Jamestown and Henricus

 Early English Settlements in Virginia

The first permanent English colony in Virginia began on May 13-14, 1607, when settlers initially landed at Jamestown. The colony's early years are brought to life in a series of books by Connie Lapallo which I have recently enjoyed reading. (More about the Lapallo books later.) The landing site and buried remnants within a crude triangular fort are only 2.5 miles from my house! The Lapallo books motivated me to once again visit this historical place now partially administered by The National Park Service. 

Visitors can walk within the actual fort location and see an accurate reconstruction of the fort walls. (A portion of the original fort land is now under the James River after 400 years of erosion.) A dramatic memorial statue of John Smith looking out over the James River is within the original fort.

A segment of reconstructed wooden palisade occupies its original location.

A remarkable spot within the fort is the location of a church constructed in 1608. The partially reconstructed rectangular walls seen in the next picture sit directly above the original church foundation.

An informative sign shown in the next image explains excavations that revealed the church. (Enlarge the next image to read the sign more clearly.) It's amazing to stand at the spot where Pocahontas wed John Rolfe!

Several important early colonists are buried in this church's chancel. The graves were carefully excavated and identified by archeologists.

Another sign explains the burials. (Enlarge image for easier reading.)

A reconstructed blacksmith shop is located atop the original blacksmith site within the fort.

The blacksmith's interesting tree bark roof follows a design from local indigenous people.

A beautiful metal model shows the fort's appearance in the years 1607 to 1611. Notice the church tower along one of the triangular walls. 

The brick church tower modeled in the previous images was the only 1600's structure remaining above ground when conservationists took over the site in 1893. That tower as it appears today is seen in the next picture. This tower was added to a previously constructed church in approximately 1680.

Four churches were built in Jamestown during the 1600's. The first 1608 church where Pocahontas was married is mentioned above. The second 1617/1618 church was built on a new foundation near the 1608 church. A third church was constructed surrounding and enveloping the second church in 1639 to 1647. This third church burned in 1676. A fourth church along with brick tower was built using remnants of the third church. It operated into the 1680's.

Moving ahead a couple centuries, a modern addition to this "Russian nesting doll of churches" was completed. The relatively modern church seen in the next picture was constructed above foundations of previous churches in 1906.

The following sign describes how remnants of the 1617/1618 church now lie under the modern church. (Enlarge the sign image for easier reading.)

This framing shows how the 1617/1618 church would fit within the modern church.

Inside the modern church, protected by a glass covering, is the "Knight's Tomb" believed to be the grave of George Yeardley (1587-November 13, 1627). Yeardley served as governor of the colony and presided over the first representative legislative assembly in 1619. 

The pleasant looking grassy plot seen below is near the visitor center. This is where Yeardley's house once stood. You would think a sign of some kind would identify this important spot. It is identified on maps, but not by a trailside sign. Why not have a sign?

Speaking of signs, I thought more signs were needed in the New Town section of the park. Individual owners of several houses with visible foundations could have been identified there.

Early Jamestown years are brought to life in a previously mentioned a series of books by Connie Lapallo. The first book, Dark Enough to See Stars in a Jamestown Sky, covers1609 to 1611. The second book, When the Moon Has No More Silver, covers 1610 to 1620. The third book, The Sun is But a Morning Star, covers 1621 to 1652.

The main character in all the books is Joan Pierce, a real person who happens to be the author's 13th great grandmother! Joan Pierce and her husband, William, came to Jamestown on separate ships as part of the third supply expedition. Joan's ship, the Blessing, arrived in August of 1609, but William's ship, the Sea Venture, barely survived a hurricane and was shipwrecked on Bermuda for a while. While William's ship was being repaired in Bermuda Joan survived the "starving time" during the winter of 1609-1610 in Jamestown by eating acorns and roots. William finally made it to Jamestown on May 23, 1610. William Pierce was a competent and experienced soldier who eventually prospered in Virginia. While William was away soldiering his wife, Joan, maintained their home, survived many crises, and experienced colonial life. Through Joan's eyes the books tell how women and children lived in Jamestown and other Virginia settlements.

Eventually, the Pierces had a house in New Town on Jamestown Island. New Town was located outside the original triangular fort walls a few hundred yards to east. Archeologists discovered the buried remains of several house foundations in New Town. After documenting these home sites, the original foundations were buried, and bricks were placed above to outline the foundations below. Today visitors can stroll among the brick foundation outlines and walk down the main road in New Town. The Pierce's home is one of these brick outlines. I originally thought the Pierce home was identified by bricks in the foreground of the next picture. Connie Lapallo has concluded the distant bricks behind the foreground show the actual location of the Pierce home where her 13th great grandmother lived.

