To me Malaysia will always be home. I might not spend as much time as I used to when I was a kid growing up there, but everything just seems so familliar. Now the place itself has changed in the past decade or so since I left (I have been overseas for about 11 years now...living both in Brisbane, Australia and our current home in Los Angeles, USA). Many new developments, shopping centres, buildings and also highways have cropped up. Its much easier to get around now that it was many years ago. However one would still need a car to get around Johor Bahru. The drawback to this is the loss of the night sky of course. Due to the ever expanding commercial buildings, reaching skywards, the once semi dark skies at my parents place is no longer a suitable spot for serious stargazing. One would have to observe after a stormfront has passed to get the clearest and most transparent skies. Battling mozzies is another thing us astronomers at the equator have to deal with. I for one though still brave the mozzies as I get to see southern hemisphere objects that is beyond my reach from my current northerly observing spot in Los Angeles. The calling of the night sky is too strong. I succumbed to its siren song everytime I am at home and the skies are clear at night. I have been lucky the past two years I have been back. There have been some pretty clear skies. Hardly dark but observable. Again I used my nephews future scope, the Celestron Powerseeker 127mm on photo tripod. Still trying to adapt the scope better for visual observation. Even with such a short and stubby lightweight OTA, the photo tripod is still overwhelmed when viewing anything more than 45 degrees above the horizon. My best guess for a suitable easy to use mount would be a Vixen MiniPorta or a one of them tabletop one arm dob mounts.
This time of the year, the very heart of our milky way rides overhead. I visited the usual suspects such as globulars M80 and M4 in Scorpius, M6 and M7, also in Scorpius, and then perused the rich star spangled regions of Sagittarius. Visited old friends such as the Trifid (M20), Lagoon (M8), the Eagle (M16) and the Swan (M17). Also looked at some old globulars such as M22, the crackerjack cluster and the close by M28. Nebulae, with the NPB filter in place, looked like pale imitations of themselves from these light drenched skies. Its amazing how light pollution can wipe out even bright objects such at M4. Even the globulars suffered, with M4 barely visible and M13 and M22 only slightly resolved . Objects that was not affected as much were planetary nebulae, M57, the Ring Nebula and M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. Of course both of this objects benefited from the use of the NPB filter. Again I found the OIII views to be very close if not similar to the views through the NPB. I ended up selling the OIII when I returned from my trip. Highlights from the observing sessions was scrutinizing Saturn and its ring system with the 6mm TV Radian eyepiece at 167X.
Anyway that concludes my mini observing report from the equator..till we meet again a year later!!!!!
