophysics Club is also maintaining their commitment to facilitating star parties at the Visitor Information Station every second Saturday of the month, but want to expand their activities to include design and construction of new demonstrations for public outreach events, design and launch of a new interactive club webpage, providing mini-lectures to club members about current astronomy and developments on Mauna Kea (this we can help by passing information about upcoming science colloquia). In an effort to help the club out, SEPO loaned a Meade 10" LX200GPS telescope to the club for their star parties and for research projects. SEPO is also sharing information about the Faulkes Telescope, and offering club members the opportunity to become mentors for east Hawaii high school students. We particularly hope the club members look upon this as outreach with substantial fringe benefits (of being able to get time on a science-grade 2 meter telescope). We gave the club a Faulkes Telescope user's manual and some newsletters with information about it. We have also invited a few club members to attend a Faulkes telescope user's meeting held in Manoa and Polycommed to Hilo next month, and are hoping that some will be interested.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - Natural History tour of Mauna Kea

One of the things we have always wanted to do is learn more about the wonderful mountain on which we work. Mauna Kea is a great place, but most people who are employed by the observatories have little knowledge of the white mountain other than the fact that it is the best place from which to conduct ground-based astronomical observations. So when I discovered that Office of Mauna Kea Management Director Bill Stormont was offering natural history tours of the mountain, I jumped at the opportunity to extend Bill's offer to MKOOC. Along with learning a bit about the mountain, this could be a chance for our committee members to learn about each other's objectives and come together as a group.
Several members of the Mauna Kea Observatories Outreach Committee (MKOOC) attended the tour, including Remi Cabanac - CFHT, Hiroko Shinnaga - CSO, Cathy Ishida - Subaru and Ron Koehler - MKSS. We started off at Boiling Pots in Piihonua, and continued up the Saddle Road, stopping at various Kipuka along the way. It was interesting to see the changes in vegetation at the different stops. We stopped off at Pu`u Huluhulu at the junction of Saddle Road and the Mauna Kea Access Road, and walked along the pahoehoe lava flow of 1935 to a point, where 3 different flows converged. Then, we climbed up the Pu`u, and enjoyed the wonderful view from atop the cinder cone, with Mauna Kea standing majestically in the background. After a lunch at Hale Pohaku, the group wound their way up the mountain, stopping at the first parking lot, where we walked out to a rock outcrop to inspect striations in the surface from rocks along the bottom of ancient glaciers. Up a little further, we came upon an ancient adze quarry, where Hawaiians of old would mine and fashion stone tools from the dense lava. Whew! This was a great experience, and one that I am hoping we can share with our fellow observatory staff in the near future.

Monday, November 21, 2005 - IRTF Outreach Program

There is a call for a structured, 5 year outreach program plan by IRTF Division Chief Alan Tokunaga. Alan has made the invitation to submit an outreach program that can be integrated into the IRTF operating budget over the next 5 years. This presents an excellent opportunity for us to bring a substantial program to our Hawaii Island community - it is also an opportunity for me to lose a bunch of sleep pondering over this, and putting something comprehensive down on paper. We have bits and pieces, or strings and threads we call SEPO (IfA Science Education and Public Outreach office) programs, but now is the time we weave them into a tapestry. I think we are poised to take our model to the next level, but that requires someone with a vision to orchestrate the various pieces into something that is substantive, cohesive and curiously appealing to federal funding agencies. This is something for which we have always attempted to strive, but for lack of time, energy or brainpower (or some combination of the aforementioned), have never achieved. I think when you come down to it, SEPO (IfA Science Education and Public Outreach office) is probably one of the best utilized and most diversified offices in our institute. However, because of that diversification and limited staffing, we are constantly challenged for time. So maybe one of the things we should work into this 5 year plan is some full or half-time workers in the office. Okay, time to get to work.

Friday, November 17, 2005 - Good night sweet prince

Another busy day in paradise. Koa and her band of merry puppeteers in Hawaiiana o Honomu visited the children of Keaukaha Elementary School, and gave a most wonderful presentation on Ku`ula, God of Fishermen. There were close to a hundred students in the early show that I attended, who were raptured by the performance of the troupe, which seeks to promote cultural values through storytelling. After the performance, I was off to the mountain to give a tour for some wonderful people who donated charitably to the Hawaii Opera Theater (the IfA offers Mauna Kea tour certificates to eligible non-profit organizations for their fundraising auctions). It was at the Visitor Information Station that Erik Rau informed me of John Altonn's passing last night at 7:00 pm. Oh man, there were some mixed feelings, but overwhelmingly I felt a sense of relief and comfort - that John was with his maker and in a better place than we. But it is with heavy heart that we must persevere on in this world that will appear all the more stark without the color of passion and joy that John brought to his work and the people he encountered.

