GET1042: My experiences

Star Gazing:
Session one:
We tried to view mars
The cloud was bad that day espeically towards utwon
Got scolded by dr abel because we turn the telescope upside down and the cable was stretch
Spent one hour searching for Sirius only to find out our telescope was out of focus because someone touched the focus
Have to point to Utown to refocus
Tried to look for Sirius again only to find m42 the beehive cluster first
It was amazing, the feeling of finding and seeing our very first-star cluster. There were some people who came to see the star cluster. I feel a slight sense of accomplishment especially when Dr Abel confirmed that it was m42
We eventually found sirius
tried to use the goto method to find andromeda
realised that it has set
Times up and we were slightly disappointed

Session two:
[Planetary photography]
We tried to look for mars again
It was too cloudy
We point the telescope at the moon
It was a photo taking the session
We got to see the moon in close up
We spent quite a while trying to get a good photo shot of the moon
The moon keeps running out of the frame
We tried to look for mars using goto
We found it as a red spot, attempted to take a picture but when we switch lenses to the camera, it always disappear
Half the time in this session spent on setting up the camera as the camera seem to have to much problems

Session three:
[Star party]
We planned quite a few objects to look
Invited friends
We found mars
Attempted to take a photo of mars
spent too long to take a photo of mars
We failed star party because half the time was at mars
bad weather
Most people didn't come to our booth as we keep attempting to take pictures of mars
Saw Orion nebula but it was bad due to weather
Pleadies was too zoomed in but managed to view it.
Attempted to see rosette but failed.
Confused over the "cluster" in place of rosette
Tried to see the Orion nebula using another telescope
Failed to look at running chicken due to a building blocking it
Blood moon rises.

Session four:
[Star party attempt 2]
> Set up scope
> Scope was condensed
> Used heat pack to heat it up
> Managed to heat it up by 8
>Bore sight and align using sirius
> Attempted to look at mars
>Goto method to mars
> Managed to find mars
> Whats the differences between geo satellites and stars
> Satellites and space shuttles
>How to locate mars (Draw a line from betegueue to taurus then slightly below the line is a faint mars)
> Attempted to look for pleadies and salt and pepper
>Failed to do so
> Saw the binary stars winter solice from other star party
> Claimed that different people see different colours
> Attempted to look at orion
> Found orion
> Nebulosity can be seen
> Found little bee hive
> Attempted to find castor
> I tried to find caster by boresighting
>Alignment was not accurate
> Found castor






Learning factors:
We should have dated the photos
Read instruction
Ensure that the gain is not that high
Photoshopping is a good skill
Differences between nebulas and how star forming regions are actually nebulas