Observation Report 8-9th jul 2005 -Mersing
Observation Report 8-9th jul 2005 -Mersing
zzz, tired now, i will type the report later.
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Last edited by MooEy on Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." I just finish writing day 1 of the mersing trip. Both nights were wonderful. Just that too bad many of you guys could not make it. 3 of us were present, kochu, Richard low and me. Equipment present were my portaball 8, richard’s c8 on a giro2 dx and kochu’s lxd75-sn8.
We left sg on Friday. On the way, the weather looks really bad with some light drizzle. We had our dinner at Mersing. During the dinner, I noticed that the sky was clearing up, with lots of blue. Reach the ob site at around 7pm. Got our stuff set up and ready to ob.
Venus and Jupiter are up. I took a quick glance. After that I went on to deep sky. Since it was still early and the sky has not really darken yet, I turned my ball towards the south side and took down the usual stuff like ngc 5139, ngc 4755, m7,m6,m4,m80, m107, m104.
After some time, the sky starts to darken. I moved slowly from west to east. I went for m51, not too hard. I managed to see a fuzzy patch with 2 bright dots. Tried m101 but somehow failed. I pointed towards the Virgo cluster and found a galaxy, couldn’t really tell what it was. Richard seems to be having lots of fun on his c8, esp on m8 with his filter. I went over and took a look, oh mine, what a big piece. Took down ngc 5128 aka centaurus A as well. It looked more like a pac man than a hamburger.
I decided to move on to things that are not easily seen in sg. I wanted to find m11, grab my book and went hunting for scutum. It wasn’t exactly easy to spot that little shield, since it’s buried in the milky way. The stars of scutum is very dim, but I managed to get m11 in the end. A very nice little open cluster packed with lots and lots of stars. It was way better in mersing than in tuas. Since I’m already at scutum, I decided to take down the other 2 cluster, m26 and ngc6649. m26 looks really small for an open cluster, more like a gobular cluster to me.
It rained earlier during the day time, thus dew was a serious problem. My 30mm LE keep dewing up, I had to keep it inside my pocket when not in use to keep it warm. Richard was having lots of fun with his new dew heater. I guess he can comment on how well it worked later.
After taking down scutum area, I moved slighty west to sagi region. Found m16, fitted on a filter. I managed to see some of the neb there. I continue to work on the objects around there, mostly on the gobulars, m22,m28,m54,m70,m69 and some of the other nebs, m8,m20.
The clouds kind of moved in, feeling tired and irritated by the mosquitoes, I decided to go back to the car for a rest. I took a 1-2hr break. When I woke up, the sky have kind of moved and cleared up a bit. The summer triangle is quite high up already.
Hercules has risen quite a bit, the square is quite visible. I went for the cluster m13. Since the sky was very gd, the cluster was easily resolve and showed lots of tiny little star in the cores. In fact, most of the gobular clusters seen, esp the bigger ones are easily resolved into thousands of tiny weeny little dot. Just think of getting very fine powdered sugar and sprinkling them on a piece of black paper.
I took down m92 as well. It’s a gobular cluster which is somewhat smaller, maybe close to the size of m28. Took down ngc 6210 as well, which is a planetary nebula. Both are in Hercules.
Lyra was up, I took down the ring, m57. very nice looking smoke ring. I went for m56 as well. Prior to m56 I have to take down alberio. Nice pair of double star. The orange and blue component could be seen very clearly. M56 is a very small gobular inbetween alberio and m57. The size is very small, close to what m54 look like.
I moved towards libra, took down the little gobular there, ngc 5897. I moved up more and took down m5. I thought it was impressive since I was expecting something about the size of m54, but rather it’s closer to m22 in terms of size. Centaurus is setting soon, I quickly go for m83, which is a galaxy slightly above centaurus, nearer to hydra. At this point I noticed that I have somehow forgotten about corvus. It’s very near the horizon already. I quickly took down ngc 4361, a planetary neb inside corvus, but it was too late for ngc4038-9. Luckily I took down m104 earlier or else I would have missed it.
I tried working on the area around the summer triangle, not much luck since clouds decided to come in. I took another short nap. Not exactly short, by the time I woke up, Pegasus was already up.
