Lost in Paradise

Lost in Paradise - from HPA Issue 17 Spring 2007

Gilligans Island should have been my first clue.

Riding from the Honolulu airport to my posh digs on Waikiki Beach for a 3 day sales meeting, the bus driver pointed out the harbor where the famous 'lost' good ship Minnow had set out for that infamous 3 hour tour. Little did I know I was about to begin my own 'lost' journey through some new stars. Forever a denizen of the midwest US, it had been with a thrill to discover that from my position on the south shore of Oahu in April, the Southern Cross and other south sea celestial delights should be visible for the first time ever! What a dream it had been to see the Cross - being a planetarium man as well made constellations my specialty.

All seemed well as I stood on my 12th floor balcony of the Hilton Rainbow Tower - now where are those star charts and binoculars?? ... To my horror I realized they were still on the table back in Tennessee! Like my hero Leslie Peltier arising in a predawn long ago sky to see 'new stars', I would have to face the previously unavailable strip of southern sky alone.. unless .. I could find some equipment and find it fast

I couldn't.

Hotel giftshops on Waikiki offer very little in the way of star atlas's, yet did offer up some rather dubious looking 'field glasses' at a price I won't mention, though I haven't yet succeeded in forgetting. Nowhere on Waikiki seemingly was anything on the stars - I ruefully recalled spending an hour in the SPACE store at the Houston airport before my connection, where dollar starwheels had beckoned . But I had not answered their call.

And so for the next three nights, under various stages of clear, haze, cloud, city lights, and fog, I became Captain Cook again .. sailing into southern skies, at least some of them, unknown to me, unguided. A three hour tour became a three night tour, my balcony became my Minnow. Hotel stationary became my starcharts .. no student of navigation, I wondered if Cook had made his own charts, certainly he had no airport gift shops to assist him. My mind wandered even further back to the original Polynesians who somehow had come here over the trackless Pacific .. they had no Nortons or Atlas of the Heavens to guide them.

The skies shifted almost hourly, but I quickly found some wonders .. over dinner the first night I saw Canopus blinking in the west, daring me to come out and see more. The first night about midnight I banged my head on what had to be Alpha and Beta Centauri, sailing above the mists .. Alpha was blazing brighter than I thought possible. But where was Crux? Later that predawn I almost went over the rail looking at an impossibly high teapot and scorpion.. there were other stars below .. and off in the southeast lonely sentinals. What were they?? I hastily sketched their positions. Happily, the third night paid all, as near midnight again I absent mindedly mused, now what are THOSE stars... and then as if by magic, a mist shifted and I gazed at last upon the Southern Cross.. both larger and smaller than I had imagined, impossibly .. both brighter and dimmer .. images of those archaic classical crosses seemed to flit in and out over the real stars. I stared dumbfounded, but soon succumbed to jetlag and collapsed back into bed ..

Returning home with my newly minted Hilton Atlas (copies available), I confirmed my findings.. Crux, Centaurus, Canopus.. yes that was apparently a distant Archena . the Minnow had returned to harbor.. later I learned the TV series 'Lost' was filming on the north side of Oahu even as I had been wandering amidst uncharted celestial waters in the south. I even drove by the TV home of Dog, the Bounty Hunter. I had been hunting my own bounty!

There may be several morals here I've concluded, back on solid and familiar midwestern ground, but my mind is divided. Astronomy can be pursued armed to the hilt with our equipment and charts, or it can be pursued through the wondering unprepared eyes of a child. Either way gets us where we wish to go though, closer to being one with our beloved stars. The main thing is to take that 3 hour tour.

You'll find your way back with your treasures..