Shares and cherishes the gorgeous night sky, the everyone's property.
By a very rough counting, 5 bright stars were spotted last night. The haze is cleared but the clouds are brought here by the monsoon. When I just done setting up my telescope, the Moon was blocked by my house. So, there’s no Moon’s photo. How I wish I have an observatory on a mountain top! It’s rainning now when I write this. Tonight will be another clear night with some clouds.
Last paper tomorrow. After this, I can write a lot again. 
Look! The transparency is so good now. This photo was taken at 4:15PM yesterday. It was going to rain soon and it did. The air is so fresh as it was rainning just now. If I am not mistaken, the monsoon season has come. Oh well…… my stargazing is not so smooth. May be I will have quite a few super clear nights. Let’s wait for it!
By the way, I am having my last paper on Monday. I am not sure whether I can post an article on Sunday. Sorry to all my loyal readers.
Light pollution in Malaysia
Light pollution, we hate it but some of us have to live with it especially those who live in suburban and urban areas. If you want to know how severe it is, try to look at the photos above. These are for those who live in South-East Asia and Malaysia, you may refer to The night sky in the World for yours.
To know more about the scale on the left, please visit John Bortle’s Light Pollution Scale.
I previously said that the light pollution in Kluang is affecting my observing but the image tells me that the pollution is totally near to zero. I shall say that the road lamp and my neighbours’ lamps are affecting me instead of the previous thought.
We determine how powerful a telescope is mostly by resolution and the light gathering power. So, what is light gathering power?
Left is a Celestron CGE-800 which has a light gathering power of 843.
The light gathering power of a telescope is the theoretical ability of a telescope to collect light compared to your fully dilated eye. It takes both aperture and your fully dilated eye into factors. The larger the aperture, the higher the light grasp. It is directly proportional to the square of the aperture.
To calculate this, first, you have to divide the diameter of aperture (in mm) by the diameter of fully dilated eye (7mm for a normal young man) and then square the result. For instance, an 8″ telescope has a light gathering power of 843 [(203.2/7)² = 843].
Well, my stargazing sessions are either ceased by the cloudy skies or the hazy skies. Now, the haze here is unhealthy to one’s health. Some are suffering from sore throat, flu and more. The mountain in the photo is Gunung Lambak. You can hardly see the mountain’s outline due to the haze. Please, don’t burn anymore next year.
Dear every Meade telescope users, you’re now given a chance to submit your photo taken with Meade telescopes. I am looking forward a chance to take lunar images. Submit your photo here.
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You will find the meteor shower at the direction of constellation Orion this weekend. The meteors are the dust from the Halley’s Comet. Earth is going to come across with them. The best time to look is Saturday morning, Oct. 21st, just before local dawn
Click on the sky map above to learn about the exact direction. The sky map is courtesy of SpaceWeather.com.
I don’t think the haze here will allow me to see any.
The Jupiter Red Spot Junior is officially named Oval BA (Bad Astronomy?). It is getting reddish as its elder brother, the Great Red Spot. The wind is currently boasting at 640km/h. It just takes 1.5625 seconds to travel from the southest of Malaysia (Johor Bahru) to the northest (Perlis), roughly 1000km, imagine!
Left: The spot in the middle is the Oval BA
As suggested, as the storm has grown stronger it probably picked up red material from lower in the Jupiter atmosphere, most likely some form of sulfur which turns red as part of a chemical reaction.
I just discover that configuring a theme is such a tedious work. I am currently working on the latest theme, K2. Please tell me if you like it!
Click on the images for larger versions. Both of them are the stunning images from the Cassini Imaging Team. They are actually the same photo, just the latter of which colour contrast is exaggerated. The colour variation of the latter image imply that the sorting of particles in different sizes. The image is a stack of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera in nearly 3 hours.
For more information, please visit In Saturn’s Shadow
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