Saturday, August 16, 2008

My first lesson in Astronomy & Lunar Photo

Today, I attended a very interesting Astronomy event in Singapore.
Held at Singapore Art Museum 16 August 2008 from 10am onwards.
Pretty amazing at all the different types of telescopes on display.
One of which is also Singapore biggest telescope on display.
It was said to be bigger than the one at Singapore Science Centre...



The first workshop was started off with "Introduction to Practical Astronomy" with Remus Chua.
Breiefing on the basic and different types of telescopes, basic things to look out for in Astronomy..etc.
Later followed by another workshop "Making Lunar Mosaics"
He is holding his photo which consist of 68 images using stacks.
A very close up image of the Lunar and even when zooming large using a projector, the picture quality is very high.
He gives a very good insight teaching on how to use the computer editing software to create good images.


After lunch, there was a Sun-Grazing event.
It's a pity I missed it because when it was my turn, lots of clouds were gathering round and covering the sun!
Was told to be back 15 minutes later but I was already in the midst of another workshop.
Arrggguuuuhhh...


A short movie on Nebulae and Galaxies were shown.
Below are the images I took off the projector's screen...with some touch up of course!hehe!
I think deep sky are very beautiful.
Do you think so?



Another very good workshop which helps me understand more about our universe is the "Heavenly Things" by Dr. Phil Chan.


One shocking news he revealed was that after so many years of studies and research, Scientists only know 4% about our Universe.
The unknown are classified as Dark Matter and Dark Energy which sums up to 96%.
Wow... this ratio percentage is drasitic apart.
So meaning... All we know now is so SO so so little!


After attending the working, I've got to know a different definations of Machos and Wimps! LOL!
MACHOS = Massive Compact Halo Objects
WIMPS = Weakly Interacting Massive Particles

There were more events going on into the night.
It was a wonderful workshop on Astronomy and I hope they'll can make it a yearly event too!

At night, I went to a park at 8 plus.
It was a 100% full moon tonight.
About a couple of hours more...at 5.08am , there will be a Lunar Eclipse.
I didn't wait to see it because I'll be too sleepy by then!LOL!

My 1st lunar close up photo.
Not very clear but I very happy with it already! hehe.
I took this picture with my Nikon D60 DSLR using a 200mm lens.

2 comments:

heavenabove said...

Very cool! I also enjoy very amateur astronomy. Sounds like you learned a lot.I have a telescope but the mount is wobbly so I don't use it much anymore but I sure do think about it. Have you visited Rick's Astronomy Journal blog? I love his pictures.

Astro Galaxy said...

hello heavenabove,
It seems that we've quite a lot in common! Too bad, we are living so far apart, if not I think we can talk endlessly about our hobbies and pets! I am also thinking of buying a telescope but I'll have to save up some money first and also need to do more research on what types of telescope suits me best as an amateur!
Yap! I've been visiting Rick's Astronomy since last year, I've found his blog through your blog's links. It's a wonderful blog with tons of beautiful pictures.
Cheers!