Reaiche Observatory

Our Equipment:

25.4-cm f/10 SCT Meade Telescope (1994)
15.2-cm f/8 Celestron Refractor Telescope (2001)
60-mm f/15 Refractor Telescope (1973)

11x80 Orion Binoculars (1997)
11x80 Celestron Binoculars (1986)
8x30 Lemaire Binoculars (1951)
3x40 Binoculars (1975)
10x25 Orion Binoculars (2003)

Canon 10D dSLR camera (Apr 2003)
Canon 50 f/1.8 II (Apr 2003)
Canon 28-135 IS (Apr 2003)
Sigma 15-30 EX-DG (Apr 2003)
Canon S3 IS camera (Mar 2007)
Fuji F31 camera (Sep 2007)
Pentax ME-Super 35mm camera (1980)
Zeiss Ikon medium format camera (1951)

PHD Tripper 40GB (Apr 2003)
Compaq Presario 2247AP (Oct 2004)
Compaq Presario V1116AP (Dec 2004)
Maxtor 250GB external HD (Dec 2004)
PHD Hyperdrive 100GB (May 2006)
Seagate 500GB external HD (Jul 2008)
Library with 57 titles and 76 hours of video, including every minute of all EVAs of every Apollo Mission on the Moon.

Although Salvador has a small number of clear nights and about 150 useful nights per year (nights with at least three consecutive cloud-free hours), we take advantage of the very good seeing of about 0.9 arc-sec at Reaiche Observatory on the best nights. It is known that the thickness of a near-ground turbulent layer is about 12 to 20 meters over the ground level, with the free atmosphere situated above. Being situated 22 meters above a small ground surface and facing the sea, which is approximately 90 meters below, our telescopes suffer heat interference only from the walls of the building. High humidity is typically around 74%. The highest summer temperature at night is 25ºC and the lowest winter temperature doesn't drop below 19ºC. NELM ranges from 4.8 (before 8 p.m. on the worst nights) to 5.8 (after 1 a.m. on the best nights.) NELM at Reaiche Observatory Dark Site ranges from 6.4 to 7.0 with humidity around 85% and plenty of mosquitoes.

Our Chronology:

1965 - The vision of Comet Ikeya-Seki motivated me to get into astronomy with the unaided eye.

1967 - I became fascinated having the Andromeda Galaxy on the front cover of my science class textbook.
- I had my first look at the Moon through a 50mm telescope.

1969 - I followed closely every Apollo mission and recorded on tape every minute of EVAs, live through V.O.A.
         - I started observing the Messier objects from my apartment’s window with borrowed 7x50 binoculars.
         - I started taking astrophotos with Kodak Tri-X 400 b&w film and my father’s Zeiss camera.
         - I spent summer reading everything there was about astronomy on Encyclopaedia Britannica.

1970 - I spent hundreds of hours at the local U.S.I.S. Library, reading every article on U.S. newspapers and magazines about the Apollo missions.

1973 - First light for the 60-mm refractor on January 4.

1986 - First light for the 11x80 Celestron Binoculars on January 22, purchased to observe Comet Halley.

1994 - First light for the 25.4-cm SCT Telescope on July 16, purchased to observe
Comet Shoemaker-Levy collision with Jupiter.

1996 - Reopening of Reaiche Observatory with a Star Party on November 14.

1997 - First light for the 11x80 Orion Binoculars, purchased to observe Comet Hale-Bopp.
         - Our pictures of Comet Hale-Bopp in the skies of Bahia were published by NASA and
           Indiana State University.
         - Pathfinder landed on Mars on July 4 with our names included in a microplate.

1998 - Our pictures of a -13 magnitude Leonid fireball in the skies of Bahia were published by Marshall Space Flight Center in NASA Science News in two
different articles.

1999 - We were invited to have our pictures of the Leonid fireball published by The Smithsonian (Institution's) National Air & Space Museum - Washington
D.C., the most visited museum in the world.

2000 - Light Pollution continued to get worse at most locations in Brazil, so we sent a letter to The Discovery Channel.

2001 - We had our APOD photo of Mir selected by Newsweek magazine for publication in double page.

- I completed the observation of the Herschel 400 list of deep sky objects entirely from the
  Southern Hemisphere.
- First light for the 15.2-cm Refractor Telescope on May 17 at the Texas Star Party.
- Our web site was chosen "Site of the Week" on Oct. 28 by the Houston Astronomical
  Society.
- Two of our photos of the Leonids were selected as the Earth Science Picture of the Day
   for November 15 and for November 23.
- A four-frame animation showing a Leonid fireball and its developing persistent "smoke"
   train observed from Reaiche Observatory was selected as the Astronomy Picture of the
   Day for November 30.
- Reaiche.com received a record 805 visitors on Nov. 30
- Our animation of a Leonid fireball and its persistent train was featured on NBC's
   Weekend Nightly News.

2002 - I was credited with the independent discovery of Comet 153P/2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang) on February 1 (IAUC 7813). It was the first time that a comet
            was discovered by someone born in Brazil.
         - Several Ikeya-Zhang Star Parties were held from February to August, when the public could see the comet and look through our telescopes.
         - Our web site received a record 1,045 visitors on 19 November (day of the Leonid Meteor Shower), 821 of which to the Fireballs & Meteors page.

*For astronomical activities abroad, please see:
Visiting Astronomical Observatories in England - 2007
Visiting Astronomical Observatories in South Africa (SAAO) & Namibia (HESS) - 2006 & 2007
Visiting ESA's Guiana Space Centre - 2005
Visiting Cerro Paranal in Chile - 2003
Trip to Eastern Europe and Asia - 2002
Trip to the US Southwest - 2001
Astronomical Trips Prior to 2001

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