The next picture is from a sign showing part of the actual 1624 muster or census where the Pierce household is mentioned. The translation below is easier to read.

Among the servants is Angelo, one of the first Africans who came involuntarily to Virginia in 1619. This historical sign tells Angelo's story.

Slavery was not yet an established institution in 1619 Virginia. When the Pierces took Anglo in, did they treat her as racially inferior property to be segregated in a separate dwelling, or did they include her among other indentured servants already living in the Pierce home? Lapallo portrays Angelo as one of the indentured servants, but, apparently, there are no remaining official records to reveal Angelo's actual fate.

Eventually, the Pierces acquired land and built houses a few miles downstream from Jamestown on Mulberry Island which is now part of army military base Fort Eustice. 

I have visited Jamestown Island many times. I've biked around its interior and taken a boat ride around its border. It's natural to wonder why this low-lying swampy place was chosen for the first colony. Just across the James River very attractive higher ground would have been a much better dryer location for settlement. It seems the early colonists were afraid of attacks by natives and Spaniards. The Jamestown fort and land was almost entirely surrounded by a natural moat which offered protection for the fragile colony.

It didn't take long for colonists to begin scouting more favorable land along the James River west of Jamestown. In 1611 tyrannical Governor William Dale established a new more favorable and defensible settlement at a point where the James changes from a broad channel to a mess of twisting waterways. The new settlement was named Henricus after Prince Henry, King James' son and heir. The next map shows how Henricus was almost completely surrounded by a natural water moat.

In addition to water barriers Dale ordered construction of a wooden palisade surrounding the new settlement areas. The present-day reconstructed buildings are surrounded by a version of this palisade through which visitors enter.

In 1611 the entire area would have been undeveloped wilderness. Today the reconstructed town is surrounded by an enormous Dominion electric power plant and several sand and gravel pits. Huge dump trucks roam nearby roads. Once inside the restored area, however, the modern world is hidden. Compared to Jamestown much less precise archeological work has been done at Henricus to exactly locate buildings. The guide on site said visitors would definitely be walking on original locations, but these could not be accurately identified.

Upon entering I encountered two small houses representing houses of soldiers.

Next are three views of items within the soldier houses.

The enormous bellows in the blacksmith shop were impressive.

At first, I thought the building in the next picture served as barracks for soldiers because several beds lined the inside walls in an orderly way. Instead, the building is a reconstruction of the first hospital in the English colony called Mt. Maladay.

The church at Henricus is the next building shown below.

A colorful coat of arms hangs above the church's altar.

The next picture looks out at church seating from the altar.

The clergyman in charge was Rev. Alexander Whitaker. He is credited with converting Pocahontas to Christianity while Pocahontas was at Henricus. His reconstructed parsonage is the building shown in the next images.

A scene from within the parsonage.

According to author Lapallo, Rev. Whitaker was a kind of despicable creep. He attempted trickery to force a young recently widowed woman into marrying him. He not only didn't wait a respectable amount of time after the woman's husband's death, but falsely claimed
he and the widow had exchanged vows when they had not. Ultimately, the matter was brought before the colony's governing bodies and dragged out for years until the creepy Whitaker finally gave up.

I'm glad I finally had a chance to satisfy my curiosity about Henricus.

Hazy Sky

Warm Weather

The sky was cloudless on the warm evening of May 12th. I set Seestar to equatorial mode and began imaging galaxy M104 in Virgo at about 9:22 EDT. The 83-minute exposure shown below is a definite improvement over a previous 30-minute exposure made two years ago. This image was made by stacking 498 useable 10-second subframes. During the exposure only 4 subframes were rejected. Equatorial mode makes this small rejection rate possible.

Clouds remained absent while the constellation Cygnus rose in the northeast. I decided to aim Seestar at IC1318, the Gamma Cygni Nebula. This nebula is part of a collection of nebulae too large to entirely fit into Seestar's field of view. Using mosaic mode, I was able to capture only part of the larger whole. IC1318 is also called the Butterfly Nebula. I captured only one of the wings. The next picture is a 215-minute exposure (3 hours 35 minutes). It consists of 1290 useable 10-second subframes with only 6 rejected frames. The sky had become milky white at this point, so it was time to end the session. Results would have been better under more transparent skies.

