An amateur astronomer blogger highly interested in aerospace, astronomy, astro equipments and other astro related fields. Robin shares the astronomy enthusiasm with people from kids to seniors.
From 3 May to 7 May, we’re gifted one of the year best meteor shower - Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Aquarids are the debris left by Halley’s Comet of which last closest approach was in 1986. For this year, the moon is new and the Aquarids stay at full strength over the 5 days. This time, Aquarids favor us and the southern region. Expect a spectacular meteor shower! 
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Wish everybody has a wonderful 2008. At least, there are few great astronomical events waiting for us. At least, January is favoured with 3 fantastic events.
Continue reading ‘Happy New Year 2008 - Amazing Events Are Waiting For Us’
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.
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.
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.
Geminid meteor shower is at best for most of the Asia countries on the upcoming 14-15 December. Attention, no equipment is needed for watching meteor shower.
When, where, how and why to look?
Continue reading ‘2007 Best Meteor Shower for Asians - Geminids’
The annual meteor shower Orionid is coming again. The meteors are the debris of the extremely famous Halley’s Comet. The peak rate this year is around 20-50 per hour. Observers last year spotted the same figure and I guess we will get roughly the same again.
Where to look?
Continue reading ‘Orionid Peaks on 21st Oct’
Congratulations to Dr.Peter Jenniskens and Dr.Jeremy Vaubaullion for the correct meteor outburst prediction. He rode on a plane that day above the sky to watch the show. Aurigids were the debris of the ancient comet, Comet Kiess. I hope that none of you was affected by the cloudy curse. I was the unlucky.
The Auriga was at my north equatorial sky but it was always covered with clouds. It was exceptionaly thick that day. It’s quite funny that I just realise that Kluang is actually a basin after my ex-physic teacher told me today. The cloud easily forms here, thus our viable skies are only available for roughly 120 days per year. I am yet to confirm this very rough figure yet. I am going to start the counting from today. The best sky here is around Chinese New Year, roughly January to March.
he above image shows the Aurigids before passing through the clouds which are always the obstruction to our line of sight. Dr.Jenniskens and his colleagues were 15,000 km above the sea-level in 2 privates jets imaging the meteors with spectrometers, cameras and telescopes to measure the velocity, penetration, and chemical composition of incoming meteoroids.
It’s the Perseids and Aurigids (this time, it’s amazing!) as well as Delta Aquarids which force me to take a break from my revision for this examination week to blog now.
Perseid meteor shower is going to peak on 12-13 August 2007. Some people have already reported that they saw some bright Perseid fireball down to magnitude -5. It’s as bright as a full moon! By the way, before that time, you can still spot some Delta Aquarids from Aquarius (the meteor shower is named after its radiant point).
Eta Aquarids are the dust left by Hally’s Comet. Earth passes this stream of dust twice a year. First in May caused the Eta Aquarids and second in October the Orionids. The peak rate is 5-10 per hour for the northern hemisphere and 20-60 per hour for southern hemisphere. The rate maybe lower by a factor of 2 to 3 because of the waning gibbous Moon.
Where and when to look for the meteoroids? As usual, the time to look for meteor shower is best at before dawn. Look east to the constellation Aquarius as the radial point of this meteor shower is near Aquarius. Don’t forget to dress warm and lie on a flat ground with a blanket. 
Facts:
1.Typical Eta Aquarids are as bright as 3th magnitude stars
2.The meteorids hit the earth at the speed of 66 km/s.
After the metoer shower event (Lyrids) that just past, Perseids is going to take place in August and Aurigids is going to happen in September.
This time, Aurigids is going to be very spectacular and very magnificient! On 1 September 2007, 11:37 GMT, the peak rate will be about 1000 meteors per hour! How stormy is this! This is reason that it’s called a storm instead of shower. However, this might just happen for 15 minutes. On this day, the Earth will pass very near to the center of the dust trails left by the comet Kiess.
Most of the north America and Europe will be in daylight. You guys there got to travel to western US, Canada, Hawaii or Alaska for this event. My timezone is GMT+8, the western part of the sky will still be bright. Anyway, I am going to organise a meteorgazing party on that day.
Date: 15 December 2006
Time: 0057 UT+8
Venue: Home garden
I was quite lucky that I was able to watch 4 Geminids after the peak (13 December 2006). The interval of the appearance of the first 2 Geminids was around 30 seconds. No equipment was used during the meteor shower watching.
Afterthat, I setup my LX90 to observe the “Tonight Best”. It’s the guided tour written by Meade. Every of the objects observed are Messier Objects. They were M35, M36, M37, M38, M42 and M45 (Pleaides). I was supposed to be able to see M1 (Crab Nebula) but the tour showed me M42 (Great Orion Nebula). M42 was in greenish tone. I would say it’s always the best nebula for visual enjoyment as this is one of the nebula which you can see colour.
M35, M36, M37, M38 and M45 are open cluster. There were really a lot of stars in the view. It’s very fantastic, especially the M37 which has the greatest amount of stars. The arrangement of the amount of stars from high to low is as follow. M37>M38>M35>M36>M45
I observed Saturn as well! The view is not so great as it’s still low in the sky but it’s getting higher and higher, so no worry. The time is coming soon.
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