i think so.

the other planets in our Solar System are named after characters of Roman (& Greek) Mythology.

for example:
Mercury - god of commerce and travel, the winged messenger
Venus - goddess of Love
Mars - god of war
Jupiter - aka Zeus, king of gods
Saturn - god of agriculture; aka Cronus, father of Jupiter
Neptune - god of the sea
Uranus - the earliest god, god of heaven, father of Saturn

Under dispute for classification as a `planet'
Pluto - aka Hades, god of the underworld
Xena - she's famous enough lah!

i will, provided u don't lend him ur M16 & F16. i takut nanti kena shoot balik.

Exams over?

Great, then u can stay up late 'cause tonite's THE night to start shooting!
Our god of war will not come so close for the next 13 years!

the beautiful thing is that Mars will be up nearly all night tonite!
It will clear the horizon in the East at around 7.40 pm, stroll through the night sky, passing overhead about 2.00 am, and then disappear in the West after sunrise!

Plenty of time to take photos, provided the clouds don't get in the way as usual.

Watch out for the huge dust storms which started just over a week ago. Mars is certainly putting on a jolly good show this time round.

Pls let us know how to tell one is better than the other. U can't compare a Newtonian against a Maksutov Cassegrain design. Like comparing apples to oranges lah.

That's a fair view of the difference between the two designs. I tend to think of the Newtonian as the keep-at-home-telescope and the M. Cassegrain as a take-everywhere-telescope.

trust William C. to come up with the goodies as usual with his very very slow SCT..... Where did he go to take those 900 shots? Ulu Yam ah?

I spent the whole night out from 10.30pm to sunrise this morning enjoying Mars from my garden, the sky for once was excellent by KL city standards! Also rewarded with a nice old Moon with significant earthshine! If the weather holds up, it's another sleepless night for me tonite......

well, the night sky in KL is so bad most of the year that when a rare night like this turns up, i make lots of coffee, and enjoy myself renewing my acquaintance with all the friends up there (using my trusty old binoculars of course)...... Somemore Saturday night, no need to work today.
It's a good way to unwind from workstress and FRUSTRATION

Don't worry too much, Mars will still be nice and bright for sometime. I'm sure that u'll have at least one reasonable night this week.

that's what i mean when i said the Newtonian design (BTW, i am not refering to the brand or model) is a keep-at-home telescope.
It is a great telescope to have for DSO (in the short focal length incarnation), but if u live in the urban areas like most of us do, then there's obviously a limit to what u can see with it except on rare nights. If i had to bundle it into the car and drive a hundred kilometers away from civilisation to use it at its full potential, then i don't think i will be using it much. Penangites will beg to differ....

The reason why the Catadioptics are selling like hotcakes (again, any brand) is because of their wider range of applications for everyday use. If i only could afford to buy ONE telescope in the less than RM10,000 range, then my choice would be down to a Maksutov-Cassegrain-very portable, or a 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain (like what William C uses)-not as portable, but really excellent performance for the money. Both are great for Astro and Terrestrial photography.

A good solid equatorial mount would be a nice accessory if i want to do a lot of astrophotography, but personally, i don't have the nights for it, being a Klang Valley working class citizen. Maybe when I retire.....

Of course, most serious astronomy enthusiasts will end up having more than one telescope after their first one: fast and slow reflector/refractor, large SCT, solarscope, the list is endless if the pocket is big enough.

The Newtonian is a Reflector i.e. it uses a concave mirror to bring light from far away to a focus.
Yes, it is suitable for planet viewing. But it would have to be very large and long (slow focal ratio) if you want to see big & bright images of the planets.

I have no idea what that shiny object is. I think it is a UFO! The end of the world is coming!

Ok, the end of the world didn't happen, what a relief!

U are facing the same confusion ppl always face when choosing the first and maybe only telescope. Don't worry, take your time to decide.
Just remember that a telescope which can do everything well doesn't exist.
Basically, if you are interested in deep sky objects, the preference is for a short focal length (fast) telescope. If your priority is planetary objects, then you need a long focal length (slow) telescope.
It is like comparing camera lenses: which do you want? A wide angle lens or a telephoto?

Mmmm....I wonder who these `professional astronomers' are. They're are emphasising only ONE factor in the design of a telescope.
Of course, the bigger the more light collecting ability. But that is only one out of many factors to consider. The quality of the mirror (problems of spherical abberation, since larger surfaces are harder to polish correctly) is also important, as is the efficiency of the reflective coating. A larger surface also requires better support to keep various forces from distorting the shape as the telescope moves to different positions. The need for accurate collimation (alignment) also is another critcal factor, since the tube is longer, and therefore more prone to misalignment.
As I have mentioned earlier, you need to take into account the cost of the mount too. All the savings you get from a cheap Newtonian optical unit goes into the need to have an expensive strong mount.

What I am trying to say is that you shouldn't be too caught up in the technical aspects of the telescope, because just like buying a digital camera, you can argue `til the cows come home on whether a Nikon or Canon or KM design is better........

Concentrate more on how and where you plan to use it.
If you are mainly going to be watching from your garden or around your house area, you have to consider the kind of sky conditions available most of the time.

Watching DSOs requires relatively clear skies and that means you need to take the telescope with you to dark areas. Remember that the Newtonian such as the one mentioned earlier is quite heavy and bulky compared to a Maksutov from the same manufacturer, and you may even think twice about carrying it out to the garden if the sky doesn't look too promising.
If you think that you don't mind driving off to the middle of nowhere at the drop of a hat, then get a fast telescope. But i think i'd be more interested in bringing along a larger 10 or 12" Dobsonian for the trouble I had to go through to get to a dark area.

On the other hand, looking at the planets is possible even under so called poor seeing conditions because they are such bright objects. This means that you generally have more opportunity to use a `slow' telescope, especially if it is light and easy to carry out into the open.

Frankly, a professional astronomer would not likely be using only a 6" telescope. I would guess more in the range of at least 18". Smaller Newtonians are very popular amongst traditional amateur astronomy enthusiasts, and you generally find these people the most opinionated about the equipment they prefer. I think many of them even frown on GOTO telescopes too as being not challenging enough (like doing astronomy for dummies).
For me, to each his own.

Venus again.

your hdd repaired yet? Hope you didn't lose any important data. HDD crash very scary lah. Always got something forgot to back up...gone forever.

Any SLR type camera from the popular brand manufacturers can be easily mounted on a telescope.
Basically, to do prime focus photography, where you turn the telescope into a super long telephoto lens, you only need a T-ring (for your particular camera model) and a T-adapter/Camera adapter. I think any of the local Astronomical Equipment Suppliers will be able to help you since the 300D is quite a popular camera amongst amateur astrophotographers.

Mr.LKM very quiet nowadays? I can't ask you about the -you know what- since i'm forbidden to talk about it.....

The other day I was using Google Earth, and looking at Kluang, wondering which building your house is.......your town looks like a good place for astronomy, quite flat terrain all round. Are there a lot of industrial factories in the town area?

thank you, deepyu, that was a sticky one for me.....

Kluang got a dark side ah ......maybe i should drop by for a visit.

Anywhere i can conduct my nocturnal activities is good. the Force is not with me.

So got hope again lah!

....double post.... deleted. aiyah the connection is so erractic lah.

This post has been edited by March05: Nov 10 2005, 04:08 PM

the old fellow maybe feeling scared, going to be replaced, start working hard again.

forbidden zone up again.

these towns your backyard ke?
Know of any good dark sites within 100 km of KL (with reasonable road access, of course) good for night sky?