The DipNotes

Between every assignment we get a special kind of vacation called “Home Leave“.   Home leave amounts to about 30 days of paid leave, but is not charged against our regular annual leave balance.  While the State Department will pay to fly us to/from any single address in the USA for home leave, it will not pay for meals and hotels, so many people go to their own stateside homes.  Well, Megan and I do not have a home, so we drive around and visit relatives and take in some sight seeing in America.   This year was a no different, as the map in the previous post shows.  We rented a car in Washington DC and returned it 3 weeks later with over 9,000 new miles on it.

After leaving DC, we drove to Nashville, and stopped at Graceland.  Then we continued to New Mexico to visit our daughter Nova.  While in NM, we all went down to White Sands National Monument, and then over to Carlsbad Caverns.

Carlsbad Cavern is a great place to visit, and most nights in summer you can watch hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the cave after sunset.  However we had a large thunderstorm approach, and the distant sound of thunder kept the bats in.

But the next day, we went down into the cavern for about 3 hours.

 

After New Mexico, Megan and I drove across Arizona to one of our favorite stops.  Best Friends!  One place we go back to every time is an amazing, little known place called “Best Friends Animal Sanctuary”.   It’s the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the world, and we volunteer there by working with care givers and helping re-socialize traumatized animals.  If you need a place to boost your Karma, this is it.

Best Friends is located in the southern Utah border just north of the Grand Canyon.  It’s also about 45 minutes from Bryce and Zion National Parks.  This place is ideally located to visit some of the most stunning scenery in America, plus you can help a lot of furry or feathered animals.  This time we worked in “Cat Village” which is composed of many houses each holding dozens of cats.  I usually work in Dog Town, which is now a TV Show on Discovery, but this year I devoted my time to the cats.  We even took one to our hotel in town, something all the local hotels allow.

Here are a few photos of Best Friends.  If you are ever in the vicinity of south central Utah / Northern Arizona, I highly recommend a visit!

 

After Best Friends, we drove through Zion National Park to Las Vegas, spent 4 nights, and then headed across Utah to Colorodo.   There is some stunning scenery along that route!

Up over the Rockies, and almost hit an Elk..  Unfortunately for the car in front of me, as he totaled his car.  Then down the other side, and across Nebraska to the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan.

In the UP, we headed to Mackinac Island, one of our favorite spots in Michigan.  Mackinac is unique in that no vehicles are allowed on the island, only bicycles and horses.  The whole island looks like the very early 1900′s.

 

We took a tour in a horse drawn carriage, and then headed south to Megan’s relatives about half-way down the state.  After a wonderful afternoon with family, we headed across Ontario to Niagara Falls, and then on to Vermont.

Normally, I would stop in at my mother’s home and tell her about my travels.  However, we had a sad end to our journey.  My mother passed away a week ago, and her committal was scheduled at the end of the month, just as our trip would be ending.  My mother loved to hear about our travels, so this trip is dedicated to her.  I love you Mom, and will miss you dearly.

My mother’s committal was emotional, as she is buried alongside my father and sister who died almost one year ago.  They are all in a wonderful Veterans Cemetery in Vermont, with a gorgeous view.

In the Foreign Service we encounter lots of strange things, but one annoying thing is how the world handles names.  This wouldn’t be a problem except when we have to enter them into Western databases designed for the typical Brady Bunch format – Last, First, Middle. 

I just got a notice that “clearly” states how I should enter foreign names, and how to enter them into the name fields:  Name1 is the western Last Name, Name2 is the First name, and so on.  Here’s the actual helpful instructions I got:

• Example:  Jason Alexander Chow:  “Chow” goes in Name 1; “Jason Alexander” goes in Name 2.
• Example:  Chow Yun Fat:  “Chow” goes in Name 1; “Yun Fat” goes in Name 2.
• Example:  Chow Yun Fat Jason:  “Chow” goes in Name 1; “Yun Fat” goes in Name 2; “Jason” goes in Name 3.
• Example:  Jason Chow Yun Fat:  “Chow” goes in Name 1; “Yun Fat” goes in Name 2; “Jason” goes in Name 3.
• Example:  Shanmugam s/o Subramaniam:  “Shanmugam” goes in Name 1; “s/o Subramaniam” goes in Name 2.  (This name contains no true surname.)
• Example:  Mohamad bin Maliki bin Osman:  “Mohamad” goes in Name 1; “bin Maliki” goes in Name 2; “bin Osman” goes in Name 3.  (Again, this name contains no true surname.)
• Example:  Mohamad bin Maliki Jones:  “Jones” goes in Name 1; “Mohamad” goes in Name 2; “bin Maliki” goes in Name 3.

