Thursday, January 27, 2005

2000-2-6 (Chinese New Year Camp, at Wan Chai, Sai Kung)

The transparancy was not very good, but quite a number of stars were available when compared to the urban night. Just like before, I've to go through to the new friends (in astronomy) about simple cosmology and the use of telescope. After introducing them the constellations, the Jupiter and the Saturn, I show them in the telescope. The Pleaides (M45) and the Orion Nebula (M42) were good, obviously, some of them were impressed while some were not. Seeing was not very good, too, I could see only three bands on Jupiter.

My target tonight was to find the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), since my friend and I were able to spot it in my binoculars in the last trip. I hadn't brought my binoculars this time, which was one of the most important excuse (reasons) that we couldn't find it this time. I guess that it's due to the fact that it's located nearer to the horizon this time. While I were searching for the M31, I found another galaxy which I thought it was the one I wanted. It gave me the feeling for being able to find something, even it's not truely the one I wanted.

Later I looked at the red dot from the Star Pointer, I found the location of M31 should not be that point in the sky. The angular size of the galaxy I found further proved me to be wrong. Looking at the DeepMap 600, I concluded that it was the Pinwheel Galaxy (M33). The sight was good, but it's a bit dim for the 70mm Ranger.

No comments: