Comet Malchotz makes 3!

Post by **Airconvent** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:21 am

I was peering out of my window at 1 am when I realised how clear it was. Of course the reddish background from the city smog is there but many stars can be seen.

Saw it as an opportunity to do some observing after so many weeks.
Since my primary goal was Malchotz, I took my Orion 80ED instead.
Went up to the top of my multistorey car park, lie on the floor and did some scanning with my Bino and easily found the baby right where it should be...to the right of Lepus.

As I assembled my scope, to my dismay, I realised that I had left the switch on my red dot finder on previosuly. Needless to say, no juice left after so long , so I popped in my 40mm Meade ep and used my scope as a "finder" (x15) instead and augmented by my Bino.

Once again, the Orion 80 is a joy to use. Crisp images all round. Compared with my previous Celestron 80mm refractor, the image quality was vastly different (as was the price as well, of course)

Anyway, I zoomed in to Malchotz immediately. Fairly dim and I could not make out any tail but the glow was very apparent. Next, I progressively moved the ep down from 40mm to 4mm (x150). Tried to use the 4mm with a Barlow but can't seem to find the image. Maybe it was too dim at x300!

With Malchotz now under my belt , this makes the number of comets I have seen to 3. Of course it is not comparable to the brighter T2 and Q4 which were observed in Mersing with great fanfare.

After the comet, I decided not to waste such a clear night but also have to be mindful it was a working day! Then to my horror, I realised that I forgot to bring my Stars and Planets and had also left my pda behind (No Pocket Universe2000).

With no goto, had to stick to objects I already know instead. I started off with Saturn. Truly a beauty to behold. I could make out Titan and 2 other moons (very dim) and can also make out 2-3 apparent bands on the planet. At x150, my scope with fully extended legs and central core was shaking too much to get a good focus, so I settled for x66 (9mm).
This resulted in a small but sharp image. Again, this APO scope did not let me down. Absolutely no colour and good constrasty images as compared with my Mak.

Next I moved to M45. With the 32mm eyepiece, and sisters were very beautiful. Orion M42 was next. Looked at my old favourite for a while before I tried my hand at finding M41. This would have been an easy target for seasoned astronomers but it was the first time I was looking for it manually. I found it with the help of my Bino as a finder. Nice clean open cluster.

After that, I realised that was all the objects I could find manually!! :-)
So decided to call it a night and packed up....its been so long since I observed that it was like a breath of fresh air!

I hoped those who are on holiday now did not waste such a good night. Hougang being famous for being cloudy, I can only surmised that it must have been even better in Tampines..

yawn....
rich
0220 Hrs

MooEy · Post by **MooEy** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:27 am

hehe nice catch u have there. i didn't go obbing yesterday >.< let's hope weather will continue to be good for the entire weekend

~MooEy~

Post by **weixing** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 9:24 am

Hi,

I hoped those who are on holiday now did not waste such a good night. Hougang being famous for being cloudy, I can only surmised that it must have been even better in Tampines..

I also didn't observe yesterday... didn't expect it to be that good :bangwall: . Also, just got my portable/guide scope (thanks elton

), but still lack some accessories...

Have a nice day.

MooEy · Post by **MooEy** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:31 pm

o_o wat new toys did u buy?

~MooEy~

Post by **weixing** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:38 pm

Hi,
The small and fat Celestron C90.

Have a nice day.

ariefm71 · Post by **ariefm71** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:26 pm

you're getting another mak?

fizzy123 · Post by **fizzy123** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:57 pm

Hi Weixing,
did u buy the ota or the entire setup.

Hmmmm.............. looks like u are giving up big setups for small portable scope.

Hope u get use to the small view of DSO in small scope. 8)

Post by **weixing** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 1:21 am

Hi,

did u buy the ota or the entire setup.

Only the OTA.

looks like u are giving up big setups for small portable scope.

If everything work out as I plan, I think I may keep my 6" Newtonian... it was really good and I like it very much

Anyway, if tonight (18 Dec 2004) weather is good, I'll test mount the C90 to my GP mount counter-weight bar...

Have a nice day.

MooEy · Post by **MooEy** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 5:47 am

bah, new scopes, no wonder weather is so bad lately.

~MooEy~

Post by **zong** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 11:08 pm

Aiyo, OT liao! :offtopic:

Back to the comet, is anyone able to show me how a comet actually looks like? By astrophotography i mean..

Yesterday weather was good around 1200+, so i took an hour to scan the sky where the comet was predicted to be. But I ain't seen one before, don't know how it looks like, and couldn't see anything remotely like a comet in that whole area

An hour and no results! Me = lousy right? Someone help...