Mare Insularum with The Mighty Copernicus crater

Thu, 27 May 2010 23:11:16 +0500

I am always impressed by the beautiful mosaics people make of the moon. They can capture a huge area with good surface detail in high resolution images. This is my first attempt of a lunar mosaic.

On 25th May, i captured four AVIs with the Planetary CCD camera DBK31 (at 25 uncompressed frames per second), each containing about 5,000 frames. I then processed it in Registax5 and stacked about 2,000 images, combined and further processed it in Photoshop CS4. A slight cropping was done for the misaligned images.

Processing took a lot of time.. Using Macbook Pro at its maximum performance, I have spent about 15 hours (in 3 days) on the Registax5; to date, this is the maximum i have used on Registax5.
After processing in CS4 and my weird processing routine, the tiff file was 211MB!

The processing was done to mainly show the ‘ray system’ of this area. The biggest crater is Copernicus Crater, below which are Reinhold and Gambart. On the far left is Kepler Crater with its own beautiful ejected rays. Between Copernicus and Kepler, Mare Insularum resides. On the left of Copernicus, there is T.Mayer crater and Carpatus mountains. Above which are the craters Pytheas and Euler. In the top right corner, western part of Mountain Wolff (yes with the double letter) and at the end of it is the crater Eratosthenes, named after the first man to ever calculate the circumference of the earth somewhere around 300 BC.

There are many other craters of various sizes, with single, double and multiple rings but of course the most impressive feature is the rays emanating from Copernicus..

Hope you will like this image.

UPDATE: (May 29, 2010)

Today i found this image at LPOD archives. Interestingly this has the same framing of my mosaic.. and looks super in color. I would love to try lunar image in false color such as this one:

Eskimo Nebula in Colors

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:49:30 +0500

Earlier i posted a short exposure of Eskimo Nebula.. here is the RGB added to it. It is the result of death of a sun like star and is located about 3,000 light years away. Here is more about it.

M13 - Colored

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:52:54 +0500

So i finally found sometime to process LRGB data of M13 and here it is. Again i tried to resolve as many stars as possible in the core. There are many many “out of place” Blue Stragglers in M13 and are easily visible in this image.

M13 - Globular Cluster

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:10:56 +0500

An hour long exposure of an Alien Cluster.. Still have to get color data yet but i processed the luminance files anyway, to keep my blog alive :)

I was being careful not to blow out the core stars. The subs were of 2 minutes and being auto-guided on the internal chip of ST9XE camera, by SBIG Adoptive Optics, AO8. The corrections were being applied at 1 Hz.

Eskimo Nebula

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:21:26 +0500

This is my one of my most favourites so last night when i started imaging this Nebula i became so impatient that i am posting this 21 min exposure here :)

Telescope: Celestron C14 @ FL 4200, F/ratio 12
Camera: SBIG ST9XE @ -15C, Image Scale: 0.962
Adoptive Optics: SBIG AO8
Filters: Custom Scientific, Clear
Exposure: 180 Seconds Subs

Trapezium - A Short Exposure

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:07:11 +0500

Here is a short exposure (LRGB: 6min, 3min, 3min, 6min) of Trapezium region, a total of 18 minutes. I was being very careful in processing it as “True Colours” as possible so i used Astrodon’s RGB Weight Calculator. Also i tried to keep the dignity of Trapezium Stars intact without over exposing the surrounding nebulosity.

What i specially liked is that even with this short exposure, the imaging setup still managed to show the Bow Shock (Brighten up your display if you dont see it) in front of a famous star LL Ori (marked with the arrow). Here is more about Bow Shock. Hubble captures this so beautifully:

Here is the complete Hubble image

Equipment & Imaging Details:
Telescope: Celestron C14
SBIG ST9XE @ -20 C
Autoguiding with AO8 at2 Hz with Internal Guiding
Custom Scientific LRGB Filters

Focal Length: 4200mm
F/ratio: 12
Image Scale: 0.962 arcseconds

Pitatus Crater

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 14:04:36 +0500

The largest crater in the picture is Pitatus, about 100 km wide, with a fractured floor. On the western side, below Hesiodus crater, there is a double ring crater which seems very interesting to me, there are not many of them on the lunar landscape. Is it possible a second hit made the inner ring?

