Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Plato
On the night of a super-full moon in perigee, we gathered at Simpson’s place. Our aim is mainly to expose club members to what stargazing really looks and feels like, and of course targeting several planets, identify constellations, and try our luck on some deep sky objects.
Initially it was the worst of the worst – thunderstorm. We took refuge at McDonalds and took the chance to give a comprehensive briefing on how to use the telescope, courtesy of Simpson’s Orion SpaceProbe 130 ST-EQ.
At 11pm the sky started to clear, we started our session which features the Spring sky. Stars were barely visible, but the main constellation of Virgo, Crux a.k.a. Southern Cross, and Big Dipper is visible. Saturn is rising up along with Spica, and with a 130x aided by Barlow lens Simpson bought recently we got this pic (on crap camera lah)
It is Saturn all right, in the scope Titan is also visible as a small dot.
The moon
Going on is the summer constellations with Scorpio, Sagittarius, Lyra, and Aquila. The last part of the Summer Triangle, Deneb is not up yet. Well this calls for a trip this July! : D We also observed binary stars about below Vega, star of Lyra and the twin Mizar-Alcor at the handle of the Big Dipper.
The ‘last but not least’ staple is the Morning Star Venus, with magnitude of brightness –3.36 it certainly outshone all other ‘stars’ around. Zooming in with a telescope gives the phase of Venus, now currently at a half-Venus phase. It shone way up until the morning. 
Conclusion journal entry :
18/3/2011 Friday Cloudy
-virgo, crux, big dipper, carina, lupus, scorpio, Sagittarius, lyra, aquila
-lagoon nebula, mizar-alcor, binary star below Vega, M7 open cluster
-moon, saturn, venus in half phase.
Here’s to more clear skies and starry nights! : D
