This is the first try of my astrophotography taking. I chose Jupiter as the object as it was the brighest objects during tonight. It took me around 10 minutes to setup the telescope. Afterthat, I connect my LPI imager to my Dell 640M.
Sadly, the result isn’t encouraging. It seems that I might miss out something in the manual. The result is really poor. Even my Konica Minolta can handle it better. I am quite sad now. I was expecting a much more exciting result but it ddin’t come out at last. Somemore, the sky became cloudy after I took the fifth shot. 
As you can see from the picture above, it’s really poor. I’ll ask the professionals to encounter this. This mustn’t be the shot actually for an experienced photographer.
On July 3rd, asteroid 2004 XP14 will fly past Earth. It is situated just a bit farther than Moon. To be exact, its distance is 1.1x distance of Moon. XP14 is large enough (600 metres wide) and bright enough (11th magnitude) to see through backyard telescopes as it races across the star-fields of the Milky Way. There’s no danger of a collision, just a nice photo-op for amateur astronomers.
You are advised to use this page to generate the orbit simulation and high-accuracy ephemeris.
A 6inch telescope is recommended for this observation. 8inch and bigger telescopes are the most welcomed! This will be a great event for the astrophotographer as this is an interesting object. It will glide through the Milky Way in only 4 hours, passing many stars and nebulae along the way. You’re supposed to be able to take many combines of photos but time plays an important roll in this event.
So, before you enter this, please make sure that your instruments are precise, if not, you will regret. For me, I don’t dare to do trained drive for my 8″ LX90 as I don’t have a reticle eyepiece, it will only worsen the situation if I don’t have something to center the objects when I do the trainning. For observing tips, you may visit A.L.P.O. Minor Planets Section
Anyway, my Meade 8″ LX90, Meade Lunar Planetary Imager and Dell Inspiron 640M are ready! An observing note about this will not be missed!
Published on
June 26, 2006 in
General.
Oh yeah! I have received my Dell Inspiron 640M this morning! It’s so shinny! I will do a reinstalling of Windows because I don’t quite like all the softwares Dell installed for me. I don’t use some of them. A reinstalling would be great to refresh all the system!
Sorry that I didn’t upload the photos yesterday as I was too tired and fall asleep. Here is the photo!
It shows that this article is posted using 640M. 
Pluto is the well known 9th planets in the solar system. According to the latest discovery, it has 3 moons now.
Now, the 2 latest discovered moons by Hubble Space Telescope on May 2005 have been named as Nix and Hydra. Before, they were originally called S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2.
Left: The 2 small dots on the picture are Nix and Hydra.
By the way, IAU plans to publish an official defination of “planet†in early September, ruling on whether to call Pluto a planet or a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). Pluto’s status as a planet has been fragile since the discoveries of KBOs Quaoar, Sedna, and 2003UB313 (informally named “Xenaâ€), which is slightly larger than Pluto. The IAU will discuss the issue at its August meeting in Prague.
Published on
June 22, 2006 in
General.
I’m sorry that I can’t write any article yesterday as I am having high fever, flu and headache. The doctor measured that I was 39 degree celcius. It’s really suffering! I don’t have the appetite to eat. All I can do is to sleep the whole day.
Published on
June 19, 2006 in
General.
This is a good news indeed! I’ve ordered Dell Inspiron 640M this morning! Hopefully, I am able to get it this week. Then, I can start to do Astrophotography! 
Here’s its specification:
Processor: Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz)
Graphic Card: Intel GMA950 (Integrated)
Ram: 1GB DDR II 667MHz
Hard Drive: 60GB (Sata)
Wireless Device: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Dual Band 802.11a/g 54Mbps Wireless Mini Card
Screen: 14.1″ WXGA+ Ultrasharp(TM) TFT Display with True Life (1440 X 900)
Warranty: 1 Year Limited Warranty with 1 Year CompleteCover Programme
Weight 2.4KG
I also bought Dell Large Backpack which can fit up to 17″ notebook. It looks spacious and robust! How do you feel it? I am just worried about someone will just rob the bag from you as Dell is so famous…
I shall say that its CompleteCover Programme is so wonderful. Your unit can be repaired or replaced if it is damaged by spills, electric surge and even accidental breakage!
Do you know what was the special of 17 June 2006? It’s the alignment of Saturn, Mars and Mercury! You may refer to Mars Meets Saturn on 17 June 2006 about this event!
