science – BRYOLOGUE

And then there were lights!

June 15, 2013bryologue Leave a Comment

Inspired by the lights of Dulcinea from last week, I finally decided to drop by the Pasay Branch of A&S Lamps in Libertad. I had ample time to look around and decide very well what item to purchase because I could not afford to make a mistake. Everything we put inside the apartment should serve a purpose and be as space efficient as possible. Before coming into the store, I have already brought out a piece of paper containing the measurement of the little cabinet near our sofa bed. I did not want to end up with a bulky lamp.

Stepping inside was like a dream, as lamps in varying shapes and sizes (and prices as well!) were plastered in every direction. I have never been inside an A&S Lamps store, even if I constantly see that branch in Aurora Boulevard while riding the LRT2. The latter had a bigger store, I guess, because the Libertad branch had none of those ceiling-to-floor chandeliers.

Continue Reading →

Chapter 28! Joyeux anniversaire à moi!

April 12, 2013bryologue 5 Comments

And today marks Chapter 28! Older and hopefully wiser! When I was younger (i.e. teenager), I was never really that big with birthdays. It was just another day to get old and add another number to my age. But funnily, when I had a marathon of Charmed episodes again in my early twenties, that episode where John Cho had a guest appearance made me realize how important birthdays should be treated. It should be considered special, regardless how it would be celebrated because it marks LIFE, simple as that. And that forever changed the way I view birthdays.

I got really sweet presents as well! The first one was from Faye, who celebrates her birthday a day after me. She got me a Paris-themed weekly scheduler and its smell instantly reminded me of the books I used to borrow from the library when I was still in grade school (took me a while to put my finger on it!). I also got to blow a candle on a mini-chocolate cake from Mon. =D I know for a fact that he has already foregone the idea of giving me a full-sized one because I don’t really like carrying boxes around with me, especially commuting home. And in a not-so-surprising-move, I even put this small cake inside my bag. Luckily it wasn’t smashed when I got home.

Then entering our house, I was surprised to see my sister and nephew still awake. My sister gave me this beyond-cute cake, with my age and name on it, while JB handed me two personalized cards from him and Brie. He does that every year and I was ready to bet anything that there will be something astronomy-related in his drawing:

Look at this drawing by my nephew, the two of us bonding over observing the night sky

I had my glasses on, the telescope has the brand written over it, and even that circular tray to hold the different eyepieces was included. It was really thoughtful of him and that is the exact reason why I can’t always say no to this boy. He definitely has his ways, even at an early age. LOL

Last Wednesday, I went to that interview I was talking about in the previous post. I was told it would last from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM, which was a peculiar duration for such an activity. But when I had been informed later on that six people would be interviewing me, I stopped wondering (anyway, the last interview got finished almost at 7:00 PM, for a total of 6 hours). I arrived five minutes before 1:00 PM to their office in Pasay, because I got lost for a couple of minutes. I have realistic expectations coming in to their premises, compensation-wise or the workplace itself. I am looking for at least a volunteer position in a humanitarian organization after all.

My interview immediately started and I barely had enough time to compose myself for the first one. Each of the interview, from the person I would be potentially replacing, to the kind French staff (who conducted the interview in French with a moment’s warning), to the distinguished lady who has once worked as USec for DSWD, to the executive assistant, to the deputy executive director and finally the founder of the organization, all of them gave me good insight of what to expect. I jokingly compared the whole experience as the Pokemon League. Jokes aside, it was a very humbling and exciting experience to learn what the responsibility entails, to know the effect of the work will be to people who are affected by conflict and disasters, and to be given the opportunity to work in their organization. It came to the point where I got emotional (i.e. I cried, yes! Imagine? I CRIED) because I was so overcome with a lot of thoughts and emotions, as well as concerns and what-ifs.

