Alright, this is for sharing of your observation experience. Or, if you are arranging gatherings, star-gazing expeditions or just want some company to go observing together, you can shout it out here.
Hi, Date : Monday, 30 Jan 2006 Time : 21:00 Venue: The grass field between the Tampines Swimming Complex main entrance, Mosque and the Tampines Sport Complex.
Moon Info Set Time: 20:12 Illum: 2.5%
Mars Info Set Time: 01:47 (31 Jan 2006) RA : 03h 13.7m DEC : +19d 49' Mag : 0.4
Jupiter Info Rise Time: 01:25 (31 Jan 2006) RA : 15h 00.6m DEC : -15d 53' Mag : -1.6
Saturn Info Rise Time: 19:03 RA : 08h 38.4m DEC : +19d 09' Mag : 0.7
Except some haze in the sky, the weather seem quite good these few days, so will be having my first Tampines observation session in 2006.
Hope the weather will be good.
Have a nice day.
Yang Weixing "The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
ok....we met up.
some of you like rlow, arief etc were at mersing but I was surprised that for fair sky (not great), not many other people turned up...
Anyway, there was weixing, clement , remus and myself.
Scopes present were wx's humongous Skywatcher 102mm refractor, a Pentax 100mm APO and a William Optics ZenithStar 66mm SD APO (First Light! ).
Plus of course remus box of eyepieces!
Due to a layer of high altitude cloud , not many stuff can be seen, so we focussed only on the few common ones like Saturn, M42, M41, M44, M45 plus a couple of NGC objects the "remus goto" provided.
Both the 102mm refractors were busy imaging, so I kept myself busy with the 66mm instead. Saturn at 93x was razor sharp..nice , especially with remus' collection of pentax and vintage ultima eyepieces. I pushed it to x186. Image softened a little but still good....nice! The bands were clearly visible which is surprising and titan can be seen as well. What makes it picture perfect was using a low power eyepiece to place Saturn and the Beehive (M44) in the same FOV....wow!
During our star test, Sirius showed a little colour at high magnification (although none was shown on Saturn at x186) but I was told that was to be expected in view of the scope design and short focal length. it was the same for the Pentax APO also....so now we know we will have to get the triplet for truer apo! :-) Collimation was spot on.
Aperture wise I was a little disappointed although its no fault of the scope. 66mm simply cannot be compared with the 100mm refractor. M41 was only visible with averted vision on the 66 but clearly seen on the Pentax.
Aperture wins!! But no regrets there as I do have one of the most portable setup I have ever owned...this is truly a grab and go scope! No finder needed as the scope has a wide view with 32mm eyepiece. Did I mentioned how nice M45 and M42 is as well? :-)
Weixing was busy imaging and turned up some pretty good shots of M42...I look forward to his posting of the processed photos...
rich
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R United Federation of the Planets
People like me didn't turn up cos I ended up trying to get my friends interested by bringing them to Changi for a little picnic while I setup my scope for them to peek in .... =)
Jeremy Ng
C8, CR-150HD, TMB 80 f/6
Orion SVP Intelliscope, AstroSlew I
Minolta Activa 12x50WA
some of you like rlow, arief etc were at mersing but I was surprised that for fair sky (not great), not many other people turned up...
you guys should've joined us at mersing, finally managed to see horsehead (averted vision) and rosette nebs for the first time, thanks to the h-beta filter and elton's generous aperture :-)
Weixing was busy imaging and turned up some pretty good shots of M42...I look forward to his posting of the processed photos...
This may take some time... just finish selecting the good ones:
1) 6 x 10s
2) 1 x 30s
3) 11 x 60s
4) 1 x 90s
Compare the RAW with my 6" Newtonian, the single shot image of M42 using my current setup is more colourful, but less details at around same exposure... may be because currently my focal length is longer (so sky is darker) and I use a LPR to block out the light pollution... anyway, hope it'll be better than my previous image.
you guys should've joined us at mersing, finally managed to see horsehead (averted vision) and rosette nebs for the first time, thanks to the h-beta filter and elton's generous aperture
WOW... Should be very happy and must be very fun. Anyway, did you see it clearly and what magnification did you guys use??
Have a nice day.
Yang Weixing "The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
Beautiful!!
I prefer version 2 ( the one on top). I think the other one looks too over processed and the centre very much over exposed I think. =)
Version 2 is a beauty!!
Jeremy Ng
C8, CR-150HD, TMB 80 f/6
Orion SVP Intelliscope, AstroSlew I
Minolta Activa 12x50WA
Hi,
I also think the top one (version 2) is better.
Anyway, I think I should post this in the Astrophotography sub forum. Can the moderator move my image post and jermng post to the Astrophotography sub forum.
Thanks and have a nice day.
Yang Weixing "The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." 
