Learning the night sky
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!) .
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 -
Battery powered handheld with GPS!
It took around 2 minutes to acquire the GPS
I used the GOTO feature to find the moon (the easiest object) and it did fine!
Mars was slightly next to it 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. 
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again..