Bottom line: I knew that I want to work in this sector in a long-term basis. It is something I have consistently ignored but finally confronting that “existential crisis” I was having has liberated me. Again, there are concerns, both financially and also the questioning of my capability (what if I won’t be able to deliver what was expected of me) but I’ll have faith that there must be something that I have to contribute to what they do. I came in with, again, a volunteer position in mind, but I was offered to work on something that has more responsibilities to work on — even more than the non-volunteer post that I have initially indicated. I am still humbled and it furthermore ignited that desire to move on to new challenges. I think at this point, a lot of people I know will be really baffled over the idea of “Bry, the social worker”, or “Bry from the NGO”, because I don’t really give off that vibe that I’m interested in the field. But I know deep in my heart, that amidst the hedonism and materialistic ways, I am capable of doing something with the skills I have acquired throughout the years.

Of course, it will be a phase full of uncertainty. Moving on from the doldrums of my everyday life and embarking on new and productive challenges, it will be difficult. I know that I personally won’t be able to totally let go of my love for, at least, dressing nicely or something similar to that, but I will definitely make sure that it will be in good taste and inoffensive (I don’t really need to specify why, I think). I still have until Monday to make a final decision and if money were not an issue, I would have said yes last Wednesday. But I’m a realistic person, aware of my responsibilities not only to myself but to my family. I am “80% yes” four hours ago, but after talking to one of my managers, trying to figure out the best for everybody’s interest, I am now “90% yes”. To hear that a consensus can be agreed upon, with me working even in a part-time capacity just to reconcile my conflicting interests, will definitely be the surest way to get that “100%”.

Anyway, this soliloquy has gotten quite long, but I’m comforted by the idea that potentially in two months time, I could be truly doing something that I love, using what I learned from graduate school on something productive and no longer turning a blind eye over the realities of what’s out there. Again, the lines “There’s only so much you can learn in one place / The more that you wait, the more time that you waste”, made more sense to me. If I were to postpone joining an NGO tomorrow, next week, next month or next year, the more the disparity in compensation would be pronounced, unless I try to do something about it as soon as possible It won’t be easy, but I’m indeed ready to jump given a workable opportunity for all parties.

HAPPY 28th BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Mon and Moon!

March 17, 2013bryologue 1 Comment

March 17 and I can finally say: HAPPY 28th BIRTHDAY MON! =D I was in the rooftop, with Mon, JB and my mother, testing my new telescope when the clock struck 12:00 AM! I had a hard time adjusting with the telescope, though, as the image was expectedly different than the other telescope. Newtonian telescopes produce images that are upside down, so it was difficult for me to deal with it on my first try. Unlike the other refractor, which produces images backwards, this Newtonian is not ideal for terrestrial use. LOL

Almost twelve hours after, I was woken up by JB because we were to eat our lunch. I was originally to help Mon with preparing lunch for today, but he did not bother waking me up at all. We bought a pack of frozen cream dory and other ingredients from Trinoma’s supermarket last night. Mon had fancied another bout of MasterChef moment and made a very nice meal for us. I especially loved the honey and lemon sauce on the cream dory, as well as the lychee in the jelly. He eventually left after lunch because he also had to spend time with his family on his birthday. =D

It was difficult to constantly bring the tripod of the telescope up to the rooftop, given the heavy counterweight, so the best solution I came up with was just to leave it in one corner. I would just remove the telescope tube, which wasn’t heavy at all. Thirty minutes before sunset, JB and I prepared our telescopes and cameras, hoping to get at least a momentary view of Comet PANSTARRS, but to no avail. Good thing that the Moon was visible to the northwest, near Jupiter and I was happy to point my telescope to these two celestial objects.

Of course, I also tried imaging the Moon with my point and shoot camera and I was delighted with the result. My camera, though, can’t capture the same beautiful thing seen from the telescope as the Moon’s details were more breathtaking as viewed from the eyepiece. I first tried using the 25mm eyepiece (originally from the Meade telescope), then the other 9mm. The picture below was seen through the 25mm one.