Now thats as clear as mud!

One of the things that I most enjoy about the Foreign Service is being able to witness unique cultural events that most tourist would miss – simply because many only occur one day a year.  The Hindu festival of Thaipusam.  This festival was not advertised very well, and I had no idea what it was, or when it was.  A local Singaporean staff member at the Embassy suggested that I should go see it as it was quite unique.  I couldn’t agree more.  In fact – I would say that was an understatement!

Thaipusam is a Hindu festival that commemorates both the birthday of Murugan (also Subramaniam), the youngest son of god Shiva and his wife Parvati, and also the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (spear) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman. One of the largest celebrations of Thaipusam occurs in Singapore so I took this opportunity to capture some of the incredible devotion witnessed during this festival.

The most potent propitiatory rite that a devotee of Shanmukha (one of the many names of Murugan) undertakes to perform is the Kavadi (a burden). The Kavadi-bearer observes strict celibacy and only pure, Sattwic food is eaten. He abstains from all intoxicating drinks and drugs and thinks only of God.

The simplest form of Kavadi is the Paal Kudum, which may entail just carrying a pot of milk, usually upon one’s head. However, the benefits that the devotee gains from offering a Kavadi to the Lord are a million-fold greater than the pain that he inflicts upon himself. Thus mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with Vel skewers is also common. The simplest Kavadi is a semi circular decorated canopy supported by a wooden rod that is carried on the shoulders. They are decoratedwith peacock feathers, as the peacock was a mode of transport for Lords Murugan/Skandan/Kumaran). In addition, many have a small spear through their tongue, or a spear through the cheeks. The piercing through the tongue or cheeks keeps one focused constantly of Lord Murugan/Velan. It also prevents the devotee from speaking and greatly enhances endurance.

Other types of Kavadi involve hooks stuck into the back and either pulled by another walking behind or being hung from a highly decorated cart, with the incisions of the hooks varying the level of pain. The belief is that the greater the pain, the more god-earned merit.

In most cases, the Kavadi has many brass bells adorning it which announces the Kavadi-bearer as he walks along. Since the Kavadi-bearer very often observes total silence, the bells are the only signs of a Kavadi procession. Devotees and Kavadi bearers walk barefoot, on hot pavement along the journey – which can take several hours! One of the largest celebrations of Thaipusam occurs in Singapore. This years’s festival was held at the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple. Devotees had to walk from this temple to the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple, a distance of 4 kilometers with the hot equatorial sun bearing down on them. Along the journey, family and friends offer drinks to keep the bearer hydrated and sing devotional songs and praises of Lord Murugan/Saravabavan.

By the time they reach the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple many are in a high state of religious fervor. They dance in ecstasy at the temple door, jubilant that they have accomplished the prayers without any hindrance, while a large crowd gathers and chants Murugan name. Music blares loudly through outside speakers and the whole event is awe-inspiring; there is divine radiance on their faces. It is claimed that devotees often experience the state of feeling united with the Lord.

——————————–

Here’s a photo of the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple.  This is here the festival started.  The temple, located in Little India (a suburb of Singapore) is the cultural center for many ethnic Indians.  There are several Hindu temples, as well as ethnic Indian shopping stores and food markets.

Inside the temple, amongst exotic incense and hindu music, the devout where praying and offering food to their Gods and preparing to take their Kavadi.  Throughout the temple offerings were also made to other Hindu Gods.

The following Kavadi carts are pulled by the Hindu devotees as a burden. They must pull these carts four kilometers from the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple to the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple.  The carts are made of heavy wood or metal with lots of decorations and statues.  Pulling these in the high temperatures and humidity of Singapore must be brutal.