There are a couple of half lava filled crater up there and a fault line on the west of Hesiodus.

‘Race Tracks’ on the Moon

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:53:29 +0500

This is one of my most favourite areas on the lunar surface and through the eyepiece it looks stunning. Above is the composite of two images, which i got from stacking 1,000 frames each file. The combined magnification is around 1,800 times.

In the middle is the strange HIPPALUS crater and here is an orbital view of this area.

Sirius B, Nearest White Dwarf

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:36:31 +0500

Few days back, i tired to see if my DBK31 camera can image our nearest white dwarf, 8.6 light years away, Sirius B. The results (right image) were interesting and in the final processed image, i could see Sirius B (about 8.5 magnitude star), a left over bright core of a long dead huge star, as a speck right under Sirius A (brightest star in the sky with a magnitude of -1.46).

The test image was a stack of 3,000 images and was quickly processed with Registax5.

Next night was cloudy and on the night of 14 February i was all prepared to image the ‘pup and the dog star’ as it is famously known.

Saturn in the eastern evening skies

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:46:08 +0500

Saturn has started to appear in the eastern skies; though low at altitude but its rings can be easily seen with a small telescope. I imaged this picture last evening when the clouds thinned out for a while. Not much to see here, Cassini devision is discernible but no equatorial belts are visible.

Planet Mars

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 15:58:30 +0500

Equipment:
Telescope: Celestron C14
Mount: Losmandy Titan
Camera: The Imaging Source DBK31
Filter: Astro-Engineering IR Cut
Barlow: Televue 2X

Imaging & Processing:
Frame Rate: 30 fps
Exposure: Auto
Time: 120 sec
Software: Registax 5, Photoshop CS4

Solar Eclipse Viewing session

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:12:51 +0500

Khwarizmic Science Society and Lahore Astronomical Society has arranged a session to watch the Solar Eclipse tomorrow.. Details are as followed:

Time: 11:30 AM - 01:30 PM, Friday, 15 Januray 2010.
Location: Jogging Track behind the Centre for High Energy Physics, Quaid-e-Azam (New) Campus, Lahore.

Here is the Map of the Location. We will be Safely observing it through C14 telescope with Solar Filters attached and through a big eyepiece.

Its an open event so anyone can come there.

Partial Solar Eclipse on 15th Januray, 2010.

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:20:28 +0500

This time it will be an Annular Solar Eclipse but from my hometown we will experience 32% of the Sun being eclipsed by our nearest celestial neighbour. Here is an Image from NASA webpage and you can se the details by clicking this image:

Montes Apenninus

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:13:22 +0500

Sometime in December 2009, i imaged this beautiful area in Infrared and did the processing but for some mysterious reason completely forgot this file. Found it today and posting it now.

Apennines is one of a kind region on the moon, visually it is stunning in good seeing and higher magnification. A lot of detail can be seen here.. Partial Eratosthenes Crater is in the bottom left of the image.

Jupiter with Great Red Spot & Red Spot Junior

Sat, 9 Jan 2010 14:59:27 +0500

One thing i hate about ‘Starry Night’ is that it is always completely wrong about predicting the position of GRS!

Okay so now after making a quick review about my favorite program, here is the image i took of Jupiter when it was 25 degrees (2.5 times the atmosphere) from the horizon yesterday evening. Lo and behold, ‘Red Spot Jr.’ is here and IO on the left and Europa on the right.. Pretty nice :)

Happy Birthday Jupiter!

Fri, 8 Jan 2010 10:40:39 +0500

So yesterday was the Birthday of Jovian System, how could i miss This party! so i tried to rush back home to my observatory but got late and just managed to get a glimpse on how Jupiter and its moons were looking when they were celebrating their 400th Birthday :)

On the night of January 7, 1610, Galileo in Italy first time in human history saw Planet Jupiter and “three fixed stars” which he later discovered as the moons of Jupiter.

