Wow I setup the blog sometime last week and I still have not written anything!!!! That kinda reflects my crazy life right now...and not necessarily anything to do with stargazing. I moved from Brisbane, Australia in the southern hemisphere to Los Angeles, USA in the northern hemisphere some 4 months ago for a postdoc position, had a baby 2 months ago and just received my scopes in a massive shipment, together with the rest of my house stuff ....so I guess I have an excuse for not blogging. Hahahah. Hectic my life is, as wise Yoda might say.
Since this is an astro blog, I will start with my telescope collection. As of August 2010, I currently only own 4 scopes and three pairs of binocs. I had more in the past (will talk about them in another post) but I guess you have to let go of some. The ones I currently own are my first scope, which I received as a teenager in the 80's, a Celestron Cometron 40; a 127mm short tube Powerseeker; a very old and beat up Celestron/Vixen 6" f/5 and my trusty GS 10" f/5. Will find some time to post my reviews here.
So I have this whole new "northern" sky to explore and have done a bit of sky peeking (I don't call it observing as I only used my 20x80's on a Orion tripod with slow-mo controls..the only piece of astro gear I hand carried over from down under). The skies over Los Angeles, one of the most populated places in the world was not all as bad as people made it out to be. All the BS talk about not being able to do deep sky work from suburbia is plain baloney. All you need is patience and a trained eye. And the skies were not pink with light pollution like back home in my native country of Malaysia!
From my suburban backyard/ common yard (I currently live in the UCLA University Village), I reckon I could make stars out till at least magnitude 5 (have not tested this but really not as bad as it seems....Brisbane was better...5.4-5.5 during nice transparent winter skies...but deteriorating!!!). Deep sky was totally possible with my 20x80's. Lets see what I have been able to make out so far. M42, the Orion Nebula was nice, although when I moved at the end of March, it was getting a little bit low in the skies. Globular's are great targets in the northern summer. I have seen M4 and M80 in Scorpius; M22 (I swear I could make out some resolution although that's just me ;) and M28 in Sagittarius (most familliar with my southern constellations so of course I had to check them out first....they are not as low in the skies as I though!!!); M10 and M12 in Ophiuchus; M13, the great Hercules cluster and M92. Planetary nebulae are great targets too. M57 and M27 were ridiculously easy with my 20x80's and I can't wait to see them in my big scopes with the UHC filters on. Open clusters are probably most recommended for suburban viewing and M6 and M7 looked great! Oh wait not forgetting M8, the Lagoon Nebula and M17, the Swan Nebula. These would definately benefit from narrow band filters. I am hoping for clear skies this weekend so I can give some of these DSO's a run for their money with my scopes. Weather has been super weird here in LA with nice clear blue skies from 11am till like 8pm, and then clouds or fog..who knows...anyway more later!!!!