I also looked at Jupiter and it was beyond words! Given the bigger mirror of the Celestron, I was able to see Jupiter’s cloud bands as well as the Great Red Spot! With the Meade 70mm, I can barely discern these details and I usually half-guess whether I was seeing them. But using this 127mm, there was no mistaking the difference in the colors of the bands because of the better contrast. I attempted to image Jupiter but I can no longer push my point-and-shoot’s capabilities. All I got was a white blob with four dots (the Galilean moons). The next thing I might do is just purchase a CCD webcam and modify it for astrophotography because I don’t have enough budget for an SLR. LOL

Before wrapping up (because I had to eat dinner and take photos of things I will be listing on Ebay), I turned my telescope to Orion and almost cried when I saw the Orion Nebula. Again, unlike my other telescope, I just saw a faint haze of light and cloud, which was the nebula. But with this new telescope, I was able to see a much better detail of the clouds and even distinctly see the ‘trapezium cluster’ of four stars! I’m still amazed of the Orion Nebula but I know I have to soon move to seeing other Messier objects. =)

I’m broke but I’m happy!

March 16, 2013bryologue 5 Comments

Just as I thought that nothing much significant would happen this Saturday, I was very wrong. I’ve been debating for a long time whether to buy a new telescope for msyelf or a sewing machine for my mother, when I finally decided on the latter. When we went to Trinoma a month ago, I passed by Western Appliances and saw their selection of Brother sewing machines. I had my eyes on a particular model (BM-2600) and I knew that that was the exact one I wanted to give to Mama. She has been hinting on this since last year and I have promised her as well to buy one soon. Well, that soon became almost forgotten and Mama did not even bother reminding me but she was still secretly hoping I’d get her one. LOL

I called Western Appliances after lunch to confirm with the person in charge of the sewing machines that I would be passing by earlier this evening to get a unit. I had alraedy saved up for this, so there was no point postponing the purchase again. I just want to get it over with. Out of the three available models, I decided on this one — and then the demonstration of its features happened. It took about 20-30 minutes to show every single function of the sewing machine, from changing the stitch up to the making of buttonholes. My head was kind of heavy with all the information, because I was used to our VERY old and dilapidated Singer sewing machine, which only had a single running stitch function. =D Good thing it included an instructional video in a DVD because I have honestly forgotten more than half of the functions he discussed.

But before we event went to Western Appliances, we had passed by Cutting Edge on a whim to oggle at their selection of telescopes. However, it might have been a wrong call because I can’t stop stressing over the Celestron telescopes on display and I seriously considered buying one, especially as these units do not always show up in their stores. To cut the long story short, I eventually bought a new telescope!

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Meade ETX-70. And eversince I bought one (secondhand) exactly a year ago, it has been serving me well. However, it was really frustrating to look at some of the planets because of the faulty base, making it extremely difficult to focus on an object. Higher magnifications exasperate me so much, but it was really good in viewing asterisms or other wide-angle subjects

When I got inside, Cutting Edge had four types of Celestron telescopes on sale but I instantly got ‘infatuated’ with the Celestron PowerSeeker 127 EQ. It cost Php 1000-more than the 114 EQ so I thought that it was no-brainer to pick the 114 over the 127 at that price. LOL I went to the cost-efficiency route in judging with the added mm in the aperture.

I went home with an emptier pocket, but I was happy. =D Mama was extremely happy and giddy and I immediately said “Belated Merry Christmas! Advanced Happy Mother’s Day! Advanced Happy Birthday!” Hopefully, she’ll give the hinting a rest because I already bought her new sewing machine. As for the telescope, I thought that if I keep on putting off getting one, it will continue until the end of the year and I have no time for that. If I were to empty my pocket, I might as well do it now so that I’ll have time to focus on more important things for the year — and that includes being more serious with Ebay etc!

All for an asteroid!

February 16, 2013bryologue 2 Comments

I woke up past 1:00 PM today because I spent my early morning on our rooftop. Asteroid 2012 DA14 was due to flyby Earth and I was really delighted that we’d get the chance to see it on this part of the world. So straight from work, I arrived at home around 1:30 AM and I had to rush fixing my things so I’d be ready before that moment started.

