MERSING Expeditions (May 2024) Info/Report

Alright, this is for sharing of your observation experience. Or, if you are arranging gatherings, star-gazing expeditions or just want some company to go observing together, you can shout it out here.
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raychan
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Re: MERSING Astro Trip (APRIL 12-14 2013) Registration Opens

Post by raychan »

Really nice pixs.....at least you guys had fun!
Pity we can't see these DSOs from SGP
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Gary
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Re: MERSING Astro Trip and Reports/Photos (March 15-17 2013)

Post by Gary »

Airconvent wrote:Wonderful images! So that's what you were doing back there! :)

It has been an experience going back to Mersing after all these years. This time, I was there with Gavin and joined by Remus' girlfriend too who could not follow the van one day earlier. The route to Mersing changed a little but we still managed to find our way there...haha.

The new chalet huts, albeit rudimentary, does make the place more livable and with a proper place to sleep and bathe too. I would love to deploy at the main field next time when the grass is shorter and there are more of us there. The constant wind was a problem with high magnification but the rubber stoppers that Gavin used worked wonders.

This trip, due to last minute pull out, we did not have the 18 incher with us but Gavins's LX90 made up for it and rekindled the reasons why i liked a goto scope. We managed to catch a few seconds of Panstarrs after a hurried set up before it disappeared into the clouds and horizon. Unfortunately, the rest of Remus' team were having dinner in the canteen. The rest of the night have been productive too as we looked at over 30 galaxies/galaxy pairs/galaxy triplets, Saturn and a number of nebula and clusters too. I counted 8 meteors that night including one short fireball that many of us saw! At one point, there was a slight drizzle and I was very worried we would be stuck there but fortunately, it cleared up but by 6am, the clouds was quite bad, so we decided to pack up and return early to avoid the jams. Most of the guys were still sleeping, so no chance to say goodbye..

And due to the dark environment., I have to apologize to those I have been speaking to as were not able to cover much during out short conversation and I never really caught their names too. They look so enthusiastic. Hope to be able to talk shop and share more on astro apps during one of the many sidewalk astronomy sessions. :)

Apart from Panstarrs, the highlight of the night was Gavin discovering that there was a planetary ring nebula amongst the stars in the M46 cluster! Seen it alot of times but never realised a nebulae was there. We asked Kelvin to image it, so hopefully we will get to see it in print.

Thanks to Remus for organising the trip, the hospitality of everyone especially Kelvin who let us use his toilet and to Gavin for letting me use his LX90 when he was asleep!

:)
Nice report Airconvent! Thanks for writing! Almost missed it had I not read Starfinder's. Glad you guys manage to catch PanSTARRS.
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melcolmlee
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Re: MERSING Astro Trip and Reports/Photos (March 15-17 2013)

Post by melcolmlee »

Airconvent wrote:
melcolmlee wrote:Haha nice photos from Yihan !
This has been a fruitful trip ! Just wanna share what we have done.
Image
Nice capture melcomlee! We were trying to find the Horsehead that night but in the end was not able to. Managed to make out the flame nebula nebulosity though.
Thanks for showing it here...have to catch it again next trip! :)
Hahas thanks ! I'm quite lucky as this was only 5 frames of h-alpha. When I wanted to do colours on the starshoot pro the clouds started moving up and unfortunately had to give it up.
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rcj
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by rcj »

once again, departure day for the trip is here again. smaller group this time, weather showing unpredictable pattern but it seems clear tonight for a change. fingers crossed!
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starfinder
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by starfinder »

Here is the group photo taken this morning at the conclusion of the Mersing 2N3D astronomy expedition from Fri 12 April - Sun 14 April 2013 at Telok Sari, Mersing district, Johor.

If I have the time, will write-up a report.

Image
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antares2063
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by antares2063 »

Hi all,

Here’s my take on the Mersing trip, the chalet definitely is a nice change with shower rooms and electricity, as I can recharge my DSLR cam batteries during the day and for the APers to power their gear :)

1st Night:

We were delighted by the appearance of a anti-crepuscular ray ..stretching from horizon to horizon...
Image
Yihan used a fisheye lens to capture the entire ray..awesome :)

Nightfall came fast, we reached Srikandi after taking dinner at the now new and multi-storey KFC. Setup my small refractor stared in awe at the night sky as it became better, slight lightning during the early parts of the evening , clouds came in around 330am-400am or so.

DSO Constellation Remarks
M42 Orion
M41 Canis Major
NGC 2362 "
NGC 4755 Crux Jewel box cluster with a ‘V’ outline
h3945 CMa Canis Major Colourful binary with nice red + pale blue components
NGC 3766 Centaurus Open Cluster on the tip of what looks like a mini Orion’s belt
Omega C. Centaurus Fuzzy ball!
NGC 3532 Carina Open cluster with majority of stars around same magnitude
NGC 3372 Carina Eta Carinae neb.
IC 2602 Carina Nicknamed “southern Pleiades”
M46 + M47 Puppis Twin clusters in same FOV
M4 Scorpius
M80 " A small, tricky globular in my scope, had to confirm with a few
observations with Sanjay that Im not imagining it.
NGC 6242 "
M6 + M7 "
NGC 6397 Ara
M17 Sagittarius Swan neb
M22 " Globular flanked by stars on both sides :)
M20 + M21 " Trifid neb with OC
M8 " Lagoon neb

2nd Night:

Started off by seeing 3 pairs of sunspots , Moon and Jupiter through passing clouds. Nightfall was bad as the clouds came in hard and didn’t move. Had a outdoor movie screening courtesy of Lton’s ipad =). 345am or so, a thunderstorm started building up and approaching us from the North. Remained overcast and rained around 6am.

Heres a link to a time lapse from shooting pics over 2 days:
http://youtu.be/KHvCfOgqMcc


Regards,
Junwei
Last edited by antares2063 on Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I miss the place where stars shine bright, to gaze upwards in awe of the sight
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Mariner
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by Mariner »

Question: Was the entire group doing AP/imaging at any one point in time or were there (at least) one or two who went there to do purely visual (oddballs)?

:mryellow:
OCULARHOLIC ANONYMOUS!!!
Keep Calm and Carry on Observing.
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antares2063
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by antares2063 »

Hi Mariner,

Scanning the skies using variable aperture optics (needs to stay in the dark for 20mins to achieve best performance) : Veejay , starfinder and antares2063 ;)

The rest of the group are AP'ers

Regards,
Junwei
I miss the place where stars shine bright, to gaze upwards in awe of the sight
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VeeJay
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by VeeJay »

Hey Remus, thanks for organizing another great trip!

The list of observations for me is the same as Junwei's list - after all, he was the one who showed them to me :)
Thanks bro, for sharing the enthusiasm, knowledge, scope and even the star chart book :)
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cataclysm
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Re: MERSING Expeditions (Next Trip: APR 12) Info/Reports/Pho

Post by cataclysm »

Hi all, here are some night scene shots from April trip. Tried a different tact this time by using my cooled DSLR for static shots, thus suppressing a good deal of noise and yet able to bump up to high ISO to boost camera sensitivity. It turned out pretty well. :P

Image

Image
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