Dry spell in Namibia

"Eeeeemmm. I think you'd better hurry!" I said to Claus taking my photo in the hot desert on the way to Swakopmund. I was looking at an approaching group of cars. Leaving a big cloud of dust behind them. Not wanting to literally being left in the dust, Claus took a couple more snaps before we both jumped into the car and managed to leave the other cars in the dust.

This was my second trip to this astronomical paradise in southern Africa. Namibia. A place where clouds are more the exception than the rule from May through September. I had met Claus the year before and this year, we decided to rent a 4X4 together to be more mobile, and giving us the chance to see more of the area, and Namibia in general.
My focus was still the starry skies and the beautiful objects thereof, but I also decided to "sacrifice" one of the nights to go down to the coast, visiting Swakopmund. And old colonial town from the German era.
Last year, I booked rather late, so a campsite was the only option. This time, I had booked far in advance, so they had a comfy room. And in addition, I opted out of the trip via Johannseburg. This time, I took the direct flight from Frankfurt to Windhoek. Much faster, and lest stressing.
I arrived in the morning to find the mount I had rented, already mounted and polar aligned. Ready for my gear. Then a shock as I unpack my gear to set it up for the night. I had sent my telescope off to be checked and tuned and it arrived just days before I left. And when I sent it off, I removed the socalled mounting rings. These are rings that clamp around the telescope and makes it possible to fasten it to a tracking platform. I took out my telescope and put it down on the bed. Something was odd about it. I am normally a calm guy, but when the truth hit me, I almost literally screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". I had forgotten to add the rings on the scope. And now they were 10000 km away. I paced around the room grunting and pulling the little hair I have left. How STUPID is it possible to get? My heart raced, my brain worked in overdrive. I first thought of a stupid idea of TAPING the telescope to the mount. But soon realized that was even more stupid. I had brought a small mounting platform to be used for a camera, and I tried fixing the telescope to this with plastic strips. But that was a stable as a 5-year old on a sugar high at a birthday party. I asked around, and to my great relief, we managed to find a couple of rings belonging to another telescope. They fit so-so, but just enough for me to manage to get long exposures. I sighed of relief. My heart rate was back in the double digits and the blood pressure below lethal. I was ready for the first night.
At dinner, we had a few laughs about my near-death experience.

My sorta-working mounting rings. With some duct tape added for looks...

When the dark falls on this place, it gets dark. So dark that the Milkyway itself casts a shadow. The zebras still lurk around in the dark, seeking the water-tub placed a bit below the farm. For the horses, but zebras, I guess, are a kind of horse. So it seems right. I hear their hooves clack on the rocks. It is serenety on a different level. The darkness, the million stars above me and the silence. Only the slight breeze rustling the leaves slightly around me. Hearing the camera clicking once in a while. With no distractions, the brain works differently. At home, there are million distractions. Here, none.

BTW : All images in this blog are as usual possible to click on to zoom in.

Out and about

I and Claus went on a few trips in the area during daytime. Once to the H.E.S.S. observatory and once to a pictoresque place just south of Hakos where we were staying. Some images from the trips :

Some antilope that ran when we came driving. Just managed to shoot it
(with my camera)

Endless gravel roads

Well worth drive.Beautiful view!

The shade was occupied...

The southernmost point above which the Sun "turns" northward again on
December 21st

H.E.S.S. without hiss

The H.E.S.S. observatory is looking for high energy bursts from the cosmos, and is the largest of its kind in the world. It has built by the Max Planck Institut in Germany. And it lies only a few km from the astrofarm, so we decided to take a trip there. Not only to see the observatory, but also to place a few cameras around to take time-lapses during the night.
The people working there was very accomodating, and let us walk around and take photos. They showed us the results they had on their screens and explained how their equipment worked. Placing our cameras around was fine with them.
I and Claus placed a few cameras in strategic places and left them there for the night. The day after I found that my camera had died (flat battery) after just a few hours. It was supposed to have battery power for the whole night, but obviously not...

Wefie of me and Claus in the big scope

This telescope is humongous

A sense of scale (note the guy in front of the instrument housing)

The timelapse of the array of telescopes during the hours my camera operated. I had hoped for the full night, but I am glad i was able to capture at least this much.

Swakopmund

I, Claus and two other guys decided to head down to the coast for one night in Swakopmund. An old colonial era town down by the coast. The ride down on the gravel roads would take a few hours, but it was definitely worth it. The town was nice, and situated down by the sea. And the trip gave me a chance to get away from the "chores" of astrophoto. Although I love it, it takes it's toll on the body to get only a few hours of sleep every night. So a full night and some R&R by the sea would prove to do wonders.

Rooisand - red sand 

I am glad Claus had a course in driving on gravel road. An "interesting"
experience to say the least. With the car sometimes behaving like a wet
piece of soap on the bathroom floor.

