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.
Last night, my observation spot was not ideal for observing Jup & Sat. Yes I would love to meet up with you guys for another group observation session! Tiong Bahru Park could be a good central location, and it is only a stone's throw from my office and your home
When we observe with our scopes, many things could happen, eg. once we had a group of five police patrol cars with glaring searchlights swarming into the observation field at Mersing to spot-check on our scopes. We also had wild boars dashing past us when we observed at Sedili. Then I had evaporative cooling for my ZOC mirror courtesy of a considerate neighbour...well I would rather spend more time to observe Mars (or go sleep) than to pursue the matter further.
Good points! I would like to add one more advantage we have for planetary observation and imaging, due to our location:
5. The planets often reach a much higher elevation when viewed from the equatorial region compared with northern and southern latitudes.
I believe this applies to both the inferior planets (Mercury and Venus) and the superior ones (incl Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).
Take Mars, for example. On the day of Opposition on 9/10 April 2014, it culminated at 83 deg above the horizon in Singapore, but only 44 deg in New York City and worse, 33 deg in London. Taking into account that those are maximum elevations for the night, in practice the views of Mars from those other 2 cities would be much lower for most of the time, too low for good atmospheric transparency.
As for (dwarf planet) Pluto, now still stuck in Sagittarius, it culminates at only 18 deg elevation in London, but over 60 deg in Singapore.
I find that for the planets, esp for critical high power viewing, the planets are often best viewed when over 40 deg above the horizon. There!
Great point Gavin! I remembered this point earlier but forgot to include it in my post.
In fact, it is a very crucial point for planetary observation; it may make a difference whether you see a faint planetary albedo marking or not at all. I usually do critical planetary observations only at elevation 60-90 degrees. Planets below 40 degrees are not worthwhile targets for optimum observation.
edit: fortunately for us, the celestial equator is very close to our location at the equator, hence the planets are also usually optimally located for us during planetary opposition. I have included this item 5 into my earlier post to make it complete.
Yeah Gavin, tentatively I can be there say 8-11pm at Tiong Bahru Park this Sunday 11 May 2014, weather pending, of course. Anyone who is keen to observe through the 15" dob and Gavin's scope is welcome to join us there. Night skies are pretty bad these few nights and the weather forecast thunderstorm over the next two afternoons, so we have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best
if timing is good i would like to show up n learn more from u guys..