I have my telescope with me, as well my brother’s bridge camera, a GE X500 and a star chart of the asteroid’s path I have obtained from Mr. Eteny’s website, Night Sky in Focus. I had a hard time looking for my eyepieces, though, because my mother had fixed my telescope and I wasn’t able to immediately find where she put them. I spent the last 20 minutes looking for them and it was already past 2:00 AM when I was finally able to go to our rooftop.

Honestly, it was way more difficult from what I had already expected, and locating the asteroid in the star map was tasking as I had to consider the relative distance of each celestial object/asterism from one another. LOL I just need more practice, I guess, because I’m honestly not a regular observer. The first three photos I got below were surprisingly able to yield results, and I believe I might have just photographed the fast-moving asteroid. I just used the ‘Aperture’ priority setting of the camera, in the lowest possible focal length at 3.0, chose the ‘Fluorescent’ color setting, put it on a 30-second interval and prayed to get decent photos. The three photos below show the asteroid moving to the right of Crux, the Southern Cross. I checked the time signature of the three photos and they reflect 2:22:38 AM, 2:23:20 AM and 2:24:02 AM. I just adjusted them using “Auto Levels” in Adobe Photoshop and added crosshairs to point at the location of the asteroid.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 from 02h22m38s to 02h24m02s PHT -Marikina City, Philippines

Click photo to zoom

Decent pictures I guess, given the limited capabilities of my digital camera, so I furthermore edited the color, brightness and contrast, as well zoomed in and cropped the three photos. I also used the animated GIF-maker, Jasc Software, to animate the photos and make them move, showing intervals of about 30 seconds each.

Animated image of Asteroid 2012 DA14 moving to the right of the Southern Cross - February 16, 2013, Marikina City, Philippines

Animated image of Asteroid 2012 DA14 – Click photo to zoom

I have tried looking for the asteroid with my telescope, and I had no luck even with the low power eyepiece. So I just ditched the telescope and spent the next hours trying to photograph the asteroid. But alas, I might have already lost track of its location and even when I consulted the star chart, the clouds went on the way and I just wanna burn them off — as if that would happen as they are made of water. LOL Looking at the photos (lots of photos) I have taken last night, I had a better appreciation and developed more respect to Clyde Tombaugh and the blink comparator technique used to confirm the existence of Pluto (as well as the astronomers tirelessly working on identifying asteroids/comets). From one photo to another, I had to look for a seemingly moving object just to see the asteroid. It was very tiring as I also had to first adjust the brightness and contrast in Photoshop, so I eventually gave up. I’ll just deal with them when I have more time in the future, but I’m still happy with the first three photos I have taken.

Looking at both of my feet, I’ve noticed I have LOTS of ugly mosquito bites. They had a field day on my feet during that attempt to see the asteroid. Yikes! I was too preoccupied in getting to the rooftop that I have completely forgotten to put on some Off! lotion. If only I had not brought a hoodie with me, then my arms could have suffered the same fate. Anyway, it was a very good experience, especially I also saw three shooting stars fly past and I had to shake myself off from the shock of seeing them and make a necessary wish. I had three wishes in all and one includes a new telescope for real. ^_^

The Great Comet of 2013? Why not!

February 7, 2013bryologue 2 Comments

So, I just read an article from Space.com that a comet will enter the solar system this year, approaching its perihelion in November 28, and the nearest distance to Earth in December 26! The last time a comet this significant came close to Earth was in 1997, and Hale-Bopp single-handedly attracted my interest to astronomy. It was the Great Comet of 1997 and I can’t wait to see the Great Comet of 2013.

(Photo from Space.com)

It is a very enticing prospect, that it was even predicted by scientists to be bright enough and be visible in broad daylight. Imagine that! Now, I have more excuse to work on saving for a better telescope, because this is one celestial event not to be missed! See you soon, Comet ISON!