Plato Crater

Fri, 8 Jan 2010 10:07:47 +0500

Sky conditions are getting worst in Lahore, with ever increasing fog which reflects so much city lights and does not allow precious heavenly photons to pass through.

Hence a low resolution image of the Moon.. but still i am ‘alive’ here and doing the imaging which i absolutely love with all my heart :)

Tycho Crater on the Moon, imaging in Fog in the air

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 19:31:32 +0500

So fog is covering our skies these days and keeping us away from our observations but we have to do something..right..so on Monday night i went to the observatory and first tried Mars. Immediately noticed very bad seeing since Mars was jumping all around.

So went on to the Moon.. Got about 10,000 frames here with 24 frames per second exposure, no filters. I did 10 points alignment in Registax and if you watch closely you will point out alignment errors which i believe is due to the bad seeing.. Anyways this image is not so bad considering the conditions.

Apollo 11 Landing Area

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:09:34 +0500

I have always wanted to image this special area..Apollo 11 landing site Mare Tranquilitatis and few weeks back, i gave it a shot. The “Imaging Source Camera” has been proving to be a great solar system imager that can image at many frames per second yet still capturing enough photons to get a nice image, with a lot less noise data.

Another technique i used was to install Infrared Band Pass filter from Astronomik. This filter has an output range of 807nm - 1100 nm wavelengths (so the above is essentially a heat image) and does a tremendously great job in cutting doing atmospheric destructive effects (twinkling) on imaging. Using an isolated wavelength band also helps in focusing to be more precise.

Speaking of focusing, it is very hard to get an accurate focus of a Planet, since it is not a point like object like stars, also atmospheric disturbances makes the process much more difficult. So, first i focus a nearby star and then slew the scope to the planet. Few months back, i got Kendrick Bahtinov Mask which works like magic..I was skeptical at first, about its accuracy for CCDing but have found it to be sensitive enough for a couple of degrees turn of the Focus Knob.. very impressed.

In this image, i spend a lot of time making the AVI file..in the end the total images were about 19,000 and since these images were uncompressed, the file size went upto 46GB!! No this is not a typo.. 46 GigaByte.. I need new hard disk and a super fast one.

As usual, i processed it in Registax..the above image is the stack of top 2,000 images.. I tried deconvolution in Maxim DL but then settled on Adobe Photoshop CS4’s processing capabilities.

The arrow marks the “Eagle” landing spot..

Earth Hour

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 14:10:36 +0500

Organized by WWF, Earth Hour is a Global Event which emphasizes on raising the awareness level for the looong life, with good health, of our dear old Mother Earth. I personally love this event, first and foremost it actually helps darkening the night sky for all of us who love to see the twinkling stars (well infact, we amateur and professional astronomers detest this twinkling with all our heart n soul because that means the seeing is bad), next Earth Hour makes me feel as if the whole earth belongs to me as much as i belong to her..just an amazing spiritual nirvana of my soul and for the whole 60 minutes of it!

Starting from just one city, Sydney, in just two years it has spread over 4,000 cities worldwide..earth is one planet loved by many indeed. Earth Hour Organization is asking your votes around the globe, a vote for our planet’s safe climate and heathy environment. You can cast your vote below. They will take your vote to recent Copenhagen Summit 2009.

Two nights at Thandiani, Abbottabad

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:35:07 +0600

On this Friday, with my brother Sameer and two friends Rauf & Naeem i went to a place in Himalaya. Thandiani, that literally means “cold” and its about 8,500 feet high and a heaven for astronomers. I wanted to image Jupiter before the season is over.

President Obama contributes in IYA2009

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:36:04 +0600

I could not resist blogging about this news: Astronomy Night at The White House.