Thursday, November 17, 2005 - Get that book!

There was a strange desire I had today to get over to a dear friend. I had made arrangements earlier to order and receive a book written by UHH astronomy professor Dr Michael West and have it signed with an inscription for John Altonn (a dedicated volunteer at the Visitor Information Station, giving caravan tours to the summit every weekend). Well, this afternoon around 4:30, I had yen to call John's wife Phyllis on the phone to see if it would be possible to come over briefly. She said that it couldn't be at a better time, because of John's failing health. I jetted over to the house, and brought the book for John, but noted that he was not conscious. Undaunted, I opened the book and began reading passages from the first couple of chapters. In a clear voice, I read from that book for the first time, and hoped those words could offer some comfort for John. Before long, one of his daughters arrived at the house, and my time with the big man was over. With respect, I left the house and prepared my self for a long evening at a PTA executive board meeting - my focus on school business, but my heart was back with John. It was a long night.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - Hawaii College and Career Fair

The 31st Annual Hawaii College and Career Fair is making its rounds across the state. Tonight was the fourth stop on the tour, after events on Oahu, Kauai and Maui. After an informative presentation on the Thirty Meter Telescope at the Gemini Conference room, I had to zoom over to the Sangha Hall to snag a premium spot for our IfA booth. Curtis Nishioka allowed us to come early and set up our large display panel in one corner of the hall, close to electricity and a prominent corridor. My guess is that there were probably close to 500 people milling the aisles throughout the night, and well over a thousand the following day. Visitor Information Station staff Anne Michels and volunteer Hazel Butler joined Koa Ell and I at our booth to interact with several dozens of students, parents and teachers. You know, I really like these types of events, because it allows one to communicate with a wide variety of people from all walks of life and divergent cultures and socio-economic segments that we would not otherwise have a chance to. Koa was able to make a connection with a young man of Hawaiian ancestry, who was helping out his dad at the DeVry booth down the hall. He was looking for a direction, but did not know where to turn - he told her that he felt the mountain calling him and that he wanted to rediscover his culture. Koa immediately picked up on that and invited him to a special cultural presentation at the VIS on the weekend. We met several teachers, to whom we offered our business cards and services. We met other teachers and parents who have known us for some time and offered their thoughts on what our programs had done for their children. It is really reassuring and reaffirming to hear these types of feedback of your work - but you know, we also get constructive criticism as well. But this type of feedback is just as important, as it provides vital information about what we did wrong, or how we can improve in the future.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005 - St Joseph School

Today, we spent some time at Mrs Marion Buscher's 5th and 6th grade students to talk a little bit about light energy and specifically about infrared light. Along with my computer with cool images from Spitzer Space Telescope and other ground-based telescopes, I brought an infrared camera and some props. The slide show took some time to develop, as I paired images of extended celestial objects in the optical and infrared wavelengths. The images would be carefully selected to match up with in scale with fairly good resolution, and had to be cropped and aligned perfectly so that I could blink (or rapidly switch) between the two. I featured images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, MSX and IRAS as well as other instruments from ground-based observatories. After the images of astronomical objects, the slide show demonstrated earth-bound uses for the technology, including meteorology, night-vision devices, medical and even the microwave oven manufacturing industry. I think this last portion could really bring the technology to relevancy for the students, as most of the applications were from things they were familiar with. After the slideshow, we segued into using a 10 micron infrared camera to demonstrate various properties of the IR spectrum, including transmittance through various materials and even using a sheet of aluminum as a makeshift thermal mirror. I had a bunch of fun, and more importantly, I know the kids had fun as well. We'll be bringing this presentation to several schools in the future, as well as develop others for continuing a presence in the classroom for our schools on Hawaii Island.

