Bishan Park McDonald's Sidewalk tonight 19.05.12 (Restarted)

[Gary]

Update at 8:10pm: Drizzling at Bishan Park has stopped and Saturn Spica visible. Some of us will be there will scope at 9pm. See you guys later!

Tonight from 7.45pm. We may see a C8 GOTO gracing the event along with other telescopes. Come join us and observe Saturn, Mars and colourful star clusters!

[Gary]

Koko will be coming with his carbon fibre Stellavue SVR 80ED refractor which is for sale now:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10849

Potential buyers please don't miss this great opportunity to see this scope in action, ask the owner related questions in person and even compare it with rest of the telescopes there!

Maybe cash and carry tonight have a little bit more discount??

[Gary]

Event cancelled due to bad weather. Raining here at Toa Payoh now.

[Gary]

Update at 8:10pm: Drizzling at Bishan Park has stopped and Saturn Spica visible. Some of us will be there will scope at 9pm. See you guys later!

[cknjj]

Great nite out with u guys n gals!
Especially to Gary n KKK26
for helping out on my CG5 to
get alignment...at least now
I know my equipment working
like how it should be & most
Important of all, I've better
Understanding on alignment!

Thanks again people!

[Clifford60]

Great nite out with u guys n gals!
Especially to Gary n KKK26
for helping out on my CG5 to
get alignment...at least now
I know my equipment working
like how it should be & most
Important of all, I've better
Understanding on alignment!

Thanks again people!

Hi Koh, Glad you enjoy it, hope to see you more often. How is your AP on Saturn? I think you need to Barlow it 2~5 times to get a bigger image.

[cknjj]

Hi Clifford,

AP turns out fuzzy..hahaha...need to do more
research on AP b4 I venture into it again.

[cloud_cover]

At prime focus or 2x barlowed Saturn.is still pretty small hence it appears fuzzy. Try eyepiece projection or afocal photography (if using a full camera with lens) to magnify the image.
5x barlow or powermatw works, of course but means buying a 5x barlow. More expensive.

[Gary]

Hi Clifford, AP turns out fuzzy..hahaha...need to do more
research on AP b4 I venture into it again.

Perhaps your focusing is not precise enough. Also try using the video recording function in your DSLR to capture planets and moon.

Since you already lugging so many things, might as well add a laptop and webcam and do webcam planetary astrophotography. Check out this nice basic intro tutorial --> http://www.astro.shoregalaxy.com/webcam_astro.htm

[Gary]

This is a short report of that evening outing at BSP (yea...sounds more cool and faster to type. will use this abbreviation from now on )

Thanks to Clifford, Gavin, David, Koh, Avarielle, Koko, Ken, Dave and friends for dropping by. There was light drizzle which stopped shortly after. That's why we cancelled and then restarted the event at 9pm. Again, Twitter proved to be very useful for reacting to such quick changes in weather and sidewalk plans.

@Dave: Thanks for organising the event. You went back home upon reach BSP just to find out it was drizzling and went back home. When the drizzle stopped, you still bothered to come back to the park again and "psycho" your friends to do so. That was your 4th sidewalk in a week? Greatly admire your commitment and passion to sidewalk astronomy. Again, good noble intentions are usually rewarded or should I say in your case, poisoned! LOL.

@Avarielle: Thanks for coming all the way down with your scope despite your busy schedule and interviews. Third sidewalk at BSP in a week? LOL. Wanted to thank you earlier for coming to the TPY sidewalk but was too lazy to write that report. Your presence as a female amateur astronomer is greatly appreciated as it attracted a lot of attention and manage to dispel another misconception this hobby can only be appreciated by guys/nerds. Just like how Joyce attracted lots of attention too during her last sidewalk at TPY. Her ultra-portable 8-inch dob-in-a-suitcase also helped a lot.

@Clifford: Thanks for saving me lots of cab fare. LOL. And bringing your famous big bino to wow the participants there, especially the newcomers and giving them yet another option (big bino) to consider in their potential astro gear upgrade in the future. M7, NGC6231 still looked "3D", pin-point sharp and impressive through them. Can't wait to see Venus Transit through them through solar filters.

@Koko: Thanks for coming with you SVR. Really impressive scope with quality built and fine optics. Concentric circles during star testing and very low (no) CA observable on bright stars and planets. And the carbon fibre look is nicer than shown in photos.

@Gavin: Thanks for arriving early at BSP and giving us a on-site realtime update on the weather condition. Nice to catch up with you and to see your birding photos and experience in GCC. Thanks for the drink too and hope you enjoy reading my 1880s Straits Times A3 printouts of Venus Transits back then.

@David: Sorry didn't manage to find more time to catch up with you. Hope to get to know you better in future sessions.

@Ken: Thanks for coming to support the event. Time to unwind after the exams!

@Koh: Thanks for bringing the star attraction of the night! It attracted the attention of the CISCO guard too so it must be truly spectacular.

Hope you had fun learning how to setup your new toy. As you can see, attending one quick session like this can allow you to learn more efficiently how to use your scope. So tracking EQ goto mount is not really that scary if people bother to make the effort you made to join a sidewalk/starparty, let alone other less complicated setup.

We chose BSP instead of TPY for this sidewalk partly because we know you are coming and want to avoid potentially overwhelming TPY crowd which means we would have less time to interact with you. But in any case, you are lucky as the earlier light drizzle did manage to "chase" away most of the crowd there (or is it some rally somewhere? ). Which means all of us have more fun time catching up with with one another and checking out each other's setup.

Perhaps the light drizzle earlier helped to improve the seeing condition. So you came at the right time.

Thanks for wow-ing us with the best view of Saturn and Mars for the evening. NGC6231 looked great too. Almost felt like I was in Johor looking at it, almost.

Also brought back lots of wonderful memories for me when I first looked through my C8 at these objects. And the best part is, your C8's collimation is still a little off, which means the views can even be better than that! The focuser is smooth, but Jeremy's new C8 felt even smoother. Not sure if I remembered this part correctly and if both OTAs are exactly the same model/batch. Tracking and GOTO ability of the mount is great considering we didn't really put much effort in making sure it was pointed accurately at North, the scope perfectly balance and levelled, or do any drift-alignment. The goto objects were all within the plossl 25mm narrow FOV when the slewing stopped.

Brought my binoviewer along but I guess you guys will be busy shooting Saturn so perhaps another time.

Some photos of the gathering taken from my phone camera.