Last night, President Obama was hosting a stargazing night at his place with some key figures from NASA along with Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, Mae Jemison and two young discoverers, “few other stars out tonight” as Obama put it.

Also present were 50 local middle school students, teachers and amateur astronomers. About 20 telescopes were set for the views of Jovian system, moon and interesting stars. They had also exhibited Moon Rocks and Meteorites. This was all done in the spirit of IYA2009 celebrations and the message from the president “If they can discover something great, so can any of you other students here tonight. All you need is a Passion for Science”.

What a wonderful experience it would have been for those kids, viewing objects many many light years away at the lawn of the White House with the President’s pat on the back. Will they ever forget to look at the night sky? How many of them will start studying hard Science Subjects, How many of them will be joining Astronomy, Physics, Mathematics departments later? and most of all in my opinion, how passionately will they be telling future generations not to stop pondering about the universe and everything we know and don’t know about it.

Okay fellows i have to let it out now: Can’t we do similar events here, in Pakistan. Is it that hard? okay so what do we need for that.. We have all sorts of telescopes, dedicated astronomy cameras, big astronomy binoculars, know-how of stars and constellations and most importantly tons of amateur astronomers who just love sleepless nights!

You have all seen what Khwarizmi Science Society has done so far in IYA2009 and still flying high with the immense enthusiasm for public outreach programs. Astronomy Societies in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi hold regular sessions for starry talks and telescopes viewings. If we are asked by our President, Prime Minister or Chief Minister, can’t we mesmerize them with the beauty of heavens? Is this really asking too much or does our head of state get more threats than the US President? Why our related universities’ departments and institutions forget their social responsibilities..why cant they organize such gatherings where our young minds will get inspired? All it need is our own passion, our own love for educating our society, our own children.

‘World Space Week’, at Lahore

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 11:32:05 +0600

SUPARCO ‘Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission’, pakistan’s Space Agency, Khwarizmi Science Society, Lahore Astronomical Society and Society of the Sun are celebrating ‘World Space Week’ on 5th and 6th of October, 2009.

The venue is Gulshan Iqbal Park, Iqbal Town, Lahore. Me and my friends will be arriving there before Maghrib and will be setting up our telescopes and multimedia projectors. We will be showing images of KSS FALAKYATI MELAS (Astrofests), i will be presenting a basic intro of the night sky and the Universe.

Khwarizmi Society will be bringing there own telescope; LAST will bring Manual and GOTO scopes. We will also attempt ’First Light’ of KSS’ new Astronomy Video Camera with C14 for DSOs; i think it will work superbly.

We will be talking about astronomy, telescopes, night sky observation and will answer all sorts of questions from the public..everyone is welcomed!

Jupiter with its moon

Sun, 4 Oct 2009 13:22:54 +0600

My observatory recently got upgraded from a “humble” webcam (Phillips ToU), which i have used extensively in the past for planetary and lunar imaging, to The Imaging Source DBK 31AU03.AS. Its a colored CCD based camera, specially designed for Astronomy Imaging. I have huge hopes for this one with my C14.

Above is the test image for this camera. I got around 800 frames and processed about 500 in Registax 5, used deconvolution in Maxim DL 5 and some tweaks in Photoshop CS4.

This is not at all the best this camera can do..i am hoping to get much more frames in 2 minutes window (because jupiter rotates very fast, we cant use more time on this planet). Moon had also made the sky “noisy” and i got this AVI 2 hours after sunset so the sky was very turbulent.

In this month, I do want to go out to the North to a very fine dark sky to image some nice shots before the end of Jupiter season. Will blog more on that later..

Fifth Astrofest at Govt Girls School, Shahdara.

Sun, 4 Oct 2009 01:44:24 +0600

After a long wait for the Monsoon to end, we planned at went with our Multimedia equipment, Telescope and its gear to Govt. Higher Secondary School, Shahdara.

Hundreds of students were present there. KSS had arranged a ‘Quiz Competition’ for the students and then there was an introduction of Night Sky and a few topics of Astronomy.