Endless gravel roads towards the coast. Nearly there...

After checking in to a nice pension in the city, we went down to the shore and had lunch at a restaurant literally riding the waves. The whole restaurant shook when waves hit the poles it was standing on. I was calmed by the story that this restaurant crashed into the waves a few years back when the foundation collapsed... But we survived. This time around. The food, service and company was excellent. And we had a nice stroll on the pier afterwards, Watching, and feeling, the waves crash against it. And watching people enjoying the view and the breeze.

After lunch, we had a stroll around town. And took some pictures and looked at places here and there before ending up in another restaurant to have dinner.
During the stroll, we found this ice-cream parlour. The icecream sure was "lekker". We hade a cone with some scoops of different flavors.

Old colonial style church.

The next morning Claus and I decided to take a stroll on the beach before breakfast. I love the sea. The smell of the ocean. The waves splashing. The gentle breeze. Feels like...home...

Illegal to brag about your catch...

The fisherman and the sea. And in the background, the restaurant we ate in
the day before.

Beautiful color patterns in the sand created by the water

Even more

Flamingo taking off. The colors on their body is caused by the food they eat.

Up Up Up and away!

Crazy dog that loved lapping up sea water... And playing with his ball

Local chicken wandering about in the streets...

Beautiful plant outside our pension

After breakfast, we packed our bags, checked out of the hotel and drove down the coast. We wanted to shoot some more flamingos, so we went down to a salt factory a bit south of Swakopmund. The flamingos love the area, rich in nutrients and food. A bit smelly, but most of the time, it was bearable. But at one place, the smell was just beyond expression. As soon as I stepped out of the car and sucked the first breath of air, I almost threw up. But I managed to hold my breakfast down and get some nice snaps of flamingos trying to get up into the air. See below.

Left-right-left-right-leeeft!

Flamingo Air flight FL108 ready for takeoff

Aaaaaand....

Nah... Maybe next time.

Yeeeha! Almost there!

 Driving through the Namib desert was wonderful. I don't know why, but I just love the desert. Dry, desolate and dead. Hmmm. Maybe I need professional help. Anyways. Some images might help describe my fascination.

Not exactly rush-hour

Desert church

Shacks hanging on the edge of the desert.

We stopped to pick up a woman hitchhiker. She proved to be hammered and
lugging around a bottle of moonshine or something similar. She only wanted
to go a few hundred meters before she had reached her destination.

The desert isn't to be travelled lightly. Seems like someone did a while ago.

Ostrich! I said to Claus and we tried to get as close as possible. But without
a proper zoom and us scaring it into running away, meant this was my best
 shot

An oasis in the middle of the desert. Maybe this
is why I love the desert. Life hanging on even here

Even the slightest dew makes the desert go green.

Kudu antelope running down the side of the road as we passed

Beautiful sundown over the mountains

Sunset from Hakos

And after the sun went down, astronomy was the name of the game. I had a telescope that I used for shooting beautiful objects in the skies, It sat there happily staring at a small patch in the sky for hours on end while I was either sleeping og stealing some glimpses through the 24" telescope that a couple of Norwegians and a German guy had rented. I also made some timelapses of both my telescope running, and us observing through telescopes on the lawn in front of the main building.

My telescope (and me checking and resetting it) over the course of 6 and a half hours (I went to bed while it was shooting)

Observing with telescopes on the lawn. This is six hours starting just after sunset. The shadows are caused by the glow of the Moon setting in the North-West.

There are of course stuff to see around the astrofarm too, during the daylight hours. And one can walk around on the extensive farm. Which I often did. Sitting in my room or in the main house all day processing images became boring after a while, so I spent some time walking the trails around the famr. Taking some pictures here and there.

The nest of some bird.

When I walked around, the farm's dogs came and kept me company. The old one had recently been bitten by a baboon when she was chasing it. So she walked a bit slow and constrained. But the younger one (the light-furren one), was jumping around like dogs normally do...

Come and smell this, human! This is the most interesting smell around here!

We could hear the zebra's around the farm at night. They normally eluded us during the day. But on one of the walks, I came across this one. It had obviously been eaten. Either by insects after simply dying, or being killed by a predator. Either way, only part of the skin and the bones where left.

Parts of its striped skin

One of the hoofs. Like a giant nail having been left there.

There is a bug in the system! A BIG bug! This giant thingy was sitting on a
plant outside my room one morning, 2-3 inches long. Nice!

All in all, this was a great trip. I got to see a lot more than the previous year when I more or less only stayed at the farm the whole time. I wasn't used to clear skies every night, so I didn't want to miss any. This time around, I kinda expected every night to be clear, so there wasn't the rush of the first year.
And in May 2017 will be my third time in this astronomers paradise. And I am bringing friends this time. Looking forward to that!