Mooey,
Just a suggestion - try imaging M42 in Singapore. It's bright enough that you can get a decent picture which gives you a chance to practice your drift alignment. Save Mersing for those challenging objects!
Mersing Report 08-10th Mar
-
swat_pup6433
- Posts: 310
- Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 2:16 am
- Contact:
seriously QiHui is right you guys should see how it easily took more than 10 guys to put 2 plastic bag over 2 lamp post that was erm.. 6 meters above ground.. right beside some high tension power cables. all in all the trip went pretty well with "acceptable" amount of clear skies which hopefully managed to please many first timers. Now I strongly believe that Luck still plays a major part when u have every part of the sky clear.. but how the object you wanna look at or take a photo off just keep getting covered by clouds.. no matter how small patch it may be.. it just covers right where u dont want it to..
And as for the photo taking session, you have to pardon us guys! guess we are not used to taking lots of our own photos with the handphone or stepping into neoprint machines with CUTE pose~~ hmm.. maybe we are just " shy" ! well.. neverless been fun hanging with you guys and girls, though I didnt get to move around and intereact much in the night. did manage to meet some really interesting people along the way, ohh and not to forget the ever so bubbly girl that was so energetic throughout the night! you know who you are, hope to see you guys again on future mersing trips!
For now, Cheers and Clear skies!!
And as for the photo taking session, you have to pardon us guys! guess we are not used to taking lots of our own photos with the handphone or stepping into neoprint machines with CUTE pose~~ hmm.. maybe we are just " shy" ! well.. neverless been fun hanging with you guys and girls, though I didnt get to move around and intereact much in the night. did manage to meet some really interesting people along the way, ohh and not to forget the ever so bubbly girl that was so energetic throughout the night! you know who you are, hope to see you guys again on future mersing trips!
For now, Cheers and Clear skies!!
devoting some time to write short notes on this trip:
despite all the fuss about the recent fugitive and polls, the car ride up was a breeze, with short spates of traffic jam in jb, after crossing the customs via Tuas link. There were no hold-ups on the link way. Managed to reach Mersing about 2.5 hours later and in time before darkness fell. The weather seems to be funny for the March season, despite the "monsoon" period being over. The night started with lots of stars, transparency was above average, but with low passing cumulus at pretty high frequency. It was an "observer's" night, and was not condusive for imaging, even with 5 minute sub-exposures. Will describe more in the astrophotographer's perspective since we have previous written accounts already.
The night was spent playing a cat-and-mouse game, one with the passing clouds, and another with the object to be taken. It was somewhat hilarious (and also irritating) to have an object composed, only to be known later that clouds are passing in front of it at a rate faster than the length of intended sub-exposures. There were few attempts to change to other objects, but with the consideration of having the constraint of good angular image size on the given FOV and object attractiveness, it was left to just a few candidates. Tried taking the flame nebula in Orion, but only managed monochrome luminance ones which were bearly 5 minutes long each, mostly in the realm of 1-2 minutes. As the setup was located in the more open area of the field within the chalet premises, imaging at 1000mm was a chore with 'ovalish' stars resulting despite the use of autoguiding. It was clear that the setup needed a location that could shield itself from the wind, however, trying to relocate to another location within the same first night and sacrificing clear sky time was not an easy task, what more having to level the mount, drift align, and calibrate again! However, the imaging session did not last long since the clouds were coming in faster as the night passed, until about 1-2AM when even some thin level haze set in. Ultimate straw came when headache set in, and the human body temperature rose (from the recent hot and cold weather changes), the decision was clear, catch some much needed sleep and rest and let the body heal itself, since the weather did not hold up. Also heard from the rest that rain came in the wee hours.