The last Saturday before Christmas

December 23, 2012bryologue 1 Comment

Yesterday, Mon and I were ready to face the daunting task — Christmas shopping on the last Saturday before Christmas. On our way to Trinoma, we were already discussing and making a list on our cellphone the things we need to buy for our loved ones and godchildren. I technically have six godkids but as only two were present (one’s already grown up, while the others: M.I.A.), I only had to buy two.

First stop was by the Barbie store in the second floor and I was able to finish choosing the items I wanted to buy within the first five minutes. Mon, on the other hand, had a hard time choosing what clothes to buy for my niece, Brie, who happened to be his goddaughter. Next stop was Toys R’ Us. We had a longer time looking and deciding for what toys to buy for the other kids. Towards the end of our shopping, though, we decided that it would be much better if one of us would get in line already while the other search for other last minute purchases.

Well since I was already done with my things-to-buy list in this store, Mon had to run around and look for other toys to give to his godchildren. Again, the queue was insane and bladder-challenging. The lady in front of me asked me if I can hold her position in the line ‘for a moment’ because she had to rush and get something. I gave a non-committal “Yes.” with a blank look, so she’d rush as I did not entirely feel comfortable doing it for her. And I was right. I don’t know about other people but if I said that I’d hurry up to pick something, it will be for a minute or two just to snatch whatever it was that I have forgotten. The lady in question, however, took a long time to get back on the line. She’d passed by my side, walking back and forth, and Mon even said that she was talking to somebody on the phone, while choosing for things on a shelf. O_O Had I known that such practice was okay, I could have fallen in line the moment I enter the store, ask the person next to me to hold my position, do my shopping and come back just in time to pay. =P Needless to say, she did not have her position back because… uhmmm… I did something interesting.

Going to the gift wrapping section of the store (because they wrap gifts for free as long as an item costs Php 300 or more), we were shocked to hear that the waiting time was six hours! Wow! That was a long time to wait just to have your gifts wrapped. But it was understandable, though. You can clearly see in their counter that the area was brimming with toys. They were literally slaving away and I hoped that other customers won’t give them a hard time because moments before, a cranky lady was throwing a fit in the cashier. Bless her little heart. Anyway, we had a lot of time in our hands since it was still 3:30 PM when we finished our toy shopping. We looked for gifts for the grown-ups and had a 6:30 PM screening of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”. So 9:30 PM just flew by fast.

After the movie, we went back to Toys R’ Us to claim the wrapped items. I think they had barely finished wrapping the gifts, and there was still a long line of customers waiting to have their items considered. When will they get their gifts? The following day? Most of them got discouraged and just asked for the free gift wrapper.

Coming from Trinoma, we ‘flew’ immediately back at home to freshen up a bit because we were to meet some of my high school friends, one of them was Chelli, who I unexpectedly met when eating in Mashitta almost two months ago. Spent until 2:00 AM talking and laughing our heads off over the funny and foolish anecdotes we had from high school until present day. Then today (or few hours ago), I just came from another get-together of high school friends in Jannet’s house. Only five came again and we could have all gotten together on a single day but alas, their schedules did not match and they already have prior commitments. I had to go to Jannet’s place, though, because I needed to hand out my gift for his son and my godson, Aleph.

Tomorrow will be a very relaxed day. I intend to just eat and drink and sample the cooking of my mother for our Noche Buena. Perhaps catch up with with niece and nephew, and give my dog a bath. =P Barely two days before Christmas and I can’t wait until the kids open their gifts. We’ve been annoying JB since this morning that he will be receiving pick-up sticks as a gift. He had no idea that I have just given him his first toy telescope, so that he won’t bug me to go outside and lug my heavy telescope just to go stargazing. Well, he did nit initially know about it because when he was enumerating the possible content of the box (prior to me telling him that it was pick-up sticks), he said “small telescope” and we were all dumbfounded. =D

Oh Christmas. So stressful, especially to the wallet but I know it will be worth it. =D I missed nobody on my list and I was very happy.

Day at the museum – the Mind Museum!