I was going to setup my telescope for this event but somehow the hazy sky didn’t allow me to have such a precious experience! I had been waiting since 7.00pm for the sky to clear but it didn’t. The Saturn was nearly invisible for me after 8.30pm as the building blocked it. It set on 10:15PM.
Seems like today will not be greater as the sky is even hazier than yesterday……
World is always wonderful when there is imagination. By just staring at the sky you can always figure out many things. This is why the concept of constellations was born in the ancient. Let’s start enjoying the gallery!
Look at this dark yellowish Moon! If there is no detail on it, people will misconsider it as an egg on the black table! One of my friend was just cheated. 
This was taken on 10:47PM 14 June 2006. I was packing my telescope and accidentally found this big egg located between the crevice of the houses.
Now, let’s look at this! Can you find a woman looks like a grandma inside the Moon? This was the first time I spotted this kind of amazing natural view.
This was taken on 11:03PM 14 June 2006 when I had almost done packing the telescope. The Moon looked brighter than just now because of the slower shutter speed as well as the Moon itself reflected more light than just now.
I was quite tired yesterday. Therefore, I just observed 5 objects. Three of them were globular clusters. 2 of them were the so-called Messier objects. They were a little bit faint in the view. I think this might be the problem of the atmosphere turbulence. I found Moon was the most interesting objects but I didn’t observe it using my precious LX90 but the naked eyes. 
The Moon was really mighty and yellowish! It looked like an egg and a grandma was in the Moon! I will be writing an observing note about this tomorrow.
Good news here! I will be getting a notebook in 2 weeks time. By that time, the imager will be sent to the front line and the observing notes will be filled with images!
Date: 14 June 2006
Time: 9:47PM GMT+8
Sky Condition: Clear
Objects Observed
Planets
Star Clusters
- Messier 004 (NGC6121, Globular Cluster)
- Messier 013 (NGC6205, Globular Cluster)
- Omega Centauri (Caldwell 80, Globular Cluster)
Jupiter didn’t interest me yesterday as it was just as normal as before. Three Moons were spotted! I am going to take a photo of the Great Red Spot.
Messier 004 was in Scorpius. Its magnitude was 5.9 but I found it quite faint while its size was 26′. This object is looked best in medium to high-power eyepiece. It is located to the west of Antares and about 6200-10000 light years away from us.
Messier 013 is also known as NGC6505. It’s a globular cluster as well. It was in Hercules and 5.9 in magnitude while 10′ in size. It’s 22000 light years away and 160 light years in diametre. It is the closest and brightest globular cluster between the 2 globular cluster in Hercules. It looked like a patch of sugar on the table. I need to photograph it for a better view as I found it too faint to me at that time.
Omega Centauri is known as NGC5139 in NGC catalog. It’s also named Caldwell 80. Its magnitude was 3.7 and 22′ in size. It’s 17000 light years away from us and 150 light years in diametre. The average distance between the stars of only 0.1 light year which is very close! It looked great in the eyepiece! This was my another favourite object!
13 June 2006: There is a new crater on the Moon. It’s about 14 meters wide, 3 meters deep and precisely one month, eleven days old.
NASA astronomers watched it form: “On May 2, 2006, a meteoroid hit the Moon’s Sea of Clouds (Mare Nubium) with 17 billion joules of kinetic energy—that’s about the same as 4 tons of TNT,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. “The impact created a bright fireball which we video-recorded using a 10-inch telescope.”
Click on the image to enlarge.
The video plays in 7x slow motion; otherwise the explosion would be nearly invisible to the human eye. “The duration of the fireball was only four-tenths of a second,” says Cooke. “A student member of our team, Nick Hollon of Villanova University, spotted the flash.”
Taking into account the duration of the flash and its brightness (7th magnitude), Cooke was able to estimate the energy of impact, the dimensions of the crater, and the size and speed of the meteoroid. “It was a space rock about 10 inches (25 cm) wide traveling 85,000 mph (38 km/s),” he says.
Source: A Meteoroid Hits the Moon on Spaceweather.com
This is the first try of my astrophotography taking. I chose Jupiter as the object as it was the brighest objects during tonight. It took me around 10 minutes to setup the telescope. Afterthat, I connect my LPI imager to my Dell 640M.
