Archive for the 'Stargazing Notes' Category

Another Night with LX90

Published on January 20, 2009 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments Tags: .

18 Jan 2009 – The light pollution is getting worse. I have long missed the starry night sky in Pulau Redang.  No, it can’t stop my enthusiasm towards the night sky. The stars are twinkling but not my eyes. I watch a meteor scratch through the southern sky below the Siruis.

Mosquitoes are detering me from continuing my passion. The wonders of the sky tell me not.

M79 is a globular cluster  in Lepus. Although it is at magnitude 8.3, I see it as a patch of light. Further observation will prove if it is the weather that spoilt the view.

M38 is one of the best open clusters in Auriga. It is at mag. 6.4. In Auriga, there are 3 marvelous open clusters.  The members are M36, M37 and M38.

The view of M42 is breathtaking! Albeit the seeing not at the best, I see the nebulosity at the farthest expansion as the first time. I assume it’s the good weather that summons such a mind-blowing scene. I can even see 2 stars through nebulosity.

Eta Carinae Nebula is always one of the mystical objects on the sky. It’s the remnant of the supernova of a star named Eta Carinae. A star is usually dead after going into the supernova but this star is the odd.  This nebula spans around 84′ (arcminutes) and shines at magnitude 5. I’m driven to save for a camera to have a deeper view.

NGC3377 is an ecliptical galaxy in Leo. Magnitude 10.1 is within my lx90 light grasp but somehow I can’t see it. It’s 32 million light year (ly) away which hosts a super black hole equals to 1o0 millions mass of suns.

Caldwell 091 is an open cluster in Carina at magnitude.3. It’s spanning around 54′ and is 1300 ly away and 25ly in diameter. It’s claimed to be the best open cluster by Autostar #497 controller.

Sprindle galaxy also known as NGC3315 and Caldwell 53 is a smudge at  mag.9.1 in Sextans, the constellation. It’s 4′  and it’s the only galaxy observed tonight

M41, another open cluster, in Canis Major, at mag.4.5. Nothing special to my eyes except lots of stars are out there.

M35, the fourth open cluster observed tonight, is in Gemini. I can see chains of light in the cluster which I think make this cluster one of the most special I have ever observed. It’s not easy for me to appreciate at first as I have to strain my eyes to clearly see what is out there.

Okay Mosquitoes, our fight shall end now. Retreat! :D

Please. Please let me know how shall I make this stargazing note more interesting to you. :)

Back Into The Hobby

Published on January 8, 2009 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments Tags: .

7 Jan 08 – Yippee! The title is self-explaining enough, I’m back. When I checked the date of my Autostar #497, the last observing date is 29 Nov 2008. Worse, I was not doing any serious observing that night. I just showed some objects to my club members so that they had a clue what does [insert any celestial body] look like. My last serious observing was around July, remember I imaged the Jupiter?

Yesterday was a breezy night. I was getting all my gears ready for the Moon and the cloud slipped in. The good news was that the wind was so fstrong that the large cloud which spanned the north and western sky was not a problem. I just need the patience.

I’ve recorded 4 piles of images in .AVI format at 384MB each. I’ve yet to process them with Registax V4. Right after the imaging session, I did visual observing. The moon glow was still quite strong so the  result was not that good compare to a new moon night.

Thanks to the Autostar #497 excellent Tonight Best guided tour, I observed the celestial bodies below.

  • Great Orion Nebula (as stunning as usual)
  • Saturn (the ring almost disappears!)
  • M35
  • M36-38 (open clusters in Auriga)
  • Beehive Cluster (Praesepe, M44)
  • M79
  • M68
  • Spindle Galaxy (elongated star patch)
  • Eta Carinae (remnant of supernova)
  • Moon (earth’s only sibling)
  • Sirius (the brightest star)
  • Canopus (the old man star)

Did I say I love blogging? I feel so relieved after I made a post.

First NASA Saturn Observation Campaign in Kluang

Published on March 11, 2008 in Public Outreach and Stargazing Notes. View Comments Tags: , , .
Saturn Observation Campaign

Saturn in front of Sun
People were highly attracted by this photo projected on the panel.

As a member of NASA Saturn Observation Campaign, I held my first event on 6 March 2008 at our school basketball field at 7.30pm.

