sorry to interupt..
is there any astronomical society out there in malaysia?
last time i heard of starhunter astronomical society...
but now not sure what status of them...

Neat angle, your pic 1. I never thought to use SNP that way!
Can you try pic 2 again, but set for 3.00 am on 13th May? I think then fragment B, G and etc will be almost between Dened and Geinah. Thanks for the confirmation that Fragment C is still continuing near the original 73P/SW3 path.

I think I've figured it out. The discrepancy between SNP and Autostar was caused by the time setting: I've got SNP in my notebook running on Atomic time, and the Autostar running based on the wall clock in my living room (a couple of minutes difference). For most purposes, since Autostar does real star alignment, this doesn't matter. But the comet is moving so fast that the time error actually shows up! Next time I'll have to remember to hook up the Autostar to the notebook to syncronise the time to Atomic time too.

julchin_09: these are computer generation realtime simulations by Eithanius. Not curi from internet.

snowmei: how about Astronomy Photography Society of LYN? You're a member already, your nick is on the list.

Pic 3 set on May 13th 3.00 am....

Pic 4 set on May 14th same time, this one's real close....

PS: those images really suck once uploaded....

This post has been edited by Eithanius: May 15 2006, 12:17 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

This was the one I really wanted, you're a quick minded dude, Eithanius!

After 3 continous nights without sleep, I'm still in the twilight zone. I forgot that 13th night moves into 14th morning and I asked you for the wrong day. Thanks again. I also noticed that I spelt Deneb and Gienah wrong.

All images posted using the Forum's server get resampled and stamped with the LYN logo. That's why they get messed up, I think. If you want to retain your original quality, you'll have to link it to one of the third party image banks, I suppose.

snowmei: sorry for the kidding. If you need StarHunters' contact just holler. I know I've got it lying around somewhere...
Besides them, there's also the Astronomical Society of Malaysia, the infamous Astro Photographers Group of Malaysia, MNS Astro Special Interest Group, StarFinders......

But I don't need to mention my favourite one anymore.

Why you don't need to mention yours favourite anymore? I am thinking to join StarHunter, do you know where can I get the contact detail? By the way, what is your telescope model? How heavy is your notebook? I am going to get one soon.

Answer No. 1: AP of LY.N
Answer No. 2: I will try to find their business card (StarHunters) in my office tomorrow. Do you also need APGM contact?
Answer No. 3: 1st generation LX90AT no UHTC on temporary loan only.
Answer No. 4: No idea how much it weighs, but it is a Centrino.....already more than 2 years old, d*mmed good reliable workhorse.

Unfortunately, the AMD Turion Dual Core is still nowhere to be found.....but the Intel Core Duo is turning out to be a surprisingly good cpu.

The sky was looking good this evening, very few clouds, and the stars were smiling everywhere. But now a bit hazy. Hope it clears up again. I'm going to nap until 3.00 am and then get up to see whether I can finally get the comets in my sight. I just have no more energy to stay up another whole night....

i also want the contact... if can every society/club also want... (seems tamak.. hehe.)
last time starhunter kinda famous.. but now really can`t hear anything from them.. once a while only come out on tv..
(i don`t have any astronomy instrument yet..)

I have to ponteng work this morning, dead tired after this morning's attempt to catch the comets. So just hang on a little while more for the contact numbers.

snowmei, your eyes are the first and most important astronomy instrument, you know. Without them, you can't see anything even if you have a super telescope. But without any other instrument, you can still see the stars.

BTW I have to report another failure to view the comet. The sky remained clear enough for me to easily find and track OY Pegasi - at 6.35 magnitude. Fragment C should have been just next to it (less than 9 arc minutes away), but I still couldn't see it. I guess the comet's brightness is still too low for direct eye viewing except under excellent sky conditions....may have to go for long exposure imaging if that is the case.

true also... .without eyes.. have 100k or 10 billion worth telescope also no use....
long exposure.. this will take long time oh...

This post has been edited by snowmei: May 16 2006, 12:36 PM

trust me, it's way too faint to be seen unaided.... even if successful, it'll be a faint small patch in the starry background....

try your luck on remote area perhaps,.... I've tried before a brief observation on the NSE in the middle of the countryside, the sky's literally filled with millions of stars....

Ya, that's what most comets look like in the binoculars/telescope view.

I know what you mean, I'm a kampung boy from Pahang. But since coming to KL to cari makan, clear skies means maybe can see a couple of hundred stars.......

Unfortunately, work and family commitments don't allow me to run off to the the popular observation areas at the drop of a hat, not like during my school days, when I didn't have a care in the world......