I included many animations so they can see the concept and understand it easily.

Forth Astrofest at Rohats Fort, Jhelum

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:32:57 +0600

So i am very late on this report but how can i not write something about the Fourth Astrofest of Khwarizmi Science Society which was held at a 400 years old Historic World Heritage Fort; built by a 16th century muslim emperor Sher Shah Suri near Jhelum, Pakistan.

“The Long View: 400 Years of the Telescope”

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:51:17 +0600

On 16th and 17th of July, i attended History of Telescope Conference at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; it was very entertaining and informative.

The speakers focused on the 400 years of telescope’s history and its symbolism in popular culture. They talked about the telescopes which East India Company brought to its empire, how telescopes influenced the literature, telescopes and its metaphors in early modern Japan.

One of the best talk was of Dr Richard Dunn, author of The Telescope: A short History, pictured at left (with gloves); he actually brought really old telescopes from the museum and we were given a chance to hold them!

There were about 9 of them and the earliest was made in 1710. You can see how much work those early telescope makers put in the ‘good looks’ of these scopes.

Dr. Salman Hameed at Charles Darwin’s Home

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:29:52 +0600

Few days back, Dr. Salman Hameed blogged about his participation in a Conference at Oxford and that he is also coming to Kent for a visit at Charles Darwin’s Home. That was a good news because i could meet him there (it’s just outside london).

So i emailed him and we decided to meet there at 13:00 on Tuesday (yesterday). I took south eastern line and reached there at about 13:30, searched for Salman and found him deeply engaged with Charles’ writings in a room, upstairs.

English Heritage does a tremendous job in keeping their heritage sites ‘alive’. They give you an iphone-like-device, which is pre-programmed for that particular site, and a headphone attached to it. You then simply press the screen and move around the site while listening the guide making your trip a great learning experience. We spent about two hours together, listening while moving around the house and into the garden.

StarPeace, Pakistan on World Environment Day

Sat, 6 Jun 2009 16:31:23 +0600

It was a great evening yesterday. We really enjoyed celebrating StarPeace night at the ‘World Environment Day’.

Hassaan Ghazali was the first to reach the Planetarium and he quickly arranged StarPeace - Society of the Sun banners inside and outside the Dome.

For the occasion, we had prepared a brief presentation (QuickTime file) for the general public highlighting the special place of our own planet for life to exist happily and how global warming can effect it adversely, leaving our future generations in an inhospitable planet.

I showed them the images of planets specially Mars & Venus and talked a bit about physical, chemical and atmospheric conditions there, graphs of earth’s rising temperature, with a cool animation and a couple of images of glacial retreat. The last slides were of the predicted temperature rise in the next 100 years and how it can have drastic effects on our planet.

Another StarPeace on 5th June, 2009

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:08:20 +0600

Uruguay, India, Iran, Iraq, Oman and Pakistan are celebrating StarPeace on ‘World Environment Day’. Participants will be using telescopes to spot heavenly objects and they will be lighting up candles as a marker of peace under stars.

We, in Pakistan, are having our session at PIA Planetarium, Lahore. There will be many students of different schools, who will be told the significance of our planet for life and how other planets are very hostile for earth’s life to survive. These talks will be given by Hassaan Ghazali, me and other members of our Astronomy Society.

If you are in the area, please do come with your friends and family at the Planetarium at 20:00; this should conclude at around 22:00. We have requested local media to cover the whole event tomorrow. As always i am very excited for tomorrow evening.

second day moon

Thu, 28 May 2009 10:57:09 +0600

Going upstairs to my observatory i saw the crescent moon. It looked beautiful so decided to have a couple of shots with my main CCD camera.

Twilight was interfering so i used H-alpha filter. The one i have has about 4 nm pass band. Took a couple of images and framed a mosaic. Maxim DL as usual for calibration and Photoshop CS4 for enhancements. Hope you all will like it.