The following photo shows a devotee adorned with small milk pots on his chest and upper arms.  Each brass pot is filled with milk and then hung on the man using metal hooks pierced into his skin.

This man is looking away (above) probably as a distraction to what is going on behind him, where three men are attaching ropes to a Kavado cart for him to pull.  The ropes are attached attached to the devotee with large hooks deep into his back!

To stand there and watch this man get pierced like this… was the most intense thing I have seen in years – probably ever. This was not a magic trick like you see on the streets of Vegas! With a loud chant, and quick stabbing, members of his own family stuck the hooks into the lower back. Then they added some smaller hooks at the top, and weighted them down with coconuts just to increase the pain.

The ropes are almost ready.  Once the slack is taken up he will be off on his 4 km journey. The outside air-temperature is 88F with about 80% humidity. The pavement is scorching hot, so of course he’s barefoot.

This man was all pierced, and was about to have his ropes attached to his back.  All the jewelry on his face is attached with hooks, and there is a large hook pierced through his cheek and tongue.  Of course he had to have some milk-pots adorning his chest, attached with fish hooks which jingled when he walked.

Here is the same man pulling his cart, some three km already. Note the shadow of the ropes. The little lollypop looking things on his arms are small face sculptures. I saw another man getting those pierced earlier.. it took about 15 seconds to do each arm.

Here’s another form of Kavadi. Many men had these elaborate aluminum frames that they had fastened to their waist. Then spears are slid down and pierced into the chest and back. Some then had their tongues and cheeks pierced in such a way that talking would not be possible.

Here’s a nice action shot… Too bad you can’t hear the chanting, music and smell the incense!

Here’s another look at him, almost ready to head out.   The whole frame set with skewers weights about 15 kg (33 lbs) and will be carried the whole 4 km to the temple.  But wait.. what’s that guy doing to his thigh?

Oh yah.. he needs his milk pots too.    So we’ll just hook them to a tender spot!

Here’s a photo of another devotee, all set to start his journey.

The following devotee was a man I came across some 3 km away from the starting temple.  He has only 1 more km to go, but he’s hurting! It’s not such much the spear through his cheeks… but see those tiny brass milk pots hooked to his back?

Oh yah.., that’s got to smart!

And if that’s not bad enough…

Ok, so he’s now within earshot of the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple, and the Hindu music is giving him a boost of much needed energy. In about 20 minutes he reaches the temple and his suffering will end. Hopefully he has endured enough of a burden to protect his family for the next year when he and thousands of others will do this again.

This year they claim just over 10,000 Hindus took part. Most did not endure this type of agony, but hundreds did. If you are ever in Singapore in April, 2011 be sure to stop by the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple and witness this incredible show of religious faith.

I’ll be there!

I took a stroll down along the Sinapore river at night and came across the Cavenagh Bridge, all lit up.  This bridge and one of the oldest bridges in Singapore and is the only suspension bridge here.   It spans the lower reaches of the Singapore River in the downtown/marina area.  The bridge opened in 1870 to commemorate Singapore’s new Crown colony of the Straits Settlements status in 1867, and it is now the oldest bridge in Singapore that exists in its original form.   By 1910 the bridge was found to be unable to cope with increasing traffic, and it was restricted to just pedestrians, as it is today.  By the 1990′s colored lights were added, and now the bridge is a main tourist focal point within the riverside area.  This photo was captured with 7 second exposure to capture the colorful night lights.

(for a larger version click here)

I went for a short stroll behind my house, which just happens to be the Singapore Botanic Garden.   It’s A wonderfully beautiful place, just a few minutes walk from my door.  This free park is about 1.5 miles long and is only botanic garden in the world that is open from 5 a.m. to 12 midnight every single day of the year.  The gardens, now over 150 years old have over 10,000 types of plants and trees, including over 1000 species and 2,000 hybrids of orchids.  The Singapore Botanic Garden also includes access to the National Orchid Garden, a visual spectacle of over 60,000 dazzling orchid-plants set against contrasting textures and shapes of tropical foliage, creating a feast for the senses.  Additionally, this is one of only two city parks in the world with tropical lowland rainforest within the city boundaries (Rio De Janeiro has the other).  The Garden also offers lots of courses from bonsai tree growing to a Nature Photography course which I signed up for in June/July.

