The Old Good Rocky friends of Earth -> THE MOON

 

Behold ~~ our Earth's natural satellite, the moon!

 

 

Short video of the moon viewed in a 5-inch Newtonian Reflector Telescope,

Celestron PowerSeeker Series

 

Enjoy :) !

 



 

The moon appears whitish-grey colour during the day and whitish-yellow during the night. It has some patches of dark region whom astronomers called them as "mare".

 

Do you know that the apparent size of the moon viewed from our Earth is smaller than our pinkies fingers ? According to measurement made by scientist, the angular size of the moon is 36' 20" and this value varies over time.

 

It's because of the revolving track of the moon around the Earth is actually an ellipse! Hence, there will be times when the Moon approaches the Earth at its nearest and farthest.

 

Nearest >> perigee

Farthest >> apogee

 

* These are the words from Greek which are used to describe the location of the celestial bodies.

 

The uneven terrain of the Moon
photographed using a compact camera
5 Mega-pixel, stacked using Registax 6.0


[~~~THE AMAZING ORBITAL PERIOD of the MOON~~~]

 

Someone may ask : " Why does the surface of the moon that faces us is always the same ? "

 

Well, this is due to the fact that the rotational period of the moon is synchronised with its revolution period around the Earth, hence the side of the Moon that we see is always facing towards us.

 

{Geo-synchronised orbit}

 

Thank you for reading my blog :)

The Fun of Star-gazing

 

 

Star gazing could be fun, as we could have a deeper view into the unique Universe. Whenever you stare randomly at one of the stars in the night sky, as long as the sky at that moment is clear of clouds, you will surely be amazed by the beauty of the celestial objects...

 



Light pollution with the Milky Way
Right - Centaurus and Crux
Top left - Corvux
 



The Bright Stars

 

Ha ha ha! This are the first 'sparks' of the spectrum that we could notice by glancing at the sky directly. Then, something strange happens in our eyes! The iris of our eyes start to open up to allow more light of the cosmos to enter our biological sensors--- eyes, which resemble observatories that gradually open its' domes to commence a star party!

 



Beware of the awful Light Pollution!

Light pollution! Light pollution! This kind of pollution is truly the killer of faint stars' , where we could barely witness the details of the stars because the atmosphere reflects, disperses the light of the street lamps to create the unwanted illumination of the horizon.



Behold the faint stars killer  - The Light Pollution.

Whoa! This could pose a great threat to astro-photographers, like others and me, where the yellowish orange hue could actually destroy the entire photo, ( I love to call the images as photos, as they are light rays or photons who give rise to the image. )

Orion and Canis Major
accompanied with light pollution
iso 1600, 100 stacks of photos,
exposure time for single photo = 15 s,
 





 

Unpredicted Encounter with the Artificial Satellite

 

Somehow, when I am proceeding my astronomy photography session, I would unknowingly spot a bright point of light gradually transiting across the sky. Sometimes, the light from aeroplane will confuse me and cause me to misinterpret the light from aeroplanes as artificial satellite.

The artificial satellites, for instance, the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope will appear themselves regularly in the same position of the night sky. 

This is indeed wonderful.

 

 

The Unusual Visitor --- > COMET LOVEJOY 



Comet Lovejoy,
captured at my front yard,
Date : 5 JAN 2015
time : 9.34 p.m
constellation : Taurus

This is one of the oldest family members of our solar system - > Comet Lovejoy.

 



 



The Immense Passion for the Universe

by: Douglas Koo Chen Soon

I am an astronomy-enthusiast. I enjoy star-gazing since I was in Form 2 ( aged 14 ).
Besides, I love physics very much especially astrophysics, electronics, optics, and mechanics.

I started to 'indulge' myself in astronomy when I was helping my grandmother to dispose off the domestic rubbish. When I opened up the lid of rubbish bin, and threw the rubbish into it, suddenly, a bat flew past my head, and when I looked up to the evening sky, WHOA! What a clear sky!



The Orion and its surrounding stars! Wonderful!

STARS PARTY!

That moment was still vividly projected in my mind, on December 2011, it was that day I began to realise that how large is this Universe? The concaved-shaped asterism of the winter constellation, Orion trapped my attention the most! Maybe it's because of its bright stars with magnitude in between -1.0 to 2.0.



North<---
Canis Major is right in the centre

Constellations of Winter time
Photo taken with Nikon D3300,
iso 1600, exposure time 15s * stacked with 60 photos,
a little vignetting(central illumination, due to camera's sensor )
the Milk Way galaxy's dust finally visible after these photos are processed using DeepSkyStacker.

That hunter of the firmament is indeed wonderful. I could barely sense the bluish, whitish stars of it using my old, body camera--- my eyes.

My observation site --------- house front-yard. 

FALL IN LOVE WITH SCIENCE _-----> PHYSICS and ASTRONOMY

The universe is so amazing, and there are so many hidden knowledge behind them, waiting for us to unveil them with our constantly improving technologies. Thanks to all the scientists who had sacrificed much of their time in doing their researches in order to improve our lives and to explore the mystery of our surroundings.

Ultimately, physics and mathematics are indeed wonderful!



A view at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.
This photo does not show detail on the dust of galaxy as
there is much light pollution.