I went straight for m31. It is a very big galaxy. After all the dim galaxies, m31 is refreshing. M32 appeared as a faint smudge just 7 o’clock of m31. I went for m33 as well, which is better known as the triangulum galaxy.
I decided to go for ngc 7662, a planetary neb which is in the left hand of andromeda. After several failed attempts, I decided to give up. Richard later showed me the puny little neb on his c8 with a ultrablock filter, which greatly enhance the visibility. He pumped up the power to 250x, which then showed the ring structure of the little neb.
Took down another galaxy by the name of ngc 7331, it’s somewhere near Pegasus. It’s getting late already; think it was near 5.30am. I wanted to try stuff in Cassiopeia, but did not have much luck since it’s pretty close to the horizon. Richard’s dew heater failed due to his battery running flat. We decided to call it a day, packed up at around 6am and went to the hotel to rest. Our equipments are soaked in water. There was serious dewing during the night.
That's day 1 of the mersing trip, will continue writing day 2 later.
~MooEy~
We left sg on Friday. On the way, the weather looks really bad with some light drizzle. We had our dinner at Mersing. During the dinner, I noticed that the sky was clearing up, with lots of blue. Reach the ob site at around 7pm. Got our stuff set up and ready to ob.
Venus and Jupiter are up. I took a quick glance. After that I went on to deep sky. Since it was still early and the sky has not really darken yet, I turned my ball towards the south side and took down the usual stuff like ngc 5139, ngc 4755, m7,m6,m4,m80, m107, m104.
After some time, the sky starts to darken. I moved slowly from west to east. I went for m51, not too hard. I managed to see a fuzzy patch with 2 bright dots. Tried m101 but somehow failed. I pointed towards the Virgo cluster and found a galaxy, couldn’t really tell what it was. Richard seems to be having lots of fun on his c8, esp on m8 with his filter. I went over and took a look, oh mine, what a big piece. Took down ngc 5128 aka centaurus A as well. It looked more like a pac man than a hamburger.
I decided to move on to things that are not easily seen in sg. I wanted to find m11, grab my book and went hunting for scutum. It wasn’t exactly easy to spot that little shield, since it’s buried in the milky way. The stars of scutum is very dim, but I managed to get m11 in the end. A very nice little open cluster packed with lots and lots of stars. It was way better in mersing than in tuas. Since I’m already at scutum, I decided to take down the other 2 cluster, m26 and ngc6649. m26 looks really small for an open cluster, more like a gobular cluster to me.
It rained earlier during the day time, thus dew was a serious problem. My 30mm LE keep dewing up, I had to keep it inside my pocket when not in use to keep it warm. Richard was having lots of fun with his new dew heater. I guess he can comment on how well it worked later.
After taking down scutum area, I moved slighty west to sagi region. Found m16, fitted on a filter. I managed to see some of the neb there. I continue to work on the objects around there, mostly on the gobulars, m22,m28,m54,m70,m69 and some of the other nebs, m8,m20.
The clouds kind of moved in, feeling tired and irritated by the mosquitoes, I decided to go back to the car for a rest. I took a 1-2hr break. When I woke up, the sky have kind of moved and cleared up a bit. The summer triangle is quite high up already.
Hercules has risen quite a bit, the square is quite visible. I went for the cluster m13. Since the sky was very gd, the cluster was easily resolve and showed lots of tiny little star in the cores. In fact, most of the gobular clusters seen, esp the bigger ones are easily resolved into thousands of tiny weeny little dot. Just think of getting very fine powdered sugar and sprinkling them on a piece of black paper.
I took down m92 as well. It’s a gobular cluster which is somewhat smaller, maybe close to the size of m28. Took down ngc 6210 as well, which is a planetary nebula. Both are in Hercules.
Lyra was up, I took down the ring, m57. very nice looking smoke ring. I went for m56 as well. Prior to m56 I have to take down alberio. Nice pair of double star. The orange and blue component could be seen very clearly. M56 is a very small gobular inbetween alberio and m57. The size is very small, close to what m54 look like.