While I was visiting the Garden, the weather suddenly turned and dumped a few inches of rain within a very short time , and then it cleared up just as fast.  It’s no wonder Singapore has an average precipitation of 7.5 feet of rain per year!

Powered by DM Albums™

Slide Show + -

Full Screen

I landed in Tokyo for a one-night rest-stop before continuing on to Singapore. My arrival here is my first time in Japan, and I must admit I am very impressed with the efficiency of the airport, public transportation and hotels. As I walked towards the airport’s bus/taxi stand some of the dozens of airport staff noticed a very slight hesitation in my step. Someone came up, asked me where I was going, and pointed me to the bus ticket counter. As soon as I got my ticket, another airport staff member explained the system to me, and led me to the correct bus stop. When the busses arrive, they are greeted again by airport staff who help passengers off, and other staff who load the bus’s cargo bay and assist passengers on. With a polite bow to the bus driver and passengers, the staff wish us all a safe journey and then proceed to help the next group. This same level of attention was seen at each bus stop, and each hotel entrance.

I arrived the evening before Typhoon Melor came to shore, which by morning had wind gusts to about 50 mph. I saw many Japanese employees, shoulders shrugged against the wind walking to work, struggling with bent umbrellas and wind blown hair.  Needless to stay, the rain and wind kept me at the hotel much of the day.  I headed back to the airport in the afternoon to board my flight to Singapore.

PS:  The hotel was my very first experience with a Japanese bidet-style toilet.  More homes in Japan have one of these toilets than personal computers.  They wash your undersides with warm water, and the user can control the temperature and water pressure.  Other features can include water oscillation, noise-blocking background sound, foul odor remover, heated air dryer, MP3 player, internet ports, and more.  When I first walked into the bathroom I just stared at the toilet, not sure if I needed money.  I immediately thought of Captain Kirk, and then sat down to explore my new world (insert your favorite Uranus joke here).

Ok, I just about completed a wonderful 10 days with my daughter who is a student at the University of New Mexico.   Tomorrow I head to Tokyo for a night before continuing on to Singapore.

New Mexico is a fantastic “enchanted” state, not only for the wonderful weather and landscape, but also for the food which is a wonderful mix of Mexican and Native American.  When I am back overseas I am so happy for mail-order so I can cook up these authentic dishes no matter where I am living.  I’ll include a few links to my favorite online food mail-order sites later this week.

My visit to NM coincided with the annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, one of the largest balloon events in the world.  Every morning, during “Mass Ascension”, hundreds of balloons all take off together and drift slowly over the NM high-desert.  In the evening, they secure the balloons to the ground, fill them with warm air, and then all at once they turn on the gas burners which lights the balloons up like giant Christmas ornaments!  This “Balloon Glow” is a spectacular event, and seeing hundreds of balloons all flickering brightly is a sight to behold!

Further north is one of my favorite regions in NM, the Valles Caldera National Preserve.  This collapsed volcanic caldera is located in the Jemez Mountains and protects 89,000 acres of wilderness and wetlands.  It hosts hundreds of elk and other animals, and the Park Service severely restricts human encroachment.  In addition to the Preserve, the area has the Jemez hot springs and Bandelier National Monument –  ancient Native American Anasazi ruins.  Techies can visit the Los Alamos National Laboratories, where the first nuclear bomb was built.

While I am away on assignment, far from America, its places like these that remind me what home is.

* Home Leave:  Home Leave (paid vacation time) is special leave time accrued while we are overseas.  We generally earn 15 workdays a year, so after a two-year tour of duty overseas we would have earned 30 days of Home-Leave.  Home-Leave is not Annual Leave, which is accrued at a different rate depending on rank.  While Annual Leave can be used anywhere in the world, Home-leave must only be used in the 50 United States (or its territories, if that is your home).  Also, Home-Leave is usually granted only after a tour overseas, but can be deferred to a later date with a waiver.  30 work-days mean that you do not use it on weekends and holidays.  As an example, if I had just completed an overseas two-year assignment and started leave on February 1st, 2010, I would be able to take off all of February and not have to end the vacation until the 16th of March!  30 days goes a long ways, and many members take a full 45 workdays after a 3 year assignment.  The State Department also pays for travel for you and your dependent family members to your designated Home-Leave address, and then on to your next assignment.  This is something to think about if you do not have a home, as you MUST take Home-Leave, and the State Department does not pay for lodging or meals – all of that comes out of your own pay check.  At least you do get paid while on these extended vacations!