Meade LX200 first Light in Space Science Department, Punjab University

Mon, 25 May 2009 13:29:41 +0600

Few weeks back, Space Science Department of Punjab University bought Meade LX200 GPS 14” telescope for their department. My friends in KSS told me about this and i got so excited to know about this!

Then i got a call from Mr. Azhar, who is the observer in the department. They wanted me to be there when they open their package..well..how can i ever refuse this kind of offer!

I asked Omer and Ali to join us and yesterday we opened the beauty. Its an Alt-Azm telescope and for now they have the standard accessories with it. Everything looked fine. Omer read the basic instructions from the manual and though it was a bit windy but we still took it outside.

Third Falakyati Mela in Okara, April 6, 2009.

Tue, 5 May 2009 16:05:21 +0600

More than 1,500 attendees, an hour of presentation and another for live lunar and planetary views, extremely enthusiastic students with their parents and teachers, very well organized and publicized..and a wonderful host! This is the KSS’ third Falakyati Mela in the city of Okara. Those who were there, would agree that we will probably not see any better this whole year.

StarPeace event on Friday - May 1, 2009

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:30:09 +0600

This Friday (May 1, 2009), India, Iran and Pakistan are taking part in a StarPeace event. In Pakistan, we are doing it in Karachi and Lahore. Khalid Merwet is leading the group at Karachi and i believe they have planned it till midnight or more.

We are going to a public place and there is a webpage which i will try my best to get uploaded with images and movie clips during the event. Keep refreshing it for more to see..

Tomorrow is a holiday, so if you are around, do drop by and have a live look at craters and mountains of our moon and the beautiful rings of saturn!

Update:

We had a wonderful StarPeace event yesterday!
Hassaan Ghazali was the first to reach there and he quickly set up the banners of StarPeace Pakistan: One Sun, One Earth, No Borders!

When i got there, Behzad and Maroof had also reached there. I met with the Director of the Planetarium, Mr. Shehzad, who is a wonderful person and was very cooperative with us.

We quickly started setting up our scopes, Behzad and Maroof were quick in assembling there Celestrons. But in the middle of my setup, something hit me: I had no electric wires for the motors of the mount :( Requested Hassaan and others to look after the equipment and i rushed back home to get these wires. My brother was very helpful in finding them in my observatory and handing them to me at Walton Road. This saved me a lot of precious time..Thanks Sameer Bhai :)

An hour had passed when i reached back. We were quick to mount C14 over the Losmandy Titan. People were so anxious to see our equipment that they already were throwing questions at me: What is this? Where do you see from it? etc..

I just roughly polar aligned the scope and pushed the buttons for Saturn. Heard the motors roar and the telescope pointed the planet in 25mm eyepiece view. Ok so “We are ready”, i announced. Hassaan had a quick look in the eyepiece.. “WOW..Amazing..Beautiful” I just love these words, whenever i hear them; this means something has turned upside down in the mind of the observer and his/her view about the world and the universe is expanded, forever!

Hassaan skillfully organized the crowd and there appeared a nice and long queue. Hassaan and i were answering many many questions from the crowd.

Behzad had setup his equatorial reflector and Maroof had had his Celestron Mak first pointed on Saturn and then on Moon. They both were surrounded by children and adults alike. We were using a 80mV green laser pointer to show the constellations in the sky. People were very interesting to see ‘their’ stars.

People coming out from the planetarium show were heading straight for our telescopes. Wave after wave we served more than 300 people. There were children in the arms of their parents commenting “I see a ball and a line (ring)” and then there were those old people who said, “I never thought i would ever see a planet in my life, thank you for showing me, at least once.”

Children from SOS village also joined us and were thrilled to see planets and various craters of the moon.

Hassaan Ghazali made phone calls to the participants of StarPeace Program. The whole session was a success! We had so many ‘first time’ stargazers and i would say many attendees felt a strong passion for telescopes and Astronomy in general.

Thanks to Iran, India, Karachi and people from Lahore for organizing such a successful and productive show for public. There will definitively be more StarPeace events in the future.

Peace to all!

