Shares and cherishes the gorgeous night sky, the everyone's property.
My classmates organize a Lantern Festival party tomorrow. It’s going to be held at my house. We’re going to observe the Moon for sure! We will have moon cake and shaddock as well as buffet. Moon cake and shaddock are Chinese traditional food eaten during the Moon Cake Festival or Lantern Festival/
Stay tune for the photos! I am not going to miss the chance to photo the Moon again.
Oh well, just in case you don’t know, my 8″ LX90 has been waiting in the cupboard for over 2 months. How I wish the skies are clear!
By the way, looks like the corrector plate of my LX90 has to be washed. Look at the left photo, it’s so dirty. Nevertheless, this will not affect the performance much. I am not sure whether you know that I dropped a tooth patch into the OTA. I have to take it out as well. I hope it doesn’t scratch the lens yet.
Earthlike planets covered with deep oceans that could harbor life may be found in as many as a third of solar systems discovered outside of our own. These solar systems feature gas giants known as “Hot Jupiters,” which orbit extremely close to their parent stars which is even closer than Mercury to our sun.
The close-orbiting gassy planets may help encourage the formations of smaller, rocky Earthlike planets. They also help rocky planets form close to the suns and may help pull in icy bodies that deliver water to the young planets.
There may be a new class of ocean-covered, and possibly habitable, planets in solar systems unlike our own. However, lives on this planet are most likely different from ours.
Beginners who wants to buy a telescope always ask how far can this telescope see or how powerful is this telescope. Franky speaking, most beginners cannot understand the detailed technical information well. I found a very “beginner-friendly” answer to this question.
Beginner: How far can this telescope see?
Expert: You must be referring to how small the object can the telescope resolve!
Beginner: Oh?
Expert: Well, an 8″ telescope can show you the words on the newspaper at 0.88 km (960 yards). By using the formula below, you know how far can your telescope resolve the words on the newspaper.
Please note that this formula is just meant for easier understanding of resolution of a telescope but not the actual formula to calculate the resolution.
The Atlantis crew reached Kennedy Space Center at 18:21 on 21 September 2006. What have they done? P3 & P4 solar truss segments have been installed to the Internation Space Station. This was done in 3 spacewalks.
Now, ISS has more 60 kilowatts power to consume. Do you want it to be equipped with your future “orbital house”? It’s such a waste that they can actually generate power for 30 average homes, based on comsumption of 2 kilowatts each.
To learn more about the P3 & P4 solar truss segments, please visit NASA.
An annular solar eclipse is going to happen at 1730 on 22 September 2006. Annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes straight in front of the sun but fails to cover the entire solar disk. As a result, a ring of fire is produced. Beware! Please equip yourself with proper solar filter.
Unfortunately, only a few of South America and Africa countries have the chance to enjoy this event. For more information regarding the event taken place, please visit SpaceWeather.com. You may find an animation specially designed for South Americans there too.
I like to plan, I really like it. I am now planning on my next astronomical instruments. I have them listed in a time line form. I’m sure to edit this wishlist in the future. This makes sure that I know what to get.
In 2 years
QHY2 – Click here to know more about it
Focal reducer 3.3 & 6.3 – for wider FOV and shorter exposure time when I take astrophotographs.
Meade Ultra Wedge modified for equatorial users – To mount my LX90 in polar mode so that I can do long exposure astrophotography.
The equipments above cost roughly MYR4000 (USD1112)
In 10 years
10″ LX200 Series OTA
Celestron CGE – German Equatorial Mount for rigid imaging platform
They cost approximately MYR20000 (USD5555). Please take note that this is a very rough figure as I don’t accordingly calculate the shipping and tax.
Indefinite period
Dome
Zodiacal light is sunlight reflected from countless tiny grains of space dust orbiting the sun. These grains are sprinkled among the orbits of the planets, making a vast dusty pancake as big as the Solar System itself.
For people in the Northern Hemisphere, the next month is a great time to see Zodiacal light because the dust band is oriented nearly vertical at sunrise.
Left: Zodiacal light imaged by Ratkowski
I haven’t came across this scene before as I am living in a basin. Sadly, I won’t have the chance most likely to view it .
Meade has just served us a colourful and informative catalog. It’s the Meade 2007 Product Catalog. I’ve downloaded my copy. What about you?
Download the catalog at Meade
For your information, Meade doesn’t publish a new catalog every year. Instead, it will only be published after a batch of new products introduced to the market. This is not just a catalog but a masterpiece of astrophotographs and this is the main reason I like to go through the catalog word by word. There are just too many eye-candies!
Pluto is given an asteroid number by Minor Planet Center, the official organization responsible for collecting data about asteroids and comets in our solar system.. Its number is 134340. Furthermore, 2003 UB313, was formerly named Xena, is given the number 136199.
About the 2003 UB313, it’s most probably will be named by IAU as Eris. Eris was the goddess of strife and discord. The moon of Eris, was formerly known as Gabrielle, is now Dysnomia, the goddess of lawlessness.
You may check about the Greek Gods in this website, Theoi.
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