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

After my consultations I split my home-leave* up into some time with my family in New England, and then my daughter in New Mexico.

I went up to Vermont and New Hampshire and spent a week visiting my mother, brothers and sister.   While the foliage was just changing colors, I arrived just a few weeks before peak color, something I miss a lot from my childhood as I have only been home once since 1980 during peak color change.  New England is spectacular in the fall – and is my favorite time to be there.  If you think the following photos show a lot of color, this is nothing compared to what New Hampshire and Vermont is like at peak foliage!

This is the old mill dam is located in my home town of Claremont, NH, and is a place I used to play around as a child.  Why I never drowned I’ll never know!  I would be terrified if my 10 year old child was using this area as play ground, but I guess things were different back in the early ’70s.  Most likely my mother just never knew!  Anyways, this was an old woolen mill and was built in the 1850s.  By the early 1900′s it was producing the finest cotton “Monadnock” style linen in the world; the White House was a customer as well as the Waldorf (Astoria) hotel in NYC, while in 1918 the mill produced army bandages and blankets for our troops during WWI. When I was a child it was a cotton label factory and was an exciting and adventurous place to play for a kid, so I stopped by just to relive some distant memories.  It is now a classy (for Claremont) restaurant and hotel.

While home, I was able to relax and get back into the normal routines again and go out in public without being nervous.  In Pakistan every time I drove past a parked vehicle I would turn my face away to avoid getting glass shards in my eyes from the impending explosion.  I watched every person on bridges to see if they were carrying an RPG.  It’s nice to be back home!

After 2 weeks in Vermont, I fly out to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

* Home Leave: Home Leave (paid vacation time) is special leave-time accrued while we are overseas.  We generally earn 15 workdays a year, so after a two-year tour of duty overseas we would have earned 30 days of Home-Leave.  Home-Leave is not Annual Leave, which is accrued at a different rate depending on rank.  While Annual Leave can be used anywhere in the world, Home-leave must only be used in the 50 United States (or its territories, if that is your home).  Also, Home-Leave is usually granted only after a tour overseas, but can be deferred to a later date with a waiver.  30 work-days mean that you do not use it on weekends and holidays.  As an example, if I had just completed an overseas two-year assignment and started leave on February 1st, 2010, I would be able to take off all of February and not have to end the vacation until the 16th of March!  30 days goes a long ways, and many members take a full 45 workdays after a 3 year assignment.  The State Department also pays for travel for you and your dependent family members to your designated Home-Leave address, and then on to your next assignment.  This is something to think about if you do not have a home, as you MUST take Home-Leave, and the State Department does not pay for lodging or meals – all of that comes out of your own pay check.  At least you do get paid while on these extended vacations!

I just departed Pakistan and landed in one of my all-time favorite cities, London, and boy do love this city!    I’m taking an authorized “rest-stop” which is a free night in a hotel we are authorized to receive to break up long trips over 13 hours.  Since the flight from Islamabad to Washington DC fits that rule, I opted for a rest-stop in London.  Many Foreign Service members do not use this benefit, as you have to grab all your luggage, and haul it to a hotel, and then go through the check-in procedure again the next day.  But I always take it, which I admit is not as difficult than if I had pets or children to care for.  I also asked that my flight to Washington continue an extra day later, giving me an additional night in London (at my own expense of course, however I do receive the first night’s lodging and transportation to/from the airport, plus one day’s meals paid by the State Department).

By the way – as I headed into the city, I realized that it’s impossible to think of “Paddington Station” without thinking of a bear in a large hat.  It just can’t be done.

Anyway, I took the train from Heathrow airport to my hotel, showered, and went to the West End where there are a lot of street artists and great food.   The city is filled with so much to see and do!   Later I walked down this one street that was lined on both sides by French sidewalk cafes and restaurants. I sat down and ordered a nice baked halibut on top of seasonal ratatouille. Man was that good!   The weather here is fantastic.