I moved towards libra, took down the little gobular there, ngc 5897. I moved up more and took down m5. I thought it was impressive since I was expecting something about the size of m54, but rather it’s closer to m22 in terms of size. Centaurus is setting soon, I quickly go for m83, which is a galaxy slightly above centaurus, nearer to hydra. At this point I noticed that I have somehow forgotten about corvus. It’s very near the horizon already. I quickly took down ngc 4361, a planetary neb inside corvus, but it was too late for ngc4038-9. Luckily I took down m104 earlier or else I would have missed it.
I tried working on the area around the summer triangle, not much luck since clouds decided to come in. I took another short nap. Not exactly short, by the time I woke up, Pegasus was already up.
I went straight for m31. It is a very big galaxy. After all the dim galaxies, m31 is refreshing. M32 appeared as a faint smudge just 7 o’clock of m31. I went for m33 as well, which is better known as the triangulum galaxy.
I decided to go for ngc 7662, a planetary neb which is in the left hand of andromeda. After several failed attempts, I decided to give up. Richard later showed me the puny little neb on his c8 with a ultrablock filter, which greatly enhance the visibility. He pumped up the power to 250x, which then showed the ring structure of the little neb.
Took down another galaxy by the name of ngc 7331, it’s somewhere near Pegasus. It’s getting late already; think it was near 5.30am. I wanted to try stuff in Cassiopeia, but did not have much luck since it’s pretty close to the horizon. Richard’s dew heater failed due to his battery running flat. We decided to call it a day, packed up at around 6am and went to the hotel to rest. Our equipments are soaked in water. There was serious dewing during the night.
That's day 1 of the mersing trip, will continue writing day 2 later.
~MooEy~
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Airconvent
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haha mooey, just as wiexing predicted when I called him. you were having lots of fun with your new toy.
man you are seeing things I have never seen before (largely because of the smaller 4" aperture I had on the ETX105 in singapore..)
glad you enjoyed your astronomer's equivalent of the bachelors party before you go into the army!
rich
man you are seeing things I have never seen before (largely because of the smaller 4" aperture I had on the ETX105 in singapore..)
glad you enjoyed your astronomer's equivalent of the bachelors party before you go into the army!
rich
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before
Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R
United Federation of the Planets
Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R
United Federation of the Planets
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kochu
- Posts: 817
- Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2003 9:51 pm
- Favourite scope: Sharpstar-107PH Triplet.
- Location: Jurong West
Mersing Trip-Site
Hi All.
The site we selected was about 75 m south of original 3-coconut tree site. A small ravine separates the new site from the old one. It is motorable and a bit more hidden from the road because of shrub growth.
Kochu/11-7-05
The site we selected was about 75 m south of original 3-coconut tree site. A small ravine separates the new site from the old one. It is motorable and a bit more hidden from the road because of shrub growth.
Kochu/11-7-05
The built-in battery and dew heaters take care of that. 
Day 2
We reach the hotel and had breakfast. Richard and kochu took their batteries out to charge. Then we started airing all our equipment since everything is soaked in dew. We took turn to bath and then later went to sleep.
We got up at around 3pm. got ourselves ready. Then we started moving everything onto the car and check out of the hotel. Went back to mersing town to do some further shopping. This time we got the mosquito coils, which we did not have yesterday night. Hunted around for dinner, but all the restaurant and coffee shop only start selling at 6pm, we are a little too early. Luckily kfc is open, we had our dinner there.
After dinner, we drove back to the obsite and start setting up our stuff. Richard decided not to set up his c8 and donated his finderscope to kochu.
I noticed that the moon and venus is setting, so we went for a quick peep. Moon looks somehow nice, very thin piece of it. Richard noticed that both the bright and dark part of the moon can be easily seen. I saw the same thing too. Could it be the earthshine or something else?
Venus is full once again. Nothing much to see there. I noticed something beside venus. Could it be mercury? Anyway I pointed the scope over and found a brownish crescent.
I wasn’t feeling very well that night, thus I did not find anything on my portaball. Our human goto, Richard took over my scope and start pushing her around.
First object was m65 and m66, 2 galaxies at the triangle of leo. 2 bright fuzzy patch could be seen. There was another dimmer fuzzy patch in the field. I’m not too sure what object that is, maybe Richard can add on later.
Next object was m51 in ursa major. I have found this object yesterday. 2 bright dots could be seen. I felt that I can make out a little of the shape of the galaxy, although I couldn’t really see the dust lanes. I think Richard mention that he could see the supernova. I did not really know what to look for. Next object was m101, another galaxy in ursa major. I could make out the shape, but once again, the dust lanes aren’t visible.
