First Day of CNY and here is an exception - a day event

Its first day of CNY as usual we visited our mother-in-law in the morning and i had plenty of time to burn....

Checking my inventory : Annular eclipse in few hours time. What can i do? Need solar filter and either digital camera or video. I have a cumbersome old russian 300 mm lens and a Thousand Oak C5 filter.

I took out a shoe-box and cut some strips to line the outside of the lens hood - a few minutes later the C5 solar filter seated properly on the lens hood.
I need a color ccd - get the Jaguar Mintron, fish out a Sony Handy cam for recording. I need a easy to use digital camera - the recent addition CP P5100 fit the bill. Batteries need charging... Guide or unguided? The hardly used Orion Teletrack couldnt handle the heavy lens + ccd..pointing at steep elevation angles so I switch to camera tripod and a 2-axis slow motion... ( works all the time for comets too). I am set.... Then my brother and family came.




Sunlight getting into my hall. The dryer was the best platform for my camcorder while the 300mm lens+ solar filter faced the sun.

Close to 4:30pm the encroaching shadow-caster - moon created a bite of the sun, breaking the perfect circular 'spotless' geometry.

The bite get larger and larger as I continue outside the corridor then .. the clouds came and blinking light from the draining Lithium battery... oh well. Time to pack up and perhaps some other lucky folks can imagine a better one else where.

Using the same tools - UFOCapture V2.. i yanked out a couple of still shots and tested re installation of another USB Capture external device - Yuan's TV2Go.

P/s the camcorder time was 15 minutes faster..

It will be interesting to have set up a portable tracker and just leave the video on or another digital camera with lightweight filter in front for interval shooting .. perhaps next time.
This is another USB video capture board tested to work in UFOCaptureV2.
" When you have only a hammer... every problem look like a nail to you ....."

2009-Jan-20-22:42:35

Meteor near Canopus. Note Sirius at top.

small but bright

'Tear Drop' Meteor Again Jan 03 '09

.. and the brief event video

Moon(- 9.7) and venus (mag-4.3) in early evening for magnitude comparison

Unknown Object - firework or meteor?

Is this a single stray from 'firework' that masquerade as a meteor ? ( 0:12 hr)
Watch the the video just posted there. ( The little sparkle at the end of the video gave the true ID away- firework as all of you have correctly pointed out)

A Slow meteor with flaring along the ablation path

A slow moving meteor around 9:15pm crossing the sky created a 'arrow'-shaped image above. CLICK ( to have a closer look) at the image to see the 'sudden increase in brightness' along the luminous flaring path.

Meteors - a dozen Dec 18/19 2008

Better sky condition.. Sirius and Canopus 'arced' in the exposure. The bunching revealed more meteors in early am. 6/12 detected in 04-05 am local time,

Geminids 2008 Dec 13/14 - Cloudy sky but.

I thought this year the Gems will be a washout judging from the strings of cloudy sky and rain. Dec 13 saw Venus and the feeble Jupiter in the cloudy sky early evening. So decided to put out my video ccd and let the recorder do all the work.

22:09 first Gem appeared follow by another at 22:30. The composite frames below illustrate the changing apparent radiant as earth rotates bring the constellations across the sky from east to west.

Gems 'cascade' down from the sky. Note a nice terminal flash from a meteor parallel to the TV antennae near the roof. Canopus traced a short arc on lower left - the # dots corresponds to the number of frames stacked in add_max2 command in IRIS.

Meteor 2008 Dec 13 Tally and Time in UT.

14-15 UT count: 1
15-16 UT count: 5
16-17 UT count: 2
17-18 UT count: 3
18-19 UT count: 2
19-20 UT count: 3
20-21 UT count: 3


1. Dec 13 14:09:58

2. 143059
3. 151405
4. 152827
5. 155239
6. 155950
7. 155954
8. 162717
9. 175657
10.184730
11. 185717
12. 190904
13. 195122
14. 195133
15. 200951
16. 202846
17. 203012

choper's path

nov 27 late nite meteor

Seeing a slight improvement in the sky condition, i put out the video lens. A slow meteor was caught before midnite. ( the tiny trail at the opposite end was created by a plane.)

a nice fireball in wide FOV

Nov 6 - Sprite and a bright meteor wide FOV

Sprites - Oct 30 2008

After 887 lightning flashes ( each one triggered a video recording) i screened through the images and apart from a handful of meteors - sprites stole the show instead. Six of the best one is stacked here. You will find one grouping cluster around the TV aerials and another group (one complete blue jet or 'carrot' and the other partially hidden). CLICK image above to view better.

Orionids 2008 - Oct 18/19 - FOV 68.6 x89.2

2008_10_18_23:18:19 till 10_19_05:45:48
composite from x17 images , stack using IRIS command add_max2 X 17 ( file in x1.fit...x17.fit)
brighter stars Sirius and Canopus created a trails in the composite.

Using UfoAnalyser Software - the ID of each meteor was identified - as expected, the backward propagation of quite a number of them intersected at radiant of of Orionids Meteor Shower - the dust trails from Halley's Comet. Majority of them detected in 4 - 5 am when the radiant is highest. Two Epsilon Geminids were detected too.

Lens : HG3808FCS-HSp 1/2" auto iris 3,8mm 1:0.8 / watec -902H

Impression of a fragmenting meteor

May 4 '08 Eta Aquarid Meteor

ETA meteor shower member - Halley's comet debris

ETA peaks around 2 am SGP on May 6 '08.
Above is a 6mm view composite of the meteors ( majority ETA + others) from 03:2820 till 06:1759.
The other camera was running
with 25mm lens. ( see image below).

A handful of ETAs were detected on May 04 am and several days earlier.
This is one of the brightest so far passing by the 'House' of The Teacup or Sagittarius. (25mm f0.90 lens/Wat902H2Ultimage) with x1 video frame extracted.
Here is the original 'peak-hold images' of the same meteor. You can see the progression of the meteor's head from starting to ending video frames

The radiant was around 15 degree - pretty low and quite a distance away from my camera
FOV ( see below skymap - Aquarius on lower left and Sag. top right corner).

test shot

Gems ( Geminids) Meteors Finally Dec 15 2007

Dec 14 2007 Period : 224648_225246. Gems started with radiant ~23 degree
Vertical streaks of a slowly drifting jet contrails can be seen in mid frame

Shortly after midnight - Gems streaking outside my South facing window.
Visually they are just pretty - yellow-greenish spearheaded fast scurry across the sky.
Period1215_002509 to 1215_003622

Geminids Meteors 'Spray' - 2007 Dec 14/15
Early hours : Period Dec 15 04:19:17 - 06:03:15 total 12 (9 shown above)
Canopus left a series of dots in the stacked frames

After midnight - I stood at my south facing window and gazed out - the familar yellowish/green Gems streaking from radiant at the back of this window. The 6mm watec902H2U video system was left to do its work. Earlier on 10:08 at a park nearby my first Gem was a long length - spearheaded Gems ...
Situated at the tip of the malaya peninsula - SGP weather map around 4:40am - SGP relatively clear but menacing clouds from west of Sumatra means move clouds cover later....

shooting stars zip past familar star fields Cns Major

Meteor bright enough to be detected through clouds
'K' field in Canis Major - OneTwo...

Three!