Later in the evening I saw the play “Oliver Twist”, which was surprising quite good.

The next day I spent several hours at Westminster Abbey to pay my respects to the tombs of Henry V, Elizabeth I, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens, and many others in the most incredible building in England, which is impossible to describe. To call Westminster Abbey a “beautiful church” is like calling the Grand Canyon a nice valley. No words do it justice. It must be seen to be appreciated.  later I headed over to the Imperial British War Museum, which was a lot of fun for an old WWII buff like me.

There is virtually no entertainment in Islamabad, and certainly no dance clubs.  So I decided to organize and host a “Back to the ’80s” costume and dance party.  The Embassy had a club, and offered to let me use their patio, speakers, amplifier and offered to run an outdoor bar and buffet.

I created a large poster, and pushed the advertising all over the Embassy grounds.

During the weeks leading up to the event, I downloaded ’80s music videos and played them at the club during happy hour.  And then on the day of the party, I was granting Embassy Access requests and saw that 78 foreign diplomats (many Brits) had requested permission to come. Word of anything SAFE and fun spreads like fire here, so my diplomat access list also contained names of Turks, Australians, French, and Kazakhs! I have no idea how a person from Kazakhstan would dress for an ‘80s costume party!   I even got a request from Nick Schifrin who is a reporter for ABC News.

After setting up my DJ station, I went into the club’s bathroom and dressed up for the night.  As I walked back to the dance area, no one recognized me, not even the staff who had been working closely with me for the past hour.  I found a vintage Apple t-shirt on eBay, some rainbow suspenders, a great head of hair, blinding white paints, and some shades.  Perfect ’80s Apple tech geek mixed with that ’80s dance floor hair.

The party was a lot a fun, and we blasted ’80s music until 1:am.  Due to a curfew we had to end the party at that time, but we were able to dance for 6 hours.  What a blast!

On May 11^th,  I drove 14 hours deep into the South African Karoo, a region similar to western New Mexico to visit the largest astronomical observatory in the Southern hemisphere.  The whole area is very remote, and there are only a few places to stay.  The Karoo is semi-desert, with low rainfall, and the darkest skies in the country, easily ranking in at number one on the Bortle sky brightness scale (with #1 is the darkest skies on earth).  In the photo below, I drove our Land Rover high up on a hill to overlook the Karoo landscape.

After driving over 20 km from the small town of Sutherland, we were in the middle of no-where, and had another 8 km to go.  This is where we stayed for 3 days, at a the Blesfontein Guest Farm, a delightful cozy, yet isolated place which contained over 1,000 sheep on a 28,000 acre farm.  Talk about isolation.. and dark!  This is an astronomer’s paradise.

We stayed in a guest cottage near the main farmhouse, which included an indoor braai (grill), and a sunken tub!  The cottage, called the “Cow Shed”, also had a full kitchen and the beds were lined with electric blankets as the temperature approached freezing this weekend.  In winter (June-August) they get snow, one of the few places in South Africa to do so.  Being an isolated sheep farm, you can probably guess what our meals consisted of – lots of mutton and good ol’ South African wine.  The price was about $22 a night.

The town of Sutherland was built in the mid 1800’s and has one stop-sign on it’s main street, and about 10 Bed & Breakfasts with names like ‘Galileo”, “Galaxy”, “Andromeda”, “Kosmos”, “Jupiter” and others so you can tell who they cater to!  Most places even have telescopes for guests to use.  Our farmhouse had two, mounted in a roll-off roof observatory.

Southerland is home to the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), situated high atop a hill about 15 kilometers from town.  The SAAO is now home to the largest single telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern African Large Telescope (S.A.L.T.).  The telescope was completed in 2005 and first light obtained in November of that year.  Although completed, the scope is now being used mainly for on-going testing, calibration, and fixing numerous mechanical and optical problems that are not unusual for a telescope of this size and complexity.