No clouds were present on May 18th, but the sky was hazy again. I used this less-than-ideal observing opportunity to make a 2-hour mosaic mode exposure of planetary nebula M97 together with galaxy M108 in Ursa Major. 720 10-second subframes were used. Only 6 subframes were rejected. The next image is an improvement over a 60-minute exposure made a year ago. If you enlarge the image to full size, a hint of red color shows up on the lower rim of M97. M97 and all the stars are foreground objects in our own galaxy. M97 is 1,700 light years away. Galaxy M108 is 32 million light years away beyond our galaxy.

The next target on May 18th was nebula IC1396 in Cepheus. I made a filtered 162-minute mosaic mode exposure in the hazy sky. The resulting image was very faint except for the famous "Elephant Trunk" nebula which was off center on the very edge of the field. I need to try this again with clearer skies and better centering. It might be a long wait before clear moonless non-hazy conditions return.

 


  

Equatorial Seestar

 New Mounting Option

During the past year I saw so much information about using Seestar in equatorial mode that I decided to try it myself. Manufacturer ZWO offered a relatively inexpensive wedge compatible with Seestar's tripod, so I ordered the wedge and installed it as shown in the next picture.

The wedge allows one of Seestar's rotational axes to point at the north celestial pole. At my location the pole is 37.4 degrees above the horizon. This tilt is visible above. The long handle accomplishes the tilt aided by the angular scale shown below. The wedge also allows azimuth adjustment with the other graduated scale. I had to fully lengthen the tripod legs to keep Seestar from tipping over!

When one rotational axis is properly aligned with the north celestial pole, rotation about this axis can follow objects as they cross the sky from east to west due to Earth's rotation. Consequently, once an object is centered in equatorial mode only ONE Seestar motion is required to keep it centered. Without the wedge Seestar operates in altitude/azimuth mode where TWO motions are required to keep an object centered. So, tracking should improve by switching from altitude/azimuth mode to equatorial mode.

I have been using Seestar in altitude/azimuth mode for a couple years now. During every long exposure a significant number of 10-second subframe exposures are rejected due to tracking errors. Sometimes as many as 80 percent of the subframes are rejected! In this case only 20 percent of Seestar operation time is producing useable results! The best I've ever achieved was about 33 percent rejected frames. I hoped many fewer rejected frames would result from improved tracking in equatorial mode.  

I had to wait several weeks for clear skies to use equatorial mode for the first time on April 14th. The first target was galaxy M51 in Ursa Major. Inevitable first time fumbling and inefficiency caused more than an hour of wasted dark time. With everything finally aligned and M51 centered I initially tried taking 20-second subframes instead of my usual 10-second subframes. It was disappointing to see roughly half of these 20-second frames rejected for poor tracking. I stopped the 20-second exposures and restarted using 10-second exposures instead. What a difference! Now no frames were being rejected - not one single rejection!

I wanted to try an exposure of several hours, but, unfortunately, the sky became increasingly hazy from wildfire smoke after midnight. I had to stop the exposure after 85 minutes. Incredibly, the entire 85 minutes produced useable results! Seestar produced 510 useable subframes with no rejections! The next image shows the result. (Click on the image to enlarge.) Notice small fuzzy elliptical galaxy NGC5198 toward the left edge.

As years go by more satellite trails and airplanes interfere with astrophotography. Although an airplane passed through the scene as shown below, I was able to manually remove the trails to produce the previous image.

This initial result made me anxious to try much longer exposures. If no subframes get rejected, I might be able to get up to eight-hour exposures of some objects.

Six days later on April 20th another clear sky opportunity arose. Having overcome my beginner mistakes made while setting up on April 14th I was much more efficient initiating equatorial mode. My target this time was galaxy M101 in Ursa Major. I was able to let Seestar run from just before 11 pm (EDT) to about 5:20 am when the northeastern sky was just beginning to brighten before sunrise. The result was a 397-minute exposure (6 hours 37 minutes) my longest exposure yet. This time 2,382 ten-second subframes were useable and only one was rejected!

This long exposure produced the next image showing M101 much better than a previous 90-minute exposure made in 2024. In particular, the outer spiral arms are brighter, and the inner portions show more detail. Notice fuzzy galaxy NGC5474 near the upper right edge and dimmer small galaxy NGC5477 near the top edge.

Just as with the M51 image, satellite tracks ran through the picture as you can see in the next image if enlarged to full size. I manually removed the tracks for the image above.

Sky transparency varied throughout the M101 exposure. It's rare to get truly dark sky at my location.

