The Springwater Preservation Committee

Springwater Preservation Committee

WINDMILLS DEVASTATING ASTRONOMY

Editor’s Note: Tom Dey is not only my neighbor, he is a good friend. He has willingly opened up his heart and his observatory and fascinated hundreds of scouts and their parents with his knowledge and passion for astronomy. Tom is too bashful to share his credentials, so I will do it for him. Here goes:

Tom has graduate degrees in both optics and mathematics from the University of Rochester, and worked for U.S. Naval Intelligence, NASA, GE, Bausch&Lomb, and currently is with ITT, formerly Eastman Kodak's Image Acquisition division. The (good) Hubble mirror, all petals for the Keck I and II telescopes, the AXAF satellite mirrors and the IKONOS satellites were all produced at that facility. Tom has consulted to the Kitt Peak National Observatory regarding "light pollution". He holds over 30 patents in optical production, metrology and remote robotic satellite docking stations. He is currently working on a gravity wave detector.

Tom is a fellow in the Rochester Academy of Science and has served two terms as president of its Astronomy Section, and on the board of directors. He has numerous articles and images published, and has appeared on CNN national news. He has been invited guest speaker at scores of technical meetings and dinners, and taught groups from the Boy Scouts to scientists.

He continues to capture images of the universe from his observatories in Springwater, NY. These include telescopes to 29-inch aperture, allowing visual, cooled CCD and PMT intensified image capture. He is currently working on an automated meteor survey project and a much larger telescope.

He enjoys the dark rural skies of Springwater, NY where he occupies an old farmhouse with his two cats, two dogs, his wife Kazuko, and his two children, Erika and Mark.

One would probably not guess that “dark skies” are another of Springwater’s numerous natural assets, but that’s why Tom is here. Let’s not let the wind turbines that destroy our night skies force him and his family to leave. It is fine citizens like the Dey’s that make our town special, not the machines.

A note from Tom Dey – March 22, 2005

I’m Tom Dey, the amateur (and professional) astronomer who has the dubious distinction of living a mile to the west of where the first 14 meat grinders will be planted.

I have two observatories here, one larger than the University of Rochester’s Observatory in Bristol. I have collected thousands of images and views of everything from Comet Halley to Pluto over the past 20+ years. We have entertained Scouts, schools, astronomy clubs and professionals – just one more thing that make pastoral Springwater the best country living in the state – so far …

That’s about to change, unless we, the people are heard above the roar or the mills and seen through the glare of the strobe lights.

I don’t want my tax dollars to subsidize ugly, inefficient generation of faux-green electricity. The green will go overseas in the form of our hard-earned taxes and leave only devalued property and brightly lit, noisy night skies in the wake.

The people of Springwater are not suckers. Industrial windmills blow.

Country Living is Good for the Soul

I sometimes wonder if it was worth all the effort of moving an hour from work, to live where the rural skies are dark for my astronomy hobby. The answers is yes, of course. The woods and fields and dark skies were great for the whole family. One unfounded fear I had was that our kids would grow up without friends. I had the common urban arrogance to assume that you had to be physically close to other families to cultivate friendships. Just flat wrong.

True, the houses are farther apart, but kids can and should walk miles a day, and out here they do. We also had the fortune that our neighbors two houses down had a boy and girl the same ages as ours. They roamed over hill and dale for miles and are even now best of friends.

And for the adults, same thing! Neighbors know and help each other. It is the nicest kind of relationship. Everybody knows everybody else, but not in the gossipy, possessive way I had sometimes seen in physically-closer communities. Distance provides privacy, but any neighbor is immediately available to help in an emergency. During the ice storm we shared gas and generators. When you drive by and see a neighbor you naturally stop and talk.

Now maybe I am showing a new found rural arrogance. All I know is doors go unlocked at night and the dogs and guns provide more security than any little loop of hardened steel or electronic security system with lights a blazin’. And the neighbors know every car and face. This is a real community, like they used to be.

The arrogance of ownership

We bought additional land a couple of years ago and hold title to some of the prettiest countryside in these hills. I like to go on evening walks that start when the sun is low and end by starlight. So too tonight, as I pondered the farcical concept of ownership.

It struck me when I reached the east field. The woods open to eight acres of rolling grass, surrounded by mature trees and peppered with smaller ones. Recall Julie Andrews song from “The Sound of Music” and you’ve got the picture. High on the crest I stand, woods below and the next hill miles to the west, kissing the setting sun, unblemished by the constructs of man.