While daytime public tours are available, I was granted special permission to spend a night working with the SALT astronomers and engineers and have access to the whole telescope and control rooms.  This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was the main reason I drove the 16 hour distance to get here.  Upon arrival I was met by Russian astronomer Alexei Kniazev who gave me a brief tour of the living quarters and then invited me to dine with him and all the other staff astronomers and engineers before heading up to the observatory. 

During dinner Mr. Kniazev gave me an briefing on the overall history and function of the S.A.L.T. obsevatory, followed by an indepth tour of the complete facilities.

The S.A.L.T. primary mirror measures in at 11 meters across, and is composed of 91 individual hexagonal mirrors.  Each mirror weighs 500 kilograms and were made in Russia from a material called Astrosital, a glass-ceramic material with very low thermal coefficient, which means it does not expand or contract within normal operating temperatures.   The glass was then shipped to Eastman Kodak for cutting and polishing, and finally shipped to the observatory for mirroring with a 100 nm layer of aluminum.

The primary mirror’s 91 mirrors are arranged and collimated into a sphere, and use a Center of Curvature Alignment Sensor (CCAS) laser system to measure and align the individual mirrors into a perfect sphere.  The laser is situated within a high tower outside the observatory and is prominent in the photo above.  Every few days this laser is used to align the mirrors and 8 sensors on each mirror segment constantly measure each position and track that information back in the control room.  A computer makes tiny adjustments as needed through 3 small servos attached to the back of each mirror to keep the mirrors aligned.

The telescope’s most unusual property is that it is fixed in altitude at 37 degrees.  This altitude was chosen as it is centered on the Magellanic clouds, a key target to study in the Southern skies.  To track the sky, the telescope’s optical system payload, which sits 13 meters above the primary at focus, tracks across the mirror.  Being able to use any part of the mirror is possible as the mirror is a sphere, so there is no real center.  The payload tracking gimbal is able to move 3 meters in any direction, which allows the telescope to track an object for 6 degrees at a time.  This gives astronomers from 1 to 3 hours of track-time depending on the location of the target in the sky.  The gimbal uses a laser to measure the distance to the primary mirror as it tracks, and moves the payload inward or outward as needed to keep the optics in focus.  To prevent field-rotation, the platform also can rotate as the sky revolves overhead.  The payload, and tracking platform combined weigh just over 5 tons but can track to accuracy of 5 microns!

This photo on the right shows the payload system, containing a 50-filter cartridge, and a $600,000 CCD camera called the SALTICAM.

The payload can also carry the Robert Stobie Spectograph (RSS) which is the star of the S.A.L.T.  This instrument, designed by a joint effort of the University of Wisconsin and Rutgers University is designed mainly to study objects in the ultra violet wavelength down to 320 nm.  Some of the SALT project scientists, including my guide for the night, will use the RSS to make detailed studies of planetary nebulas in very distant galaxies to help understand the composition of very early stars.  Planetary nebulas are useful in this regard as they show the physical composition of stars at the last phase of a stars life.  You get to see what stars are made of, at the moment of their deaths, when they have virtually stopped creating new elements.

Since the telescope can rotate 360 degrees in azimuth, it can cover 71% of the sky at some point during a year.  Astronomers queue up targets for observation well in advance, and computers are used to schedule observations based on when a target will be observable, taking into consideration the moon and obstruction by the tall CCAS tower.

The observatory itself contains the telescope, control room, mirror coating room, and a payload workshop.  They also have room located under the primary mirror to house a future spectroscopic instrument currently under development.   The main observatory bay, with the telescope, has many temperature and humidity sensors.  The entire environment is controlled by computers to regulate the interior observatory temperature and humidity one full day in advance.  Meteorological instruments and computer modeling predict the nights observing conditions and use air conditioning and dozens of louvers to match the observatory dome’s environment.  As a side-note, the louvers are computer controlled in such a way as to prevent moonlight from shining on the primary.  As the moon moves across the sky (or as the dome rotates) louvers that open towards the moon close and those on the opposite side on the dome open.  Very clever!  You can see all the louvers in my photo of the outside of the observatory above.

The telescope’s massive mechanical tracking system, primary mirrors, complex environmental controls, and optical imaging systems are all controlled from one control room.  The optical-fiber feeds from these components are kept at the same temperature by keeping them, and their computers at the same temperature with an ethylene glycol cooling system.  The final results of these computers are then fed into the warm control room.

