Hi,
The sky in Tampines seem to be clearing, so I will be having an observation session tonight (10 Apr 2004) at around 21:00 on the grass field near Tampines Stadium car park. I will be there as long as it doesn't rain... tomorrow don't need to work, so can wait for the sky to clear...
Those interested are welcome to join me.
Have a nice day.
10 Apr 2004: Observation Session
-
weixing
- Super Moderator
- Posts: 4708
- Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 12:22 am
- Favourite scope: Vixen R200SS & Celestron 6" F5 Achro Refractor
- Location: (Tampines) Earth of Solar System in Orion Arm of Milky Way Galaxy in Local Group Galaxies Cluster
10 Apr 2004: Observation Session
Yang Weixing
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." 
-
weixing
- Super Moderator
- Posts: 4708
- Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 12:22 am
- Favourite scope: Vixen R200SS & Celestron 6" F5 Achro Refractor
- Location: (Tampines) Earth of Solar System in Orion Arm of Milky Way Galaxy in Local Group Galaxies Cluster
Hi,
The sky was very clear yesterday(10 Apr 2004) night... no cloud and no haze...
Ariefm71 , Debash and I arrived at the grass field beside Tampines Stadium Car Park at arround 21:00. We realised that we had three out of the four main scope type... A Newtonian (My Sky-Watcher 6" F5 Newtonian), a Maksutov-Cassegrain (Debash's INTES MK67 MCT) and Schmidt-Cassegrain (ariefm71's Celestron C8 SCT)... 8)
Anyway, we started off by helping ariefm71 collimating his Celestron C8... I'm very excited as it was my first attempt on collimating a Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope...
The first problem that we encounter was that his C8 cannot come into focus and the image was seriously distorted as we try to focus. After some detective work, we realised that the cause of the problem was actually the four screws that hold the OTA to the fork mount was just too long and block the moment of mirror when we are focusing... lucky the screws was behind the mirror, not infront of it...
After solving the focusing problem, we start to collimate the C8... the C8 was so seriously out of collimation that the image was a big cone shape when focus(if you consider that as focus)... I initially thought the C8 was optically defect, but after consulting Richard Low (rlow) and Samuel Ng (harlequin2902), I was convince that it was extremely out of collimation...
After adjusting the collimating screw here and there, we finally get a decent collimation... 
To test the C8, we point it at the jewel box(NGC 4755) using the 32mm eyepiece (62x)... wow the view was really impressive... a lots of dim stars easily came into the view. Next target was the Omega Centauri (NGC 5139)... WOW the stars in the globular cluster easily resolve into individual star. The view of the Moon and Jupiter was also impressive..
When Ariefm71 left at around 12:30am (11 Apr 2004), the moon start to show what it can do best... washing out the sky , so Debash and I concentrate observing the jupiter GRS (Great Red Spot)...
Before we left at 3:30am, we try to find the Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra as Vega came into view. Although, we cannot clearly see the Ring Nebula, we are quite excited and happy that we were able to detect the present of the Ring Nebula under such light polluted sky..
Hope that we can see more next saturday night (after return from Batam observation trip), as it will be moonless night and hope we can find a darker site in time...
Have a nice day.
The sky was very clear yesterday(10 Apr 2004) night... no cloud and no haze...
Ariefm71 , Debash and I arrived at the grass field beside Tampines Stadium Car Park at arround 21:00. We realised that we had three out of the four main scope type... A Newtonian (My Sky-Watcher 6" F5 Newtonian), a Maksutov-Cassegrain (Debash's INTES MK67 MCT) and Schmidt-Cassegrain (ariefm71's Celestron C8 SCT)... 8) Anyway, we started off by helping ariefm71 collimating his Celestron C8... I'm very excited as it was my first attempt on collimating a Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope...
The first problem that we encounter was that his C8 cannot come into focus and the image was seriously distorted as we try to focus. After some detective work, we realised that the cause of the problem was actually the four screws that hold the OTA to the fork mount was just too long and block the moment of mirror when we are focusing... lucky the screws was behind the mirror, not infront of it...
After solving the focusing problem, we start to collimate the C8... the C8 was so seriously out of collimation that the image was a big cone shape when focus(if you consider that as focus)... I initially thought the C8 was optically defect, but after consulting Richard Low (rlow) and Samuel Ng (harlequin2902), I was convince that it was extremely out of collimation...
After adjusting the collimating screw here and there, we finally get a decent collimation... To test the C8, we point it at the jewel box(NGC 4755) using the 32mm eyepiece (62x)... wow the view was really impressive... a lots of dim stars easily came into the view. Next target was the Omega Centauri (NGC 5139)... WOW the stars in the globular cluster easily resolve into individual star. The view of the Moon and Jupiter was also impressive..
When Ariefm71 left at around 12:30am (11 Apr 2004), the moon start to show what it can do best... washing out the sky
, so Debash and I concentrate observing the jupiter GRS (Great Red Spot)... Before we left at 3:30am, we try to find the Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra as Vega came into view. Although, we cannot clearly see the Ring Nebula, we are quite excited and happy that we were able to detect the present of the Ring Nebula under such light polluted sky..
Hope that we can see more next saturday night (after return from Batam observation trip), as it will be moonless night and hope we can find a darker site in time...
Have a nice day.
Yang Weixing
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." 
