Mersing Comet Watch 04 (Part 1) - Long

Jiin · Post by **Jiin** » Tue May 25, 2004 9:15 am

CME2004 Photos - 3D2N Trip [Posted on Singastro yahoo groups]

Hi y'all!

It was a memorable experience! Had a great time meeting up fellow astro enthusiasts both old & new.

Big thank you to those who made the trip possible and to all participants.

Hehe... special thanx to our adhoc van drivers - Chung Hooi & Mike Lo. Our backs would have been tortured from lugging our equipment to & fro the site if you guys didn't help ferry all the barang.

Photos of the trip are uploaded here. Enjoy!
http://home.graffiti.net/jiin/CME2004.htm

Was a pity that I didn't have time to capture the huge array of eqiupment on the first nite. Only managed to go around snapping on the second nite.

(there seems to be a hit limit imposed by the server. if you experience problems accessing, try again the next day)

*can't wait for the reports from the 5D4N gang.

Jiin.

Post by **acc** » Tue May 25, 2004 12:20 pm

Was there for two nights. The second nite was rather eventful. There were even more pple in the field as a group from Txxxx came and stationed themselves at a corner far far away...

The sky was cloudy as dusk fell and we spent our time eating, socialising and admiring the great number of scopes. About 9pm, there was lots of lightning and clouds in the distant and we scrambled to keep our OTAs. Half of us went back to the chalet in anticipation of a downpour but it never rained. The sky cleared not long after Txxxx left, much to our delight... 8) The period between 2am and 4am was especially good, with better transparency than the first nite. The Ring Nebula for eg, was more contrasty. Anyway, it was a great trip with lots of great company. Cheers to the organisers!

ykchia · Post by **ykchia** » Tue May 25, 2004 11:19 pm

Hi Acc and folks:

Wonderful groups up there... We had a brief stay on your D/N 2. We hurried home after seeing distant lightings ...on our way back i noticed fairly good sky - with so many stars in Scorpius...

Sunday /Monday was bad in S'pore - could not do anything. This evening before 8pm, i managed to get T7 from indoors ... my b/w monitor konked shortly after my video recording session.. overheated. Neat? Well, too lazy to go down and look...

http://www.ykchia.com/dual_comets.htm

rgds
ykchia

harlequin2902 · Post by **harlequin2902** » Wed May 26, 2004 11:29 am

Richard, wonderful report and photos! Glad you have had a good time there...

Samuel, you got to pay me image rights to wear that white overall man!! Hehehe.......

Haahaa, yeah. Anyway I changed to a blue one for the last 2 nights

Here is my very brief account of what happened :

On the 2nd night, there was lightning everywhere and it seemed as if it was going to rain any minute. Most of the group went back to seek shelter in the chalet, but a few of us stayed behind. Surprisingly, it never did rain in the end, but the lightning show continued into the early hours of the morning (I managed to capture a few lightning photos from the safety of my tent ... will post in coffee corner later) When I finally came out of my tent and to my scope at 3/4am, parts of the sky had cleared but the high clouds, flashing lightning and haze made many beautiful objects look really sad, so I went back into the tent to sleep. That was the end of the 2nd night.

The 3rd night was disappointing too. It was almost 100% cloud cover throughout the night, and we could only sit around (play with light sticks

) and chatted the night away.

The 4th and final night was the best we had for this trip, and I should really kick myself for dozing off (and under a star filled sky too :roll: ) for at least 2 hours ! Perhaps it may have been due to the body's biological clock, because we were sleeping a lot during night 2 and night 3. By the time I woke up, I had only about 4 or 5 hours of observing time left before sunrise. I personally didn't observe many new objects during the trip as I told myself to concentrate more on quality than quantity during Mersing trips. i.e spend more time re-visiting and appreciating familiar objects since they are at their best over here. At one point, I was just sitting there and marvelling at the views of the Swan Nebula (M17) for 15 minutes !

The only new and 1st time objects I observed with my MN56 were some NGC galaxies in Centaurus, Sculptor and the peculiar Bug Nebula in Scorpius.

Log (all objects observed over 4 nights) :

M81, M82, M63, M97, M51, M3, M4, M80, M13, M7, M6, M41, M83, M8, M57, M22, M27, M17, M54, M55, M68, M104, M19, M62, M85, M56, NGC 3532, NGC 6231, NGC 6281, NGC 4945, NGC 55, NGC 253, Bug Nebula, Veil Nebula, Eta Carina Nebula, Omega Centauri, Centaurus A, Jewel Box, Comet Neat and Comet Linear.

Thanks to Remus, and the organizing team for organizing this event ! As always, looking forward to the next one already. 8)

Post by Q » Wed May 26, 2004 4:22 pm

wow Samuel you actually saw the Bug Nebula?
should have called me man...
i was looking for it for at least 1/2 hour before I gave up haha...

harlequin2902 · Post by **harlequin2902** » Wed May 26, 2004 4:52 pm

wow Samuel you actually saw the Bug Nebula?
should have called me man...
i was looking for it for at least 1/2 hour before I gave up haha...

Yup, not just me but the group that was closest to where I set up also came by to take a peek when I observed it for a second time on the 4th night (first saw it on the 1st night)...so I guess you were somewhere else during that time. Anyway, this will be an object I'm sure to be observing every single night for the next trip. It's quite a challenging object to get in the center of the FOV for observing because you need high magnification to reveal its true nature. It's not a small object, but at low magnification, it looks just like any other star in the FOV. I managed to see it for the first time in my life on the 1st night, and I had to go by trial and error for all the suspects in the FOV at that time before I managed to get it right. For me, the red dot finder was really useful in helping to first pinpoint the general area before I started the actual hunt for it in the FOV. Hunting down these small but high contrast planetaries is really fun ! Will make it a point to do more for the next trip

Post by **Airconvent** » Wed May 26, 2004 11:20 pm

Hi Sam,
Is this the Mag 20 planetary nebula we saw on the first night on the 10"LX200 and were so amazed it was so bright for a Mag 20 object ?
As I recall, I can't tell why its called a "bug" nebula since it did not resemble one but Chuan Yee seemed to think it does.

rich

Post by **weixing** » Wed May 26, 2004 11:34 pm

Hi,

Is this the Mag 20 planetary nebula we saw on the first night on the 10"LX200 and were so amazed it was so bright for a Mag 20 object ?

I have read about this bug nebula(NGC6302) on quite a number of books and websites, some said it is Mag 13 and others said it is Mag 9.6. Anyway, both are brighter than Mag 20.... wonder will be visible in Singapore light polluted skies...???

By the way, I haven't have a chance to see it myself, but in the photograph... it does look like a squashed bug.

Have a nice day.

Sam Lee · Post by **Sam Lee** » Wed May 26, 2004 11:35 pm

I believe Bug nebula isn't '20' magnitude, but rather 9+.
I still can't believe you guys saw a TWENTY magnitude nebula!!

You sure about that? Or it's just a speck of dust on your objective

?!

Regards,
Sam

Post by **Airconvent** » Wed May 26, 2004 11:48 pm

Sam Lee wrote:I believe Bug nebula isn't '20' magnitude, but rather 9+.
I still can't believe you guys saw a TWENTY magnitude nebula!!
You sure about that? Or it's just a speck of dust on your objective ?!

Regards,
Sam

Need to confirm with Chuan Yee. I remember checking the data on the autostar and it was listed as Mag 20. Of course, its also possible we were looking at a brighter object which happened to be next to the mag 20 object!

rich