December 7, 2012bryologue 1 Comment

It was Mon and I’s 4th year and 3rd month and we took the opportunity to go out with my family and visit the Mind Museum at Taguig. As we only have four gift cards from the raffle before, we purchased two more tickets online because apparently, Brie was over 2 feet. JB was extra excited because he hasn’t stopped asking me about this visit for a month or so. He just had his First Communion a few hours earlier and he only took off his white long sleeves and did not bother changing at all.

By the reception, we presented our ticket print-out and we were given wristbands with “All-Day pass” written on it. First impression was the place wasn’t as big as I expected, but not saying that it was small. But as the kids were already sprinting towards every exhibit they could get their little hands onto, I had no other choice but to chase after them. It was a hands-on museum, but caution must be exercised because some of the exhibits were not to be touched nor manipulated.

And of course, an iconic device of science in action was the Van de Graaff generator. I did not touch the equipment, though, because I have short hair and the visuals would be much better on people with longer hair. So my sister went on to touch the generator and her hair literally raised right after it was turned on. We were wondering, though. Some of the people (women to be exact) who tried the device had almost non-reactive hair, to the point where it took a good 30-seconds before their hair started raising. But we have also noticed that they have treated hair, relaxed mostly, and maybe that was the reason why they had little reaction. LOL

I was just watching the other day on YouTube a documentary describing the time when both the Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens lived on Earth at the same time, and how the skills of the latter had helped them, I mean US, to become the dominant species. The exhibit in the museum was impressive and so life-like that the lady looking at her child by the ground gave me the creeps. Hello Uncanny Valley!

I was also very excited to visit the Geology section because I’m also such a sucker for anything tectonic-related. They have interesting earthquake-magnitude simulators, fossils of trilobites, ginkgo biloba, ants trapped inside an amber and of course, the hard-to-miss Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

And lastly, I was so excited to go to the Universe section of the museum because I obviously love astronomy. The star-strewn section had a lot of exhibits that the kids can manipulate, and they even had a replica of the Mars Pathfinder next to the phases of the Moon model and the astronaut. They also present a 30-minute show in a planetarium dome next to the life-cycle of a star exhibit. I can’t remember watching anything like it before and I was heavily anticipating it. While we were on queue, we we alongside this group of very uncivilized high school students who kept on letting some of their friends fall in line with them. As the dome can only accommodate 40 people, we had to shut them and give them the stink eye so as to make them stop. It momentarily worked because once we were inside watching the show, we can’t believe how unruly they were that they began hitting each other with their cushions. O_O It was extremely appalling and these people had no place inside the museum. Yuck.

Anyway, the projection of the film was horrible. First, as they are using fish-eye projection, they should have put the projector in the middle in order to maximize the dome-shaped ceiling. Second, I think the projection might be probably good early in the morning because they did not bother adjusting the focus of the lens that you can barely see the supposedly amazing details of the heavenly bodies. Personally, I had high hopes and it was such a waste of time.

It was actually tiring to walk around and chase after the kids and by a few minutes after 3:00 PM, we decided to eat by the Jollibee inside the Mind Musuem complex. I still haven’t drunk coffee for the day and we ordered two cups for both Mon and I, because apparently, they refused to brew just for a single cup. But it was disappointing as well because it had no coffee taste whatsoever and I suspect that they did not bother using new ground coffee and utilized the ones used for serving breakfast earlier that day. Boo Jollibee!

It was a quick snack because JB and Brie were both itching to go to the Science-in-the-Park, the playground next to Jollibee. If I were a kid, I’d go mad with the cool stuff they had in it. They have acoustic-based playthings, as well as the bubble makers and a group of animal heads with viewfinders simulating their vision. I didn’t even know that the King Cobra was colorblind as well, which was ironic because I have a great fear of snakes. We share something together.

After eating and playing, we headed straight back to the second level of the museum to look at what was in store for us. The things there were more technology and innovation-based, chronicling achievement of men in terms of transportation, optics, space technology as well as languages.