The second night was slightly better in terms of a lower frequency of passing clouds. There were still a hindrance, but I could manage a couple of 5 minute sub-exposures of flame, albeit still with slight 'ovaling' of stars even with relocation into a wind-shielded area behind the dining hall. Managed a few subs for NGC3628 as well, a moderately faint edge-on galaxy in Leo, but still, the quality was short of the usual mersing "standard" due to strong wind and short subs. Repeated the session for M13 as well. All this while, vigilance was paid on noticing if the horizon had a distinct "opaque" appearance, with the possibility of precipitation. True enough, there was a time when we felt "something was happening". Taking no chances, with all the wirings, extension cords, telescope, camera, mp3 player, it was time to retreat everything (except the mount) into the dining hall for cover. There was also a shout further out in the field that it was raining. In less than ten minutes, everyone managed to get everything into the hall. It was lucky that the rain was not too heavy. whew!
On a different account, the food at the chalet was less spicy this time round. It seemed that our feedback worked, and they included milo drinks as well. There were additional accommodation units now, which means increasing the in-house capacity further.
hopefully the weather improves in April in time for the next trip!
despite all the fuss about the recent fugitive and polls, the car ride up was a breeze, with short spates of traffic jam in jb, after crossing the customs via Tuas link. There were no hold-ups on the link way. Managed to reach Mersing about 2.5 hours later and in time before darkness fell. The weather seems to be funny for the March season, despite the "monsoon" period being over. The night started with lots of stars, transparency was above average, but with low passing cumulus at pretty high frequency. It was an "observer's" night, and was not condusive for imaging, even with 5 minute sub-exposures. Will describe more in the astrophotographer's perspective since we have previous written accounts already.
The night was spent playing a cat-and-mouse game, one with the passing clouds, and another with the object to be taken. It was somewhat hilarious (and also irritating) to have an object composed, only to be known later that clouds are passing in front of it at a rate faster than the length of intended sub-exposures. There were few attempts to change to other objects, but with the consideration of having the constraint of good angular image size on the given FOV and object attractiveness, it was left to just a few candidates. Tried taking the flame nebula in Orion, but only managed monochrome luminance ones which were bearly 5 minutes long each, mostly in the realm of 1-2 minutes. As the setup was located in the more open area of the field within the chalet premises, imaging at 1000mm was a chore with 'ovalish' stars resulting despite the use of autoguiding. It was clear that the setup needed a location that could shield itself from the wind, however, trying to relocate to another location within the same first night and sacrificing clear sky time was not an easy task, what more having to level the mount, drift align, and calibrate again! However, the imaging session did not last long since the clouds were coming in faster as the night passed, until about 1-2AM when even some thin level haze set in. Ultimate straw came when headache set in, and the human body temperature rose (from the recent hot and cold weather changes), the decision was clear, catch some much needed sleep and rest and let the body heal itself, since the weather did not hold up. Also heard from the rest that rain came in the wee hours.
The second night was slightly better in terms of a lower frequency of passing clouds. There were still a hindrance, but I could manage a couple of 5 minute sub-exposures of flame, albeit still with slight 'ovaling' of stars even with relocation into a wind-shielded area behind the dining hall. Managed a few subs for NGC3628 as well, a moderately faint edge-on galaxy in Leo, but still, the quality was short of the usual mersing "standard" due to strong wind and short subs. Repeated the session for M13 as well. All this while, vigilance was paid on noticing if the horizon had a distinct "opaque" appearance, with the possibility of precipitation. True enough, there was a time when we felt "something was happening". Taking no chances, with all the wirings, extension cords, telescope, camera, mp3 player, it was time to retreat everything (except the mount) into the dining hall for cover. There was also a shout further out in the field that it was raining. In less than ten minutes, everyone managed to get everything into the hall. It was lucky that the rain was not too heavy. whew!
On a different account, the food at the chalet was less spicy this time round. It seemed that our feedback worked, and they included milo drinks as well. There were additional accommodation units now, which means increasing the in-house capacity further.
hopefully the weather improves in April in time for the next trip!
Some photos for the trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24584168@N ... 329215736/