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Mars Closest Approach & My Birthday

Published on December 20, 2007 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments Tags: .
Mars at Closest to HST
Mars was 88 million km away from earth when photographed by Hubble Space Telescope

On 19 Dec 2007, 7:45 UT+8, Mars was at the closest approach to us until 2016. I was having my birthday party on the 18 Dec night. Sadly, the clouds were jealous that the Goddess of the Wars, Mars was going to celebrate my birthday with my fellow friends. :(

This color image was assembled from a series of exposures taken within 36 hours of the Mars closest approach with Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. More about the info of the image is below.

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I Saw 24 Geminids! [Updated]

Published on December 14, 2007 in Meteor Shower and Stargazing Notes. View Comments Tags: , .

I saw 16 Geminids on the 15 Dec night. They’re so cheerful and mostly are fireballs. Geminid meteor shower is really well known for fireballs. Don’t miss it next year.

I was watching the meteor shower with 4 CHHS Astronomy Club members. It’s very nice to enjoy the show with friends. My sisters joined us very shortly after they heard us screaming. Haha.. it’s really a cool show. Meteor shower is definitely one of the best phenomena that everyone on the earth can enjoy without any expense. :D

I just find out that my record doesn’t have any scientific value so I decided not to expose my Geminids observation report on the 15 Dec night. Look at International Meteor Organisation Visual Report Page. It drove me away from reporting… You might say that I’m not suitable for science. However, I prefer a report that the public can make, not just amateur astronomer and even the professionals.

14 Dec 2007

Whoa! It was really fantastic this midnight. I started my observing since 1:40am UT+8 14 Dec. The cloud rolled in since 2.00am and was carried away by the wind soon. Another huge cloud rolled in just after several minutes but the strong wind blew it away again.

Continue reading ‘I Saw 24 Geminids! [Updated]‘

Watching 17P/Holmes – Fantastic!

Published on November 5, 2007 in Comet and Stargazing Notes. View Comments Tags: , , .

WOOOooooHoooOO! It’s so wonderful that a heavy downpour happened in the evening and most of the clouds are gone now. What’s the “star” tonight? Well, Comet 17P/Holmes is the “star” for the whole week and the next whole week. I’m watching it now. Sure, my laptop and Meade LPI is going to record it down and show it to my fellow friends. They are just too busy with the upcoming SPM exam (the O’ level exam).

I’ll Miss The Weather Tonight

Published on July 4, 2007 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments

There are unlimited stars shinning on the starry night of 4 July. The Jupiter is so bright at the meridian and Scorpius (the constellation) is just beside him. Crux is very easy to recognise. It’s totally the same as its name. It is creeping under Centaurus. Sagittarius is not far from Centaurus. It’s one of the constellations that have lots of scenic dark sky objects. Did I mention Leo? It’s just next to Hydra (Hydra’s west) and Hydra is next to Centaurus (Centaurus’s west).

Don’t forget the beautiful shinny Venus. She has a very nice companion, Saturn with her. 5 days before, they were so close and only 1/3º apart.

These are the wonderful objects can be seen through the unaided eyes on the starry night of equatorial latitude. The seeing tonight is so great but I can’t resist the “sleepmare”…

Retreated Because Of Mosquitoes

Published on July 3, 2007 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments

I HATE MOSQUITOES! I really hate them. They are so active since the start of this month.

When I just went out to setup my telescope, everything was fine. However, when I switched off the lights. They were all like the dark force, interupting me observing the Jupiter. They are so annoyed! I can’t bear with them. So, I quickly packed everything and went inside the house. They are so terrible, ruining my precious observing session.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the Venus and Saturn close encounter, you can still see it this week but they’ll not be that close as on 30 June.

So Many Star Clusters!

Published on May 9, 2007 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments
Robin and Kenny

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.

Extremely Good Saturn After Collimation

Published on March 27, 2007 in Stargazing Notes. View Comments

OH MY GOD! This was the first I spoke out after I sticked my eyeball near to the Meade Series 4000 26mm eyepiece. You totally couldn’t imagine how did the Saturn present. It’s totally stunning!

I was able to see the Saturn’s shadow on the rings system, some bands on the Saturn and 5 Saturnian Moons! I invited my friends to view the scene too (I invited them to my stargazing party to publicize Astronomy). I can’t see Cassini Division though. The tiltness of the Saturn made it. It’s blocked now. We need to wait for years until it reappears again. (Not very confirm on this statement)

Did I take a photo to proof the beautiful scene I saw? The answer is………… NO. The clouds suddenly covered up the zenith when I had already prepared my LPI. :(

This post was supposed to be up last Saturday night but due to the interuption of internet connectivity, I can’t access anything online.

Bad Behavior has blocked 407 access attempts in the last 7 days.