On 5 May 2007, my friend Giek Zhen from Segamat, Johor, Malaysia visited me with his department store telescope (the right in the photo). At first, I didn’t think that the department scope even worthed for such a little bucks. However, after I had looked through the scope, I agree that department scope is actually a good choice for the very very beginners. (Of course, not every department scope’s quality is the same)
We woke up at 0500 6 May 2007 and started our stargazing session. The Moon and Jupiter were so bright on the sky. After I showed Giek Zhen the bright objects on the night sky, I let him peer through my 8″ scope. Below are the objects that we observed.
Jupiter was so bright and we could see 4 Galilean moons. Actually I saw one more but I just couldn’t confirm as the glow of Jupiter and Moon was too strong, made it hard to be seen. The department scope can actually let the user see Jupiter. Although the Jupiter was washed out by the strong glow and weak resolution of 60mm telescope, the Galilean moons were visible.
Moon was 89% full but we still did the observing. I showed him the high power viewing of the Moon which got a little distorted in his scope.
Butterfly Cluster did really look like a butterfly. The stars resembled a butterfly with the dark sky as background. Amazing!
Wild Duck Cluster as seen as it was flying was even more spectacular than the Butterfly Cluster! There are 3 bright stars in this region. 2 are the eyes of the wild duck.
M07, Helix Nebula and Cynus X1 were observed too. M07 was an open star cluster. We can’t see anything when the scope pointed to Helix Nebula. I guessed it was due to the strong glow of Moon. Cynus X1 was a blackhole that I expected because of its weird nomenclature (at least to me). We need an instrument with the ability to receive x-ray to view it.
I saw one Aquarid earthgrazer burning across the sky from north to south for just 2 seconds! Giek Zhen saw one Aquarid too.