And for our last stop, we went to two 3D showing: “Ang Simula” and “Birthplace” A Natural History of the Earth“. Of course we had to fall in line again for the latter and we had poor seats compare to the one we had for the former. “Ang Simula” was directed by Chito S. Roño and chronicles the geological history of the Philippines. I was actually quite ashamed of myself because I have already watched loads of documentaries on geology but not one of them has discussed the Philippines’ origin. It was only there that I knew that the island of Palawan was once part of the Eurasian plate as a product of the continental draft. This show had a narration while “Birthplace” had none. “Birthplace” began with a depiction of the birth of Earth, followed by the formation of the first amino acids comprising the primordial soup of life. Then the stunning visualization of how the single-celled organisms evolved into multicellular to more complex ones. Each of the shows run for about 15-minutes.

Overall, it was an awesome experience. Granted that I did not have time to actually tinker with each one of the exhibits with the curiosity of a little kid but as my nephew and niece already had a great time, I was fine with it. I initially thought that the Bio-Rhythm exhibit was also available for us to see but turned out that we have to pay about Php 200 more for that.

Photographing constellations

October 28, 2012bryologue Leave a Comment

Last night, the skies finally cleared up and we (Mon, JB and I) found ourselves in between wooden posts in the construction of the rooftop next to our house. I was very eager to finally test my brother’s bridge camera in photographing the stars without any help from a telescope.

I was really happy with the photo above because you can see the fuzzy clouds in group of stars or the Orion nebula (M42). I used an ISO 1600, an aperture of 3.4 on a GE X500, and with a 30 second time lapse. I was also delighted because the camera was able to capture a lot of stars, which we can’t even see with our naked eyes, even JB who has a 20/20 vision.

I tried taking a closer image of the Orion constellation but this time, it was on an ISO 800. It was still a decent shot.

Last but not the least, I was able to get three pictures of the Pleiades star cluster (top left), Taurus (off center) and Jupiter (bottom) with three 30-second time lapse shots. Of course, because the Earth is rotating in its axis, the subjects in the the pictures taken seemed to have been moving slowly. The above image was a combination of the first and second shot because the third photo had a glare from a passing vehicle. Ugh. Jupiter was looking amazing in this photo.

All these photos just made we want to desperately have a better telescope. I tried taking a picture of Jupiter (whose equatorial bands were visible even on 38.9x magnification) but as I do not have an equatorial mount, there was a ‘startrail’. Anyway, I hope I’d have more luck in the future, and I’m optimistic of that. =D

That awkward moment when Uranus is over the Moon

October 27, 2012bryologue 3 Comments

No pun intended, but when I was checking Stellarium to check what was supposedly up in the heavens if it were not cloudy surprised me. I knew that the Moon was almost in West but I had an unexpected planet. Not to sound like Professor Trelawney on Lavander (“It is Uranus, my dear.”) but I really did not expect the planet because: 1) I was very sure that given my limited equipment, I will be having a hard time searching for it, and 2) IT WAS CLOUDY, so no use wasting my time.

It stopped raining but there was zero visibility of whatever celestial object of interest. I have been hoping to try my luck with my brother’s bridge camera (a GE X500) because I saw other amateur astrophotographers having great luck with the ones they have. But given the current weather condition, I contented myself with playing with the dials/buttons that I don’t normally touch.

My jaw dropped because I did not expect the photos to look like that. It was honestly very dark in the room and very dark outside as well, and I can barely see any details of the clouds in the sky. LOL That was amazing. Now, I can’t wait for the skies to clear so I can try my luck photographing the Jupiter, Taurus and Orion grouping almost directly above around this time.

I’ve been ranting all afternoon about how much I want to buy another telescope — a more powerful one. I really want to do astrophotography but I’m on a budget. I originally wanted to buy a webcam with a CCD sensor, but since my brother has apparently ceased using his bridge camera, I can settle for it now. Back to the telescope question, I really want to research hard on which scope will best fit my needs. If only budget were not an issue. Anyway, I’ll just push what I currently have to the limit and hope for clear skies ahead!