Still, I've had the pleasure of seeing more than a handful of the brightest recent comets through the dusty KL skies, so it's not that bad.

Where are the popular observation areas of Malaysia? Are most of them beach?

Haha, March05, you have the same telescope as mine but with UHTC I would like to have all the contacts as well as I am going to form a club in my school! Please check my sw3 observation report on my blog for today's observation. Summary: It sucks.

The last time i'd encountered a meteor shower, i happened to be on the beach..... in PD....

Port Dickson?

I don't think I know of any other famous place with beaches and the initials PD.

Eithanius, what were you doing on the beach at night? If kissing your gf, I think those were not REAL shooting stars you saw lah....more like fireworks going off in your overloaded brain.

Mr.LKM, what happened to your precious Autostar?

About the contacts, I'm still searching........alamak, got thousands of unsorted business cards to check out! Anyone can lend me a name card scanner? Might as well digitise the whole lot while I'm going through them anyway.....

on vacation.... couldn't sleep, so jalan jalan kat pantai about 4.30am....

I wish i had a girl to kiss..... lolx....

It was October back then, so you can guess which major meteor shower occurrence during that month.....

Don't be modest lah, maybe you can't remember which gf you were out with.....too many to keep track, eh?

Oh I think the ones coming from that Hunter fellow.....and since we're on this guessing game, which famous comet is believed to have caused this shower?

Eithanius, I need your help again, can you check your SNP and see whether on 15th May, around 3.30am to 4.00am, fragment C of 73P/SW3 passed within 50 arc minutes of Oy Pegasi (HIP 109212 in SNP). I've got it as about 27 arc minutes on my SNP but under 9 arc minutes on the Autostar. I'm still wondering whether I couldn't see the comet because the sky conditions were not good enough or both SNP and Autostar calculated wrongly in my notebook....

Which epoch system are you following...?

Anyway, here's the data you've requested....

Fragment C

May 15th, 3.30am
J(Now) = 21h 45.858m
J(2000) = 21h 45.566m

May 15th, 4.00 am
J(Now) = 21h 46.316m
J(2000) = 21h 46.024m

HIP109212 on both instances...

J(Now) = 22h 7.800m
J(2000) = 22h 7.500m

Sorry, I messed up the date again....it should be 16th May morning.

Epoch JNow or J2000 doesn't quite matter both are quite close. I'm using J(Now) by default.

Anyway, to save you the trouble of typing those figures in again (my fault for the mistake!) I'll give you my SNP data for both 15th & 16th May at 4.00 am.
--------------------------------------------------------
@ 0400hrs, 2006/05/16

73PSW3C
RA (JNow): 22h 7.710m
Dec (JNow): 17deg 31.106'
RA (J2000): 22h 7.409m
Dec (J2000): 17deg 29.269'

HIP 109212
RA (JNow): 22h 7.801m
Dec (JNow): 18deg 1.841'
RA (J2000): 22h 7.500m
Dec (J2000): 18deg 0.039'

Angular Separation: 30' 47"
--------------------------------------------------------
@ 0400hrs, 2006/05/15

73PSW3C
RA (JNow): 21h 47.221m
Dec (JNow): 20deg 9.367'
RA (J2000): 21h 46.928m
Dec (J2000): 20deg 7.677'

HIP 109212
RA (JNow): 22h 7.800m
Dec (JNow): 18deg 1.837'
RA (J2000): 22h 7.500m
Dec (J2000): 18deg 0.039'

Angular Separation: 5deg 18' 19"
--------------------------------------------------------

Notice that the data for HIP 109212 is exactly the same between your SNP and mine - so we are on the same SNP database for the stars.

A slight deviation for fragment C at 4.00 am, 15th May - less than 2'. You're using the SNP download, right? I'm using the JPL/NASA data. So that accounts for the marginal difference. Pls do a check if your SNP calculation for 4.00am 16th May matches mine to within a couple of minutes too.

If so, I think I have to conclude that I wasn't able to see the comet because the sky still wasn't clear enough. I could see the surrounding stars all the way down to magnitude 9, though. Those images posted by others gave the false impression that this comet would be quite easy to see.......

Looks like I'll have to really camp out in PD to see this comet!

Haha, he just had too many gf to keep tracked. Good luck in scanning your business card! By the way, what are you?

Anyone here is using SNP 5.8? I gonna try to insert the RA and DEC value in my autostar to check whether is the data in the autostar is outdated. By the way, march, do you update your objects data frequently?