I waked up on 5am this morning to finish my homework. Afterthat, I was to sleep but the sky attracted me. The bright Venus attracted me at first. When I was setting up my telescope, the sky was really amazingly beautiful because of the decoration of the stars!
Objects Planned To Observe
Planets
Objects Observed
Planets
Stars
The Uranus was quite poor in seeing (The idiot street light spoilt the view actually! 
). It was a blur blue planet. 
But, I was appreciated as this was the first time I observed Uranus.
I also observed the stars which were used by the telescope used to do the alignment. They were Vega and Altair.I observed them because of during the time I center the stars, I saw a lot of stars around them and curious to know who were them but sadly I didn’t have time for it.
The last objects I observed was the Moon. At that moment, the telescope was turned off so I controlled the telescope manually. The crescent Moon was very clear in viewing even the sky was quite hazy. I wish I took the picture!
The observation yesterday is rather disappointed. It is started on 9.00pm 22 April 2006. The sky was said to be clear according to the weather forecast but who knew, the clouds were so thick at that moment. This totally spoilt my stargazing party and made all my friends were diappointed. What did we observe last night were aeroplanes (they were moving so fast!), street lights, trees over the street, goods in neighbours’ houses (not so social work) 
and the only star, Arcturus.
Objects Planned To Observe:
Planets
- Jupiter
- Saturn
- Uranus (before dawn)
Meteors
Objects Observed:
Star
Terrestrial Objects
- Tea Pots
- Coconut Trees
- Street Lights’ Bulbs
- Aeroplanes
I am so excited when I know this information from SpaceWeather.com!
Quote From SpaceWeather.com
Every year in late April Earth passes through the dusty tail of Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), and the encounter causes a meteor shower–the Lyrids. This year the shower peaks on April 22nd.
The best time to look, no matter where you live, is during the hours before dawn on Saturday morning, April 22nd. If you wake before 2 am and watch the sky until sunrise, you can expect to see at least a dozen meteors. Counts typically range from 5 to 20 meteors per hour. Observers in the country will see more, observers in the city less.
Continue reading ‘Lyrid Meteor Shower’
I start my observation at 9.34PM (GMT+8) on 19 April 2006. The sky is a little bit hazy (best for planets!) .
Objects Observed:
Planets
- Mars (blocked)
- Jupiter
- Saturn
Stars
Nebulaes
- Great Orion Nebulae (blocked)
- Crab Nebulae (blocked)
Yesterday sky was really wonderful comparing to the days which were cloudy and rainning frequently. The viewing of the planets were extremely good. I saw more details of Jupiter and Saturn through my Super Plossl 26mm eyepiece. I had also used a blue filter to observe them. I saw a little more details of them. 
But sadly, Mars was blocked by my house.
As the sky was so clear, there were quite a number of stars at the direction of west which were not good in visibility when the sky was hazy and cloudy. One of them who caught my attention was the Rigel Kentarius. From what I got through the telescope, it was a double star. I’ll look it up what exactly it is. Sirius, as I have mentioned before, it’s the brightest star at the night time sky. My telescope always uses it to be the alignment stars.
I am quite sad about the viewing of the nebulaes. Two of my favourite nebulae(at the moment), ie, Great Orion Nebulae and Crab Nebulae. They were blocked by my house.
I will be trying to observe Uranus(George) tomorrow before dawn. I hope the sky is steady enough. 
Aren’t the astronomers hate the hazy sky? Apparently, it is not. It is more depended on the objects that they observe. If you are going to observe DSO(deep sky objects) as well as other faint objects, or astrophotography(except plantes photography), you must have a stable and clear sky to get amazingly good result!
Why is the sky with a little haze is the best to observe planets?
Shall I quote the words from my telescope dealer? 
Malaysia has hazy skies most times because of the great amount of water vapour and condensate in our highly humid climate. These reduce the sky transparency which is very important for observing most deepsky objects that are relatively faint. Planets are bright objects and “tranparency” is less of an issue. However there are lots of surface details that can be seen in planets but only if the sky is steady, or in other words, if the “seeing” is going. A clear and transparent sky is not always accompanied by good “seeing”…infact the opposite tends to be the case. When the sky is very transparent, the air temperature tends to drop rapidly (because of uninhibited thermal raditation from the land surface) and this causes air movements and turbulence which cases bad “seeing”. You can detect bad seeing by presence of wildly twickling stars. Stars in Malaysian skies infact “twinkle” less because we do not have rapidly falling temperatures at night and to some degree this seems to be so because of the moderating influence of the high humidity. So a slighly hazy sky, rather than a very clear sky tends to be steadier, has better “seeing” which is good for observing fine details on planets and the moon because they do not “swim” around as much in turbulence.
The high humidity of our air however causes the main frustration we experience here: after sunset wen the temeperature drops a little, that small drop in temperature is enough to condense water droplets out of the water vapour…and we see clouds forming almost immediately after sunset. Clouds block verything from view. If humidity is not so high, the slight haze that forms does not block the planets from view, but they do block faint deepsky objects.
The reason Northern Chile is such a superb place for astronomy is the coastal mountains have dry air that gives excellent transparency and the proximity of the strong and constantly cold Humbolt Current keeps temperatures fairly steady, providing very good seeing as well! Unlike other deserts (llike in Australia & Africa), the Atacama does not experience extreme temperature swings between day & night…it is just extremely dry at all times (again because of the Humbolt Current).
He takes Malaysia(my country) as the example to explain this phenomenon as Malaysia is near to equator. Thus, the weather here is always hazy and cloudy. He has also explained the reason I like to observe the planets. So now, do you know why a little hazy sky is even better than a clear sky when it comes to planets observation?
Most of the astronomers do not do the celestial observing as known as stargazing at the full moon night. It’s because the full moon light is so bright that it blocks the light coming out from the faint objects, especially deep sky object. Even the bright objects such as the major planets, Sirius (Dog star, the brightest star, mag.-1.44) will become fainter.
At the new moon night, you can only see the lights from the stars. It’s so fantastic to do observing of any type of celestials objects. This is the greatest day to do astrophotography too! All of the objects are relatively brighter due to the absense of the Moon. That’s why I always do the observing at new moon night.
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