On The BTC Stage & In The News
Friends members who
attended the Annual Meeting in August at Big Top
Chautauqua remember it well. We sponsored the
performance of "Riding The Wind" that night, so had
the opportunity after the intermission to take over
the BTC stage to share with the audience what the
Friends were all about.
The house
lights were up as the Friends Board Chair, Lew
Miller, spoke of what we had accomplished in support
of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
The house
lights were up as the Friends Board Member, Mark
Weller, explained his efforts to capture a photo,
during a dark night in June on Outer Island, of the
Milky Way over the Outer Island Lighthouse.
Mark Weller
then asked that all the lights in the tent go down.
A moment later, the image you see in the article
that follows, appeared on the huge BTC screen.
It was simply a
magical moment that those present are not likely to
soon forget.
And a few months later the
article below, by Doug Moe, appeared in "Wisconsin
State Journal" Tuesday, October 6, 2009.
Capturing The Elusive Milky Way
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Mark
Weller and John Rummel had been trying for
years to take a good photo of the Milky Way,
and when they finally got one, in the summer
of 2008, they shot it on land owned by
Weller's friend, the acclaimed Wisconsin
conservationist Martin Hanson.
When Hanson died a
short time later, in October 2008, at 81,
Weller and Rummel set themselves a more
ambitious task. Get an even better photo of
the Milky Way, and in the process honor
Hanson and his love of the northern
Wisconsin wilds, the Apostle Islands in
particular. |
This
photographic print, taken this past summer
by a trio of Madisonians, shows the Milky
Way and the Outer Island Light Station on
the most remote of the Apostle Islands.
Photo by: MARK WELLER, JOHN RUMMEL, IAN
WELLER |
They've done it, but it took some doing.
Weller and Rummel are
Madisonians, friends for a decade with a
shared passion for astronomy and
photography. Weller runs Access Wisconsin, a
telecommunications company, and Rummel is a
school psychologist at Madison Memorial High
School.
Six years ago,
during a casual conversation, the two
friends decided to try to shoot the Milky
Way, the galaxy that contains our solar
system and millions of stars that can be
seen as a broad, irregular band of light
stretching across the night sky. |
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| "It was harder than
we imagined," Weller said.
Attempts in Dane County
and other parts of southern Wisconsin were
unsuccessful. Weller explained that light
pollution from human-generated sources in
cities and even on farms "washes out the
stars."
Weller eventually
contacted his friend Martin Hanson, who
lived west of Mellen in northern Wisconsin
on property inside the Chequamegon National
Forest. Hanson was an heir to a Chicago
furniture manufacturing fortune and a friend
to Democratic politicians. His brother,
Louis, was a longtime top aide to Gaylord
Nelson.
Hanson invited
Weller and Rummel to try their luck
capturing the Milky Way from his property.
Still, even with the
pristine night sky, getting a good shot took
visits over several summers. "A lot of trial
and error," Weller said.
Bears were also a
problem. "You could always hear them,"
Rummel said, and once Weller narrowly
escaped a charge by a bear.
But in the summer of
2008, over two spectacularly clear nights,
they managed some good shots of the Milky
Way from Hanson's property.
When Hanson, who had
been in poor health, died on Oct. 22, Weller
and Rummel decided to honor his memory by
attempting a shot that would wed the Milky
Way and Hanson's great love for the Apostle
Islands. Hanson had been instrumental in
Congress's passing a bill creating the
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in 1970.
This past June,
after securing permission from the National
Park Service, Weller and Rummel, accompanied
by Weller's 19-year-old son, Ian, took a
boat from Bayfield to Outer Island, a
wilderness island that is the most remote of
the Apostles. It has a small cleared area
where a light station stands, and that's
where the photographers hoped to do their
work.
It turned out better
than they could have hoped. "A
once-in-a-lifetime photo," as Weller later
noted.
They had to get
lucky - needing a cloudless sky on one of a
few new moon nights - and did.
They mounted their
camera on top of a telescope that had been
equipped with a slow-motion drive intended
to cancel the effects of the Earth's
rotation. It had a four-minute exposure; a
separate four-minute exposure - without the
slow-motion drive engaged - was used to
shoot the Light Station and house. The two
photos were then merged into one stunning
print, which is being sold in a limited
edition of 100, with proceeds benefiting the
Friends of the Apostle Islands. (
www.friendsoftheapostleislands.org).
The first print was
presented by state Sen. Bob Jauch and U.S.
Rep David Obey to Ken Salazar, the Secretary
of the Interior who visited the Apostles
over the summer.
