A new backpack

I am inspired by a local youtuber so that I want to try out hiking plus photography, probably even astrophotography!

I therefore need a good backpack for this purpose.  I want a backpack which will allow me to take basic camera and lenses, a small tripod, and more importantly, a hydration bladder so that I can hike with it.  The one which I choose is the Lowepro Photo Sport 200 AW.

I choose this backpack because it looks like a hiking backpack more than a camera backpack.  For my purpose, photography is not the key point.  Being able to take a camera body plus two lenses are probably enough for me.  In the above picture, we have a Canon 70D with Canon 10-22mm attached, and a Canon 100-400mm lens on the side.  Notice that the bag will not take a Canon 70D with the Canon 100-400mm attached.

Finding a camera backpack with a hydration bladder is not easy, and this is one of the exceptions.  The hydration bladder compartment can hold a laptop alternatively!  It makes this bag useful for daily purpose as well.

The top compartment could be used to take other personal stuff, like food and maybe a small tripod, or rain jacket.  This is important for hiking trip.  The weather also features a built-in rain cover!  The hip belt has two small pockets for some minor stuff, like a power bank for mobile phone, etc.

Finally, there is a outside sleeve for some small items like your hat, and so on... for quick grab!

Really wanted to see how it works out in the field.  I'll do more hiking and photography trip during the summer, when camping is too hot to be an option.

Let's see how it works out, the usability and comfort is yet to be tried out.

A new budget notebook

My Asus Eee has been repaired several times, I've replaced its keyboard, hard drive, battery and even CPU/chipset fan.  The transformer is dying so that I could use it either to charge up the battery or to operate the computer but not both, otherwise, the computer will reboot itself randomly.  Worst yet, it is still running Windows XP and would be obsolete enough soon, for example, no more dropbox in the near future.

So I took the plunge to buy a new notebook, but I was on a budget.  I want something light and small, despite I could use my Teclast tablet when I want absolute portability.  Finally, I got a Acer Aspire ES 11 which features a bigger display, and it's lighter in weight and has better battery life.  USB 3.0 port is available as well, but of course, it won't be much faster.  This is a fact of life, you choose only two: cost, performance, portability.

I have installed everything there so that it would be my next work horse.  ASI 120mm and 120mc drivers were installed,  that megapixel monochrome camera too!  No more dropped frame with the all the cameras.  So nice! 

Australia trip first shot 20150807 Gold Coast Surfer Paradise

This is a simple shot from the balcony of the hotel room:

Note the Omega globular cluster!

I did take longer exposure, but it didn't help much, so this one is left as a record.

A clean sky is half way to success, it's bright there but you could still do something.

Teclast x98 Air

It's a Chinese Windows 8.1 tablet, featuring a OTG port.

I have tested last night, ASI 130mc could be used without problem.

However, Lu070m failed probably due to insufficient power from the OTG port.  A powered USB hub should work, but I got to test again.

This could be perfect for webcam imaging and guiding purpose.

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To give a little bit more background, it features dual boot so you could choose between Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4.4 during startup.  There is no hot swap between two systems unlike some other Chinese offerings.

The 64G storage was split around half-half, with the Windows side having slightly more memory.  After installation of Office 2013 (bundled for free), SharpCap, ASI and Lumenera drivers, Stellarium, ASCOM Platform, PhD Guiding, BibleWorks, VLC player, Dropbox (occupying around 6G of space), I got around 9.5G space left.

I will need a buy a fast 64G micro SD for image capturing.

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Installation Notes of ASCOM platform:

It required .NET 3.5 but Windows 8.1 has .NET 4 instead.

When I try to install .NET 3.5, the system refuses to install and after applying all the Windows Update, it success... but then it eats up a few gigabytes too.

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Finally, I bought a 32G SD with 48M/s speed.  I will try to use it solely for imaging purpose, and upon capturing, I can take the card out, and process the files from my PC.  32G ought to be enough for one or two imaging sessions.

And then I also bought a OEM bluetooth keyboard and mouse, to be used with the tablet.  It's nicely designed so that it makes the tablet notebook like!  Best of both world, a small portable notebook, a tablet which can run all my astronomy applications, guiding, image capturing, processing, plus the android side for daily work.  The added bonus is the capacity to run Bible Works!

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To further simplify the whole thing, I've bought a OTG cable which allows direct connection to the camera:

Partial lunar eclipse on 20150404

I am not trying to join the debate to see if it's a real total lunar eclipse or was it partial.  I'm impartial since I missed the moment of "totality" anyway.

I was away from my home city and I was observing in a remote rural area where there's a small but close enough hill to block all my view during the best moments.

This is what I got when I left that place before going into my hotel room:

I have a friend around who's a novice photographer, I borrowed her my lens and she was amazed to be able to take image of the partially eclipsed moon!


On the same night, I observed Jupiter with my Canon 100-400mm plus a 20mm eyepiece and a 2x barlows lens working at 3x as a relay lens so that I could use a star diagonal.

Going outside

Some non-astronomer friends would like to go out tonight to a darker place, and I've to bring all the stove and cookset.  Thus, to reduce my burden, I decided not to bring any telescope but to use my 200mm 2.8L as a telescope!  It's a compact 70mm refractor actually and with a barlows, I can use a diagonal too.

I've brought my Nexstar mount but I've decided to go lighter, so I brought a small chair to use with the Nexstar!  It's also lighter and more compact as well.  Ugly but works.

I've also brought my Canon 10x30 IS, together with my new 70D.

My target is simple, to capture C2014/Q2 in a darker site!

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The sky was foggy with scattering thin cloud, and with the bright moon, even M41 is just detectable.  The moon was observed with a 4mm eyepiece and I found it hard to focus, and the image is no good.

Camera lens is only suitable for wide field scanning.

Sweden Sky

I've a trip to Sweden with my family earlier this month. I was thinking that I might have some chance to take some good starry skies, but then I missed the fact that there's nearly no dark night in summer for places that high in latitude:

For example, at around 10:30p at night, it looks like this:-


Even when it's 1:30am, it's still blue... exposure like 10 seconds will saturate the whole frame.