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  • November1st

    Virtual Insanity

    Posted in: Flashback

    One of my all time favourite video-music was “Virtual Insanity” by the band Jamiroquai , it was released in more than 10 years ago (somehow I think that my music taste still living in 90s!)
    Check it out — it really amazing to see how the room moves while all things around him sat still – your eyes been cheated! . Read about it in Wikipedia.

    What music did best to me was – it reminds me the actual event when the tune was played – For this music video, the year was 1997, and I was stuck alone (and homesick too!) watching MTV in a hotel in Helsinki , Finland.

  • November1st

    Learning the night sky

    Posted in: Astronomy

    OK I have to admit that I am a lame amateur “astronomer”. I am too ashamed to call myself one — maybe the title of “a guy with a telescope” would be more appopriate . Learning to use planisphere or a sky chart was always too complicated + time wasting and that’s why I spent some extra money just to get a go-to (computerized) telescope. Easy life!
    Recently, after moving to a new apartment (we rent a new buiding in Riyadh and all 13 units occupied by Malaysian!) with an open roof-top , I somehow relive my almost “dead” hobby in astronomy ( hmm did someone in Malaysia went into space recently?) . My ETX-105 box was finally opened for the first time in Saudi Arabia and I discover that I enjoyed showing the night sky to the kids (and their fathers’ too!) .
    My ETX105
    Anyway, what I want to write in this entry was while browsing the Celestron website recently ,I saw this Skyscout gadget – a handheld point and click device with a built-in GPS that enable you to identify sky objects – planets, stars and constellations, err ET? – just name it. Cool isn’t it?!

    Then I did my research about it and found out Meade (Mysky) also had one too and also turned out to be a better product than the Skyscout. Where to get it in Riyadh – Ebay? Hmm.. Then I remember that , a while ago I sent an email to Meade local distributor here in Saudi Arabia for a quotation of LX90 GPS and I thought I should ask if they had one of the Mysky in stock now. Thank God! The friendly sales guy at Gems-Calibration told me that they have few now, and ready to be shipped anytime (you got fulus , all lulus- my father used to say!) . So the next day, I banked in the $$ and few hours after that it was sent by courrier + the very next day it was already on my table in the office. Khalas! It was (surprisingly!) efficient!! — and I love Saudi Arabia!! ;)

    So this is how it looks like -

    Meade MySky in a box
    Battery powered handheld with GPS!

    Acquiring the GPS
    It took around 2 minutes to acquire the GPS

    Finding Moon
    I used the GOTO feature to find the moon (the easiest object) and it did fine!
    Mars was slightly next to it that day!

    Jaja was assistant in-charge that day !

    The Mysky came with its own earphone but Jaja (lab assistant-in-charge) was using it with my Ipod earphone.

    And now I am planning to use as a GPS guide for my Meade ETX-105. Just finding the right time to make my DIY cable. :)

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