It was reminiscent
of a visit to the Apostles by another
dignitary, back in 1963, when national park
status was first being sought for the
Apostle Islands. The visitor was President
John F. Kennedy. His host? Martin Hanson.
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View - and share - a
video on the capture of the
Outer Island Milky Way print.
How To Buy The
Milky Way Print
Go to
www.friendsoftheapostleislands.org for
all the details.
Almost half of the
100 limited edition prints have been
purchased. Many of those prints became
gifts for for individuals.
Of course there is
no reason not to give a Milky Way print to
yourself! |
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Martin Hanson Conservation Endowment
Earnings from the
Martin Hanson Conservation Endowment support
the Friends of the Apostle Islands in their
educational and resource protection efforts.
Additional
contributions to the Martin Hanson
Conservation Endowment may be made at any
time and sent to Friends, PO Box1574,
Bayfield, WI 54814. Please include a note
indicating your contribution is for the
Martin Hanson Fund. |
On The Internet
Your editor keeps up with news from National
Parks from all over the USA using an RSS
feed from a blog named National Parks
Traveler (http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com).
On September 9, 2009
an article popped up.
"Friends
Groups Help National Parks In Many, Many
Ways, Even Providing the TP In Some"
Yep. An article about Friends of the Apostle
Islands National Lakeshore!
Of
course it stated many of the things the
friends have accomplished. But the headline,
and the illustration, was about toilet
paper.
Here is the link.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/09/friends-groups-help-national-parks-many-many-ways-even-providing-tp-some4504
That link is much
easier to get to in the email version of
this Friends Update!
Does your contribution to the Friends buy
toilet paper for park visitors? Nope!
What has happened for five years - and will
continue to happen - is that one Friends
Member, who desires to remain nameless,
gives 25 cases - 96 rolls per case -
of toilet paper each year to the Friends.
And we pass that gift on to the Park.
The Friends are one of just two
organizations with an agreement to do that
kind of thing for the Apostle Islands
National Lakeshore.
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Friends Board
of Directors Activity
They meet as a group
every other month with a TV connection to
Madison area members.
On the alternate
months they gather in committees.
They share a
devotion for the National Lakeshore, each
bringing to the table a unique view, a
special interest or two and - most of the
time - an unusual patience with each other.
Their names appear
to the right.
There are five
committees.
1.
Membership/Nominating,
2. Historic Preservation,
3. Fund Raising, Conservation,
4. Chapters
5. Marketing/Merchandise/Events
Members of the Friends are
scattered all over the USA.
The newest element
of the organization is the creation of
chapters in locations where there are
significant number of Friends Members.
The Madison area was
the first Friends Chapter, in March
sponsoring a successful Friends booth at a
venue called Canoecopia. We plan to be at
that show again in 2010.
Show appearances in
2010 are also planned for the Twin Cities
and Duluth.
There are three
goals at each of these events.
First is to simply
share what the Friends organization is all
about and and add new supporters to our
cause.
Second is to sell
our Friends Logo hats and vests, books, and
the Milky Way prints.
Lastly, we invite
Apostle Islands National Park Staff to join
us at the booth to answer questions about
the Park and interact with with those in
attendance.
An annual event for
the Friends is a booth we share with Park
Service Staff during Apple Fest, and taking
care of parking at the Park Headquarters
lot, raising a total of $2,537.00 this
year.
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For a wonderful Blog
describing the efforts
involved in obtaining
the Milky Way image, go to
Outer Island Journal.
Executive Committee
Lew Miller, Board Chair - Bayfield, WI
George Hansen, Vice Chair - Bayfield, WI
Bob Dunne, Treasurer - Ashland, WI
Carolyn Sneed, Secretary - Washburn, WI
Bob Bruce, Corporate Secretary - Duluth, MN
Emeritus
Board members
Bud Jordahl
- Madison, WI
Matt Dallman - Minocqua, WI
Martin Hanson, Founder - Deceased 2008
Board Members
Ted Dougherty - Bayfield, WI
Jan Esposito - Bayfield, WI
Ruth Goetz - Ashland, WI
Gary Knowles - Madison, WI
Ernie Korpela - Cornucopia, WI
Tia Nelson - Madison, WI
Tom Rossberger, Jr - Mellen, WI
Michelle Shrider - Bayfield, WI
Mark Weller - Madison, WI
National
Park Service Support for the Friends is
provided by Bob Krumenaker,
Jim Nepstad, and Myra Foster. |
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