There was lightning around us at this time, although the skies overhead was pretty clear. I didn’t really feel good about obbing, partly is worried about the thunderstorm, and also I wasn’t feeling very well.
We did continue anyway, went for a tour of the usual southern objects. Clouds started to pour in. Richard tried to find m97 and m108 at ursa major. It was very low in the skies already, I did not think it would be visible, but Richard went on anyway. But unfortunately, clouds decided to foil his attempts.
We ended up pointing the scope to another direction. Took down m13 and m92. More clouds came in, the sky is completely overcast. I packed up my portaball since I’m worried that it will rain. Kochu said that he will only start packing when the first drop of rain hits. He’s very confident that it will clear up. I took a short break, munching on the bread and the strawberry milk.
As kochu predicted, the skies started to clear up again. But there was still lightning around the area. We went over and had some fun on his lxd75-sn8. Caught a few more objects, Jupiter, moon, veil and north American neb.
Jupiter revealed quite a few bands. The 4 moons around Jupiter looked just like the double double. We spent some time here. Tried the moon, but it was too close to the horizon. Did not managed to see much this time.
Richard suggested that we go for veil. Kochu pressed veil on his autostar, but there was nothing. Richard took a look thru the finder and said that there’s 2 piece of the veil, the autostar kinda pointed the scope to the region in between the 2 pieces, thus nothing can be seen. Richard put on the ultrablock filter on the 30mm 1rpd eyepiece. Big chunks of the veil could be seen. If only we have a wider scope.
I was feeling nausea at this point. Went and took another break. Richard and kochu are having more fun with veil and later on moved to north American neb. I have seen both the veil and the north American neb the previous day. Richard showed us the gigantic piece of neb starting from the gulf of mexico. I found it a little hard to absorb, since it’s really big and required panning all over the place.
Skies is very clear now. But still some lightning, I decided that if there’s no more lightning in 10 min I will set up the portaball again. Anyway, the storm seemed to stop. I set up the portaball again.
Richard had some more fun. He found m3, another nice gobular cluster which is somewhere between arcturus and canes venatici. Strangely m3 isn't plotted in my book. We went for m27 after that. A nice looking football. I thought that I could make out some colour. Kochu did mention that the middle part is supposed to be green and the outer part is suppose to be red. I guess the free colour pencil that came with the strawberry milk came in useful. We took down a couple more objects.
Richard decided to take a nap. I went and took out and camera and start shooting around. I guess one of the biggest mistakes is not to bring a camera tripod along. I had to rest my camera against my eyepiece case. In some of the shots, the camera slipped during the shot. But it did not matter much, since the shots are merely 15 sec exposures. My toy camera couldn’t do anymore than that. I took as many shot as I can, before both set of batteries went flat. I guess only the shot on scorpius is somehow nice.
Soon it is 3am, kochu decided to leave, since it’s going to be very crowded at the custom if we leave any later. We packed everything up into the car and took the ride back. Both Richard and I fell asleep inside the car. Makes me wonder how kochu is able to stay awake and drive.
~MooEy~
We reach the hotel and had breakfast. Richard and kochu took their batteries out to charge. Then we started airing all our equipment since everything is soaked in dew. We took turn to bath and then later went to sleep.
We got up at around 3pm. got ourselves ready. Then we started moving everything onto the car and check out of the hotel. Went back to mersing town to do some further shopping. This time we got the mosquito coils, which we did not have yesterday night. Hunted around for dinner, but all the restaurant and coffee shop only start selling at 6pm, we are a little too early. Luckily kfc is open, we had our dinner there.
After dinner, we drove back to the obsite and start setting up our stuff. Richard decided not to set up his c8 and donated his finderscope to kochu.
I noticed that the moon and venus is setting, so we went for a quick peep. Moon looks somehow nice, very thin piece of it. Richard noticed that both the bright and dark part of the moon can be easily seen. I saw the same thing too. Could it be the earthshine or something else?
Venus is full once again. Nothing much to see there. I noticed something beside venus. Could it be mercury? Anyway I pointed the scope over and found a brownish crescent.