Saturday, November 12, 2005 - Makahiki celebration

In old Hawaii at sunset, the rising of Makali`i, which is the asterism Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters or Subaru (Japan) marks the beginning of the Makahiki season. This would be a festive time of the year, in modern times, the custom continues at Puhi Bay Park in Keaukaha on the Big Island of Hawaii. Uncle Kimo Pihana, Mauna Kea Ranger suggested that we offer stargazing opportunities to the people of his village during the Makahiki celebration this weekend. After calling a couple of friends to join us at the event, we eagerly waited for the weekend to roll around, hopefully with a respite from the extremely rainy weather. But by the time Saturday came, the clouds had not cleared from the sky, and the rain kept falling out of the sky from where I live, up mauka near Kaumana. Well, at 4:30 in the afternoon, I packed my telescope and son into the truck and headed toward the beach. We made it to the park, and got out to check out the situation - overcast, with a steady rain. We walked on over to several tents looking for a familiar face, until we came upon Moana Pihana, Kimo's son. He found the organizer, uncle Skippy, and we exchanged pleasantries and assessed the situation at hand. Skippy offered to share some food, and Kaipo and I headed over to the tent and made a plate. When finished, Kaipo was quick to find playmates, while I went around talking to some folks I met near the entertainment tent, which is where I noticed Cathy Ishida from Subaru Telescope and our own Mike Connelley. We plunked down in a tent to get out of the elements and talked story for a couple of hours while waiting for any change in the weather. During that time, we did meet a lot of nice people and a crewmate of mine from the Hokualaka`i. But the clouds did not part and the rain did not stop. Before long, it was time to go, but not before saying goodbye to our gracious hosts with a promise to be back next year, rain or shine (hopefully the latter). Sometimes, you don't get a chance to do what you came out to, but serendipity has a way of making it all worth while.

Thursday, November 10, 2005 - John Altonn

We got wind that a dear friend and former volunteer at the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station (VIS) has taken ill and has returned home from the hospital recently. John had dedicated a good portion of the last five years of his life to volunteer at the VIS, giving folks caravan tours of the summit of Mauna Kea on weekends - he was a regular on the mountain, and a welcome site to many of the folks who work on the mountain. So Ron Koehler, Manager of the Mauna Kea Support Services put together a gift packet that included the recently published Mauna Kea Guide Book and dropped it off at my office. We also conspired to get images of John and other volunteers from a variety of sources, so that we could put together a montage. After getting those images today and loading them onto my computer with the help of recent UH Hilo Astronomy graduate Ben Berkey, I created a poster and printed it up on the HP 5000 DesignJet printer. The poster took the better part of the day to create, but the end result was fairly good (although I would have liked to have had more time to tweak it). I got John's address from Ron, and called the house to see if I could stop by on my way home. John's wife Phyllis answered the phone and said I could stop by if my visit would be brief. She gave directions to the house, which turns out to be one block up from where I live - "Yes Phyllis, I know the house as my son has trick-or-treated there the past two years.") We talked story for a while, and bestowed the gifts to John, who was beaming by this time. As an attempt to keep him on his toes, I threatened to return to make sure he was behaving himself. More on John in an upcoming log entry...

Wednesday, November 9, 2005 - West Hawaii Astronomy Club

They call themselves the WHACos, and this energetic group of amateur astronomers is anything but that. The West Hawaii Astronomy Club (WHAC) President Craig Combes (as I found out, one of three Co-Presidents of the club) booked me for a talk Tuesday evening at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope conference room. I hadn't actually thought of a subject on which to speak until a few days ahead ago, and decided to go with the Deep impact mission and early results and implications. The talk will be spiced with some data and images from the NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador program, along with some visuals like the spacecraft with detachable probe from the University of Maryland, and Dan Maas animation footage for portions of my Keynote slideshow. The weather in East Hawaii has been really wet earlier this week, and the day of the meeting was fraught with large outbursts of rain. The satellite images did not inspire any confidence for a change in the current weather pattern, but with no announcement for cancellation, I packed my gear and headed for Waimea. The rain beat a constant patter on my windshield as I made my way out of town, but by Hakalau, the clouds seemed less ominous, and the rain less dense. When I was on the outskirts of Paauilo, I could actually see some patches of sky in the distance, and I could switch my wipers onto intermittent mode. By the time I got past Tex Drive-Inn in Honokaa, the skies to the north were somewhat clear with a few patches of clouds - hmmm, okay, we may be able to see some stars tonight. The Canada-France-Hawaii headquarters in Waimea was dry, and I was met by Remi Cabanac at the conference room. We chatted a bit, while I set up my system, and after some club business, was able to deliver my presentation. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun I had interacting with the club members during and after the talk. It can be so invigorating to be in the company of folks who have a similar passion for the night sky. It is wonderful to see a club flourish like it is in West Hawaii and Waimea, and I am particularly happy to see that our colleagues at W.M. Keck Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope supporting them. Maikai no!

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - Light Pollution Poster

The ninth poster in a series of ten commissioned by the Hilo office of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy has been designed, printed and dropped off for framing. The theme of the poster is light pollution, with an emphasis on the fact that it hurts everyone on the planet, including sea turtles, migratory birds, insects, plants as well as people. In order to keep it simple, the poster does not offer any solutions, but was created to inform and educate, and maybe even evoke emotion. Many thanks to Wei-Hao Wang for use of his wonderful time-lapse image of Mauna Kea, and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope for their panoramic stitching of the lights that infiltrate the night sky. Although we do have really dark skies on the summit of Mauna Kea, light pollution does have a measurable effect here. We are looking forward to getting the poster mounted and framed in time to hang in our hallways before the end of the week, thanks to Jim Stoekel of FrameIt Hawaii. Now, we have one more poster to go!