Only two people, an equipment operator and a project astronomer, can operate the S.A.L.T..   This gives you some idea of the computing power of the whole system.

The SALT team is based out of Cape Town, South Africa, which is a 4-hour drive.  An astronomer and engineer take turns spending a week at the observatory, lodging in a small hostel located below the telescope hill.  The hostel includes a decent astronomical library, computers, pool table and a staffed kitchen.  I had dinner with the night’s astronomers and the kitchen staff made me a midnight lunch-box to take up to the SALT.  There was plenty of coffee, tea, and caffeinated cold drinks.

Like any new complicated system, there are bound to be bugs.  Many of the environmental defects and system bugs have been worked out, but two main problems are preventing the SALT from being completely active at this time.  The RSS (spectroscopic imager) which was designed to record ultra violet had a major flaw; it’s main lens  absorbed ultraviolet light instead of passing it!  This was due to a manufacturing error in which a plastic mixing container was used to hold the glue that held the lens layers together.  This glue (which was designed to pass ultraviolet light) absorbed traces of the plastic mixing cup.  After a few months, the plastic molecules changed (probably due to ultraviolet exposure) and began to absorb ultraviolet light, thus blocking the very light the astronomers needed to record!  The SALT team sent the camera back to Wisconsin where a new lens was built.  It took almost a year to solve the problem, but they finally created a perfect lens that had no contamination.  Then they broke it!  A technician indivertibly used the wrong kind of lens cleaning spray, a Freon based solvent, which froze the lens and cracked it.  It’s taken more than 6 months to build a new one, which should be shipped to South Africa any day now.

A few weeks ago, while changing out one of the mirror segments they dropped it at the only part of the operation that had no safety controls to prevent a mirror from falling.  It smashed to the floor and shattered.  They now have 3 spare mirror segments left.  I was given a piece of the broken one as a souvenir!

The other problem is that the SALT design team hired a non-astronomer to design the collimation laser, the CCAS.  Remember the laser shines continuously at the primary during tracking, to keep the optical payload at precise focus.  This engineer installed a laser that worked at 673 nm, the same spectrum as ionized sulfur, a key element when analyzing star composition!  Now, when they look at a star, that entire region of light is awash in laser light. It’s back to drawing board on that one.

So while much of the work at SALT is still faultfinding and correcting design flaws, here’s one of the first photos taken by SALT of 47 Tucanae, before the scope’s adaptive optics are operational.

http://www.salt.ac.za/fileadmin/files/telescope/first_light/PR47tuc.jpg

The hill that the S.A.L.T. sits on a barren rocky hill.  In the following photo you can see the small buildings that house the astronomer’s living quarters and the large S.A.L.T. observatory to the left.  The hill is also home to several other telescopes.

The oldest telescope is the 1.9 meter (almost 6 feet) diameter built in the 1930′s.

This beautiful scope, now retrofitted with the most advanced digital cameras and spectroscopic imagers still get a lot of use, but astronomy students from all over South Africa and beyond.

So I drove 16 hours in pristine clear skies to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Southern African Large telescope and spend a few days under the most incredible skies in the world with my own telescope.  I arrived at 7PM and by 8PM the entire sky clouded over and winds picked up to 30 kph.  This stayed the same until the night I went up to the SALT, where the winds rose to 48 kph with gusts to 60.  The whole sky was clouded over the whole night, and all the next day and night too.

Finally at 0430AM when I was packing up, the sky cleared and the winds stopped completely.  As I drove across the Karoo on the way home, the whole sky was filled with stars and its inky black background.  I was in awe at the incredible beauty of the night sky, but also terribly disappointed at not being able to do any observing with my scope and especially the S.A.L.T.

One note… if you ever go to a location with a darkness rating of Bortel 1, on a moonless night and the sky completely overcast, you will find yourself in total darkness like being in a deep cave.  It’s an incredible experience as I felt my way across the parking lot to find my car and could not see anything.  Not even my hand 2 inches from my face.  I literally walked into my car, bumping my shin on its bumper.  I had to search with my hands to locate the door and finally get some light from the interior.  Wow.