Brief History of Nearly Nothing! » Astronomy http://rizalafif.net Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:59:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Learning the night sky http://rizalafif.net/2007/11/learning-the-night-sky/ http://rizalafif.net/2007/11/learning-the-night-sky/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:39:59 +0000 rizal http://aminur.info/?p=44 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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