Despite some modest moonlight on April 22nd the sky was cloudless. My target this night was edge-on galaxy NGC4565 in Coma Berenices. After a late start I was able to get a 297-minute exposure (4 hours 57 minutes) before the galaxy set behind a nearby roof at about 5 am. On this night 1,786 10-second subframes were useable. 83 subframes were rejected because the galaxy was blocked by the roof near the end. The long exposure revealed some detail in the outer arms as you can see below if you enlarge the image. Notice small galaxy NGC4562 to the upper right and brighter fuzzy galaxy NGC4555 near the left edge.

I look forward to trying long exposure equatorial mode along with mosaic mode on nebulas I've previously imaged.

Long Exposures

All Night - One Object

January 20th was the last opportunity for clear dark sky before future weeks of clouds and brightening moonlight. All neighboring glaring floodlights were miraculously turned off this night! This was a good time to attempt a long exposure on just one object. I pointed Seestar at IC443, the Jellyfish Nebula, in Gemini which was above the northeastern horizon. I hoped to follow the Jellyfish for as long as possible as it crossed the sky from east to west.

Seestar was plugged into external power so the internal battery wouldn't run out during the exposure. Eventually, I shut Seestar down after roughly seven hours when the Jellyfish was beginning to set behind a neighbor's house. About 64 percent of the 7-hour operating time produced 4.5 hours of frames suitable for stacking. The resulting 4.5-hour effective exposure of IC443 is the longest exposure I've ever achieved up to this point. Mosaic mode and light pollution filter were engaged to produce the following image.

The Jellyfish Nebula is a supernova remnant about 5,000 light years away within our own galaxy. The explosion happened approximately 33,000 years ago. The bright circular arc on the left is a blast wave interacting with relatively dense material. The bright star above the nebula is the foreground star Propus about 380 light years away in Gemini. Its yellowish color is washed out by overexposure.

After 19 subsequent days of clouds, moonlight, freezing temperature, and strong winds, a suitable imaging night finally arrived on February 8th. I attempted a long exposure on NGC2174, The Monkey Head Nebula, in Orion. Although Seestar worked for about 4.5 hours with light pollution filter engaged, it only produced a disappointing 80 minutes of usable subframes for stacking. So, only about 30 percent of Seestar's operating time actually produced the next image.

The monkey's "chin" is the lower left nebula portion. The monkey's "eye" is the V-shaped indentation above the "chin". (At least that's how I see a monkey head.) The red color is from glowing hydrogen gas excited by stars in the center. An interesting detail is the tiny red nebula centered on a star left of the "chin".

New Moon was approaching on February 13th. This would perhaps be the last cloudless dark night for another month, so Seestar was put to work again. I wanted to see LBN863, Lower's Nebula, in Orion - a nebula off the beaten path I'd never heard of before. With light pollution filter engaged Seestar took images for 5.5 hours. Only about 40 percent of these images were useful for stacking, however. The resulting 130-minute effective exposure is shown next.

While Seestar's aperture was open to the sky for 5.5 hours several neighbor lights were turned on and off. This caused a few blue streaks across the background sky. I removed these streaks, but in doing so, the red nebula color might have been slightly changed.

Another 24 days with clouds and bright moonlight elapsed before clear sky returned on March 9th. My target this night was the Leo Triple - galaxies M65, M66, and NGC3628 in the constellation Leo. I hoped to follow this group across the sky from east to west as long as possible, perhaps for as long as 8 hours. Seestar was plugged into external power, so battery capacity was no problem. Sky conditions were a problem, however. At my observing location it's hard to get 8 consecutive hours of clear dark sky. After about one hour scattered clouds moved in from the east. Fortunately, they soon dissipated. Then haziness gradually increased throughout the night. By 3:30am haze thickened so much that I ended the imaging run after Seestar had taken images for seven hours. Only about 61 percent of these images were suitable for stacking. The final result was an unfiltered 4.25-hour exposure using mosaic mode shown next. This exposure is the second longest I've been able to achieve.

In the image above, edge-on galaxy NGC3628 with dark bisecting dust lane is on the left.  Detail can be seen in the inner portions of galaxy M66 on bottom right. Galaxy M65 on the upper right has a subtle dark dust lane. (Click on the image to view best detail.) All these details show much more clearly than in a previous 20-minute exposure taken two years ago. Details would be even better if the blasted clouds and haziness hadn't been present!

It's probable that mounting Seestar equatorially would decrease the number of rejected subframes. Then a higher percentage of operating time would yield suitable frames for stacking. Unfortunately, equatorial mounting introduces another complication level that reduces Seestar's quick convenient use.