Friday, November 4, 2005 - Kea`au High School Career Fair

When I was going to high school, we didn't really have a formal career day (and yes, there were careers, running water and electricity during that time. Usually a requisite visit from a police officer or fireman were the only exposure to potential jobs. So it with great relish that SEPO jumps at any opportunity to represent astronomy and careers that support the science here on the Big Island. We have participated in two previous Kea`au High School career fairs in the past, and were looking forward to stepping it up a notch from past incarnations. One major addition to the program is our Community Outreach Assistant, Koa Ell who accompanied me. We were able to give some educational and vocational career suggestions to several students. We noticed a significant increase in the number of girls interested in pursuing a career in science and/or technology - most certainly an order of magnitude more this year than last. A big factor could be Koa's presence, which may have made our exhibit more "girl friendly" and accessible. Koa spent a lot of her time talking with several female students about jobs on the mountain in support of astronomy, and of the importance of education. But I suppose the biggest draw to our booth was not animate - it was a one inch plastic pig that appears to float in mid-air. The optical illusion is created with the use of two parabolic mirrors with their coated concave sides pointing to one another, lying flat on a surface. We challenged the students to grab the pig if they could - then try to explain why they could not after inspecting the device. The connection to astronomy was then made by pointing out that similar mirrors are used on many observatory telescopes on Mauna Kea. So, once we grabbed them with the floating pig, we piqued their curiosity and imagination with other banter about astronomy and space science, stressing the importance of education to fulfill their goals and aspirations. Its all good stuff, but geez ... how are we going to top ourselves next year?

Wednesday, November 2, 2005 - AstroTalk!

Tonight, we held our monthly AstroTalk in a different venue than where we normally feature them. Wentworth Hall room 1 is an older building lecture hall with theater seating for about a hundred. Its kind of old and semi-decrepit, and nobody really schedules this room for public events unless they really have to (in our case, UCB 100 was booked by another group for a competing event). Also, it appears that many of our flyers did not make it onto the University campus bulletin boards as we normally do, and this AstroTalk would be held on a Wednesday, as opposed to our normal Friday evenings. So we had some challenges ahead of us for this event. Richard Ellis is a Steele Professor of Astronomy and the Director of Optical Observatories at CalTech. I booked Richard through the Keck Observatory observation schedule - by scouring the document for potential victims, er, I mean speakers for our AstroTalk event. By trying to persuade observers to stay an additional night before or after an observing run, we may avoid travel expenses and obtain prominent researchers in the field of astronomy (hey, who said there's no such thing as a free lunch?). So, Richard comes over to Hilo and gives an absolutely brilliant talk on gravitational lensing and his research on mass distribution in the universe. We had about 40-50 people in attendance, comprised mostly of UHH students and our astronomy groupies. After the talk, Richard asked for directions to a local restaurant to meet some colleagues of his in Hilo. I drew a map, and went about breaking down the venue. On my way out of the parking lot, I had a yen to run over to the restaurant to make sure Richard was able to find it, and his people. After parking the car, I noticed a rental car glide past with what appeared to be Richard behind the wheel. I chased him down, and escorted him into the restaurant. Well, his contacts had not yet arrived, so I did the gentlemanly thing - I offered to keep him company until his people arrived. Of course, one needs to occupy one's time with lively conversation and libation. Before you know it, his colleagues arrived and I was treated to interesting conversation about certain observatories on the mountain, instrumentation development, and more (including, among other things, sushi and more beer). I must have been in seventh heaven, because when I came home, I couldn't stop talking about the evening to my wife and only retired for the evening well after midnight. Did I ever tell you that I love my job?

Tuesday, November 1, 2005 - Visit from NPS Researcher

Chad Moore, Program Manager for the National Park Service Night Sky Team contacted me last Friday about his visit to the Big Island this week. He was referred by our friend John Sefick, a video producer and cohort of SEPO. Chad is conducting an inventory of light pollution levels at various national park units, using a simple but unique all-sky photometry system capable of extracting precise brightness levels. In the meantime, he and his partner Angie Richman are looking to inform the public about their program through a series of powerpoint lectures in communities throughout the United States. As such, we have facilitated a lunch talk lecture at the IfA Hilo auditorium tomorrow, Wednesday, November 2nd at noon. Chad was a student in Hawaii in the '80s , and visited Mauna Kea in 1987 as part of a science student conference. Angie has a BA in Astrophysics, and calls herself a cultural astronomer because of her work with native communities. It will be interested to hear their presentation, and I would certainly like to learn more about Angie's work for sure...