Shares and cherishes the gorgeous night sky, the everyone's property.
To all my loyal readers, do you find it frustrating when you visit here and found no new article? You can subscribe the RSS feed and use your RSS reader to keep it up.
Anyway, I’ve decided to post a minimum of every 2 days. I’ll start to write the article from 9.00PM. You shall expect it after 10.00PM 
Yesterday night was cloudy and I was having problem installing Meade Autostar Suite to my 640M, thus my ready telescope was desperate. 
Oh yeah, kudos to the author of Imager Manager and WP lightbox for the cool visual view of any images clicked in AstronomyNotes.net Why not you try to click on any image (thumbnail) to try the feature? It is really cool, I must say.
By the way, stay tune for tonight astrophotography session! Seems like the cloud is clearing but I can’t ensure it.
The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on July 28th. Go outside before dawn on Friday morning, look south, and you could see a meteor every five minutes or so.
No one knows where these meteors come from. They could be remains of a long-dead comet or debris from an asteroid-asteroid collision. Curious fact: There is a debris stream nearly parallel to this one. Earth will pass through it on August 8th, producing the Northern Delta Aquarid meteor shower. It’s a mystery, too.
I haven’t seen a meteor this year. I’ve missed 3 meteor shower events, I hope I have the luck to take a look on it again.
On the bright lunar morning, the sky is always dark due to the absent of atmosphere which is as black as midnight. Isn’t it an astronomer’s paradise? No. Not a single star was visible. The glaring, sunlit ground ruined the man’s night vision. Only Earth itself is bright enough to be seen, luminous blue and white, hanging overhead.
Based on this conclusion, we know that a dark sky is not enough. A dark environment is needed too. However, we can’t really find a dark site in urban areas due to the high growing light pollution.
What about on the lunar night? Could an astronomer bear the cold temperature which may be as low as 40 K? I wonder anyone of us could. Don’t you think that a special designed suit is able to eliminate this problem? Everyone of them must feel incovenient in observing, I guess. What about establishing an observatory on the Moon? I am sure that space based telescope like HST is much more better as the observatory will be an easy target for the asteroid.
Thanks to Maximilion for bug hunting. 
Yesterday night was cloudy, I could only see Rigel Kentarius , i.e. only a little part of southern sky is clear. I’ll try again tonight. Jupiter will be my target again for the astrophotography session.
By the way, I am going to implement a translator to benefit my chinese readers.
As I promised, I took this photo together with my precious Meade 8″ LX90. So far, it is still performing like the new made. I am just worrying about the above average humidity of my room which will cause damage to the primary mirror of my telescope.
I was standing on the best position for stargazing as the tree helps to block the stupid road light and holding my road warrior, Dell Inspiron 640M. I am sure that you know where is the LX90. By the way, sorry about that I didn’t have a comb before I took this photo. 
Comments are welcomed!
Below is the summary of the press release from NASA.
The Space Shuttle Discovery and its crew are home after a 13-day, 5.3 million-mile journey in space. The mission, STS-121, succeeded in testing shuttle safety improvements, repairing a rail car on the International Space Station and producing never-before-seen, high-resolution images of the shuttle during and after its July 4th launch. This mission has elapsed 12 days 18 hours 37 minutes and 54 seconds.
Discovery’s Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and mission specialists Mike Fossum, Piers Sellers, Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson landed Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 9:14 a.m. EDT and all of the wheels stopped at 9:15:49 EDT. As usual, President George W. Bush called the astronauts to congratulate them on a successful mission.
NASA’s Space Shuttle Program managers also were pleased with Discovery’s performance. The flight verified the safety of the biggest aerodynamic change to the external fuel tank in shuttle history. The protuberance air load ramps were removed after a piece of foam came off this area during Discovery’s flight last year.
The astronauts tested the shuttle’s 50-foot robotic arm boom extension as a work platform. They removed and replaced a cable that provides power, command and data and video connections to the station’s mobile transporter rail car. The transporter is used to move a platform containing the station’s robotic arm along the truss of the complex. During the third spacewalk, the astronauts tested techniques for inspecting and repairing the reinforced carbon-carbon segments that protect the shuttle’s nose cone and leading edge of the wings. They’ve successfully accomplished the two major objectives.
Discovery delivered more than 28,000 pounds of equipment and supplies to the station, as well as a third crew member. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter joined Russian Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeff Williams. This marks the first time since May 2003 that the station crew has three members.
By the way, preparations continue for Space Shuttle Atlantis’ launch targeted for late August/early September for the STS-115 mission to deliver additional truss segments to the station. Atlantis is expected to be moved to the launch pad early next month, and NASA managers plan to meet shortly thereafter to clear the shuttle for its first mission since October 2002.
I have figured out a new format for every photo-op articles, let’s take a look of it!
Telescope: Meade 8″ LX90 w/UHTC
Imager: Meade Lunar Planetary Imager
Software: Meade Autostar Suite
Filter applied: None
I am quite satisfied the result of this image. It’s the least stacked photo with the most gorgeous details. I intended to turn on the screen by touching the touchpad but I forgot that the cursor was on the stop button. It could be better.
This photo is quite same with the previous one. It’s better not to write anything instead of “rubbishing”.
Actually, this is the first photo I took which is a combine of 275 images. Although greater stacking will result in better details, the turbulence of atmospheric will cause the photo blurry. So, it’s advisable not to stack the photo over a long period if the atmospheric is not stable.
I promised to have a astrophotography session on Saturday but I fall asleep unconsciously after the tiring paperwork. Therefore, I had the session yesterday and the results are really encouraging. I was focusing on the brightest planet, the Jupiter all the time. Sadly, the irritating mosquitoes kept disturbing me during the whole period.
Do you still remember that I kept complaining about the poor result of taking the photos of Jupiter? I solved it by using the autotracking function offered by Meade Autostar Suite. 
Overall, I am quite satisfied with the result. I just don’t quite like the tone of the colour. It’s time to ask the pro again.
Discovery is planned to be landed on Kennedy Space Center. However, the leaking may affect the plan.
The NASA engineers are seriously monitoring the leak in the pipeline of an auxiliary power unit that controls hydraulic steering and braking maneuvers. It’s now leaking at a rate of 6 drops per hour. It’s either harmless nitrogen or flammable hydrazine fuel. Nevertheless, the current rate is still 100,000 times slower than what would cause a fire.
John Shannon, the shuttle program’s deputy manager, said that the shuttle is certified to land normally with two power units, with the only change requiring pyrotechnics to lower landing gear. It could also land with one power unit on but it is much more difficult.
I am so happy to announced that my blog is currently ranked page rank 4 as known as pr4! This is really an encouragement to me. I am sure to write more informative contents in the future.
Anyway, I am going to regroup the style I blog. I’ve changed the category “Astronomy Knowledge” to “About Astronomy“. I’ve added a new category called “How-to” under the category “About Astronomy” of which name can self-explain itself.
I am going to add a new category under “Observing Notes” soon. It will be named “Photo-op” if nothing else has come up to my mind. It’s basically the group for the photos I take mostly twice a week. That’s all at the moment, if you have any suggestion, why not drop me an email at “robin051 at gmail dot com”?
P.S. Replace the at with “@” and dot with “.”
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