The orb disappears behind distant hillcrest trees and salmon pink rays bathe the bellies of scattered puffy clouds, vapid remains of Andrew’s spent fury. A high jet races eastward, harried business travelers who don’t even own their weekends. And I see bright Vega directly above me. The beauty I appreciate, and despite the sunset it dawns on me that I can own the land no more than I can the star.

So I sit and share the enveloping twilight with the other fauna and flora. The bats who live in the observatory are out, black silhouettes against darkening sky. And crickets chirping, katydids modulated hissing and frogs a-croaking carry from the pond below.

This isn’t mine; it is ours on equal footing here and now, but not before of to come. The land is the land to which no person, town, county, state or country can lay claim. Our documents pretend to assign exclusivity to an acre or a star. But the paper itself is a tree mocking our arrogance.

Ironically, I lock the observatory door, pocket the key and return to the house. And here I sit, knowing that when I hit “save” my column will be available to you, with the automatic © Thomas Dey gracing the lower right corner. Take it with a grain of salt. Let’s share and preserve the beauty we are blessed to enjoy. We are guardians of the land, not its masters.

Just me and the stars

My alarm goes off at 1:00 a.m. I’m dog tired but must get up and check. I push the drape aside and look out and up into the moonless country sky. Yes, oh yes! – It’s clear as a bell – the stars beckon.

The routine is automatic. I don five layers of clothing, grab my camera, notes, red flashlight and slip into my Frankenstein “moon boots.” The air is a crisp ten below and the snow crunches as I trudge the quarter-mile through the woods and 200 ft up to the open hilltop field. The uncountable stars seem closer and frame the observatory dome that houses my beloved telescope. I open the dome and sight in on tonight’s target. The elusive Horsehead Nebula just below the left star in Orion’s belt. After enjoying the subliminal view, I attach the camera and center a “guide star” on red crosshairs. I open the shutter and proceed with the challenging task of maintaining the star precisely on the cross. Four buttons on the control paddle allow me to jog the star left, right, up, down as it tries to randomly creep off the cross.

I continue this exercise standing on a stepladder and staring into the 600 lb. telescope. Minute by minute feeble light from the nebula collects on the film. Three hours are needed to register the Horsehead in all its glory. I fight the cold and sleep deprivation. It’s going well and just one hour to go. Fingertips numb, hairdryer tucked up and under my thick down jacket. I’ll survive.

Finally, I close the shutter and wind the precious film. Crunch through the snow to the basement darkroom. I examine the wet negative with a loupe – It’s a winner! The nebula, birthplace of new stars, in revealed in all its glory! The next day I hang an 11 x 14 framed print on my cubicle wall. People admire it and ask why I looked whipped. I point to the picture and smile.

Once in a lifetime experience

The night of November 17/18 2001 was the rarest of events for amateur astronomers. A “meteor storm” was predicted. The earth would plow through a highly-concentrated cloud of particles, rendering the usually paltry annual Leonid shower a possibly spectacular event. Unlike eclipses, which are absolutely predictable, meteor storms usually just don’t materialize. But this was a rare exception in many ways.

I live in rural Springwater NY on a high, dark, rural hill - an endangered natural resource overwhelmed by light pollution nearly everywhere else. My friend Carl came over to view the anticipated storm. Carl is the most obsessive and knowledgeable amateur observer I know. At sunset he went up to my big dome to use my giant 29-inch telescope on myriad galaxies. I was setting up all my equipment at the “small” 12-inch scope. My laptop was capturing sequenced images from a high-end digital camera – the kind astronomers use that cost as much as a car. Viewing the same field was my image-intensified video camera (yeah, another car). All the equipment was working fine and there were no meteors. Carl knew there wouldn’t be – yet.

Here in NY most nights are clouded out or otherwise unviewable. But this night was absolutely perfect. Unusually mild, spectacularly clear, no wind and no dew! That in itself is extraordinarily rare!

About 1am I started to notice meteors at a rapidly accelerating pace. Carl came down and we watched together, as the cameras automatically recorded the show. They just kept getting better and better! We soon gave up even saying “meteor!” They were coming so fast and furious that we would have lost our voices. And in the silence we were indeed speechless! They continued as a true storm right into dawn.

Carl captured many great film images. My digital camera recorded hundreds and the video was the most precious of all. Watching it, I can relive over and over again the complete experience of shooting stars.

I know a lot of locals enjoyed the experience. Did you?

Tom Dey

7989 Canadice Rd.

Springwater, NY 14560

Tom Dey, his son Mark, and the 24-foot dome that houses the 29-inch telescope

Located in Springwater

Click here if you would like to view some photos taken from Tom Dey’s Observatory in the dark skies (at least for now) of Springwater

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