I wasn’t feeling very well that night, thus I did not find anything on my portaball. Our human goto, Richard took over my scope and start pushing her around.
First object was m65 and m66, 2 galaxies at the triangle of leo. 2 bright fuzzy patch could be seen. There was another dimmer fuzzy patch in the field. I’m not too sure what object that is, maybe Richard can add on later.
Next object was m51 in ursa major. I have found this object yesterday. 2 bright dots could be seen. I felt that I can make out a little of the shape of the galaxy, although I couldn’t really see the dust lanes. I think Richard mention that he could see the supernova. I did not really know what to look for. Next object was m101, another galaxy in ursa major. I could make out the shape, but once again, the dust lanes aren’t visible.
There was lightning around us at this time, although the skies overhead was pretty clear. I didn’t really feel good about obbing, partly is worried about the thunderstorm, and also I wasn’t feeling very well.
We did continue anyway, went for a tour of the usual southern objects. Clouds started to pour in. Richard tried to find m97 and m108 at ursa major. It was very low in the skies already, I did not think it would be visible, but Richard went on anyway. But unfortunately, clouds decided to foil his attempts.
We ended up pointing the scope to another direction. Took down m13 and m92. More clouds came in, the sky is completely overcast. I packed up my portaball since I’m worried that it will rain. Kochu said that he will only start packing when the first drop of rain hits. He’s very confident that it will clear up. I took a short break, munching on the bread and the strawberry milk.
As kochu predicted, the skies started to clear up again. But there was still lightning around the area. We went over and had some fun on his lxd75-sn8. Caught a few more objects, Jupiter, moon, veil and north American neb.
Jupiter revealed quite a few bands. The 4 moons around Jupiter looked just like the double double. We spent some time here. Tried the moon, but it was too close to the horizon. Did not managed to see much this time.
Richard suggested that we go for veil. Kochu pressed veil on his autostar, but there was nothing. Richard took a look thru the finder and said that there’s 2 piece of the veil, the autostar kinda pointed the scope to the region in between the 2 pieces, thus nothing can be seen. Richard put on the ultrablock filter on the 30mm 1rpd eyepiece. Big chunks of the veil could be seen. If only we have a wider scope.
I was feeling nausea at this point. Went and took another break. Richard and kochu are having more fun with veil and later on moved to north American neb. I have seen both the veil and the north American neb the previous day. Richard showed us the gigantic piece of neb starting from the gulf of mexico. I found it a little hard to absorb, since it’s really big and required panning all over the place.
Skies is very clear now. But still some lightning, I decided that if there’s no more lightning in 10 min I will set up the portaball again. Anyway, the storm seemed to stop. I set up the portaball again.
Richard had some more fun. He found m3, another nice gobular cluster which is somewhere between arcturus and canes venatici. Strangely m3 isn't plotted in my book. We went for m27 after that. A nice looking football. I thought that I could make out some colour. Kochu did mention that the middle part is supposed to be green and the outer part is suppose to be red. I guess the free colour pencil that came with the strawberry milk came in useful. We took down a couple more objects.
Richard decided to take a nap. I went and took out and camera and start shooting around. I guess one of the biggest mistakes is not to bring a camera tripod along. I had to rest my camera against my eyepiece case. In some of the shots, the camera slipped during the shot. But it did not matter much, since the shots are merely 15 sec exposures. My toy camera couldn’t do anymore than that. I took as many shot as I can, before both set of batteries went flat. I guess only the shot on scorpius is somehow nice.
Soon it is 3am, kochu decided to leave, since it’s going to be very crowded at the custom if we leave any later. We packed everything up into the car and took the ride back. Both Richard and I fell asleep inside the car. Makes me wonder how kochu is able to stay awake and drive.
~MooEy~
i guess all 3 of them are very close, would be very hard to tell unless u put them side by side. even then it may not be easy to tell apart.ariefm71 wrote:mo, how was the P8 compared to M180 or M210?
the rigel finder did dew up. i was wondering if the finder actually came with heater, or it was not working. the mirrors were dry though. anyway, even with the dew on the finder, it is still usuable, just that i lose maybe 1 eye of aperture.acc wrote:Not applicable to the Portaball's mirrors and finder I might add. The built-in battery and dew heaters take care of that.
~MooEy~