Video-conference with Salman Hameed

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:07:57 +0600

Less than two hours ago we finished an Online Q/A session with Dr. Salman Hameed and it went quite well, more than we expected.

Salman was long discussing this online conference idea with me. First we were talking about having it with LUMS or with any other institute but just a few days back salman and i decided to have a go with the amateur astronomy community in Lahore. So I invited a few of us at my home today.

“celebrating astronomy”

Thu, 9 Apr 2009 11:58:15 +0500

Sunday 5th April, 2009 edition of “The News” newspaper published a report on Khwarizmi Science Society’s ongoing activities during IYA2009. It covered Pervez Hoodbhoy’s lecture on Usefulness of Extra Dimensions of Space-time and first two FALAKYATI MELA. Here is the online article.

Recently i, with KSS team, went to OKARA for the third FALAKYATI MELA to “Divisional Public School”. I will write a blog in a few days when i get the pictures of that event.

100 Hour Astronomy Celebrated in Lahore

Wed, 8 Apr 2009 14:39:13 +0500

Society of the Sun and Lahore Astronomical Society with the kind help of National Museum of Science and Technology arranged a Moon-Watch session for Public at NMST building on 4th of April. This was a part of 100 Hours of Astronomy, a corner stone project of IYA2009.

About 30 people were present with their families to have a live view of Moon and Saturn through Celestron C8 and a refractor provided by NMST. Omer bin Abdul Aziz had also brought his Meade LX90.

People also enjoyed documentaries being played in the Auditorium. Live feed of lunar craters, through a CCD camera, attached to C8 was also being broadcast in the Auditorium.

As usual, there were questions about general Astronomy and how telescopes work.

A group of 25 children from SOS village also visited PIA Planetarium. They were planned to reach at NMST later but got late and could not come. They did enjoy the special shows at Planetarium.

Hassaan Ghazali got a special recording for 100HA program and a couple of other events here.

Night Sky by Hassaan Ghazali

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:37:29 +0500

City FM89 has started a great service for amateur astronomers and for anyone who like to see the stars at night. Our dear Hassaan Ghazali has a weekly show on the channel. You can listen to it on every Friday morning, between 10 - 12 on FM89 website.

Hassaan will be covering constellations, weekly celestial events and anything beautiful in the night sky. He will also be talking about the activities of Astronomy Clubs in Pakistan!

Great Job Hassaan! Things Are changing here in Pakistan.

Here is last week’s episode:

Second Falakyati mela organized by khwarizmi science society

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:15:05 +0500

Extreme energy and eagerness, happiness and enthusiasm filled the hearts and minds of the students, when we visited a school outside lahore for Khwarzimi Science Society’s second FALAKYATI MELA. Rare they may, but highly motivating moments do come in life when we strongly feel a special purpose of our life and how much we can inspire young kids, by telling And showing them about the world they live in and beyond. This was certainly that day! All thanks to Khwarizmi Science Society!!

Saturn with three moons

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:46:35 +0500

This is my first image of Saturn in this season. The image on the right is the best single frame in this AVI file. I kept the camera settings high enough in hoping to capture a couple of moons. This single frame does not show any saturnian moon; infact you will hardly notice a very faint “Rhea” near the left side of the ring.

Earth’s sister

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:08:50 +0500

Less than an hour ago i saw Venus from 25mm eyepiece and decided to get an image from the webcam. Put the webcam with its adopter in the telescope and tried to center it in the view of the monitor but i had to use an eyepiece to center it and saw an amazing view.

Venus had double-double cusps! I think it was due to two things: Telescope had a bad focus and the observatory wall was blocking the view as well.

Well it made me very easy to focus..It worked as a perfect focus mask. I wonder if i can always focus galaxies with an observatory wall blocking some of the view :)

All set and i started to shot an AVI using QCFocus. There is no point in having lots of frames since Venus shows nothing so i processed 500 frames (yes they still are a lot) and did no processing.

As always wikipedia has an article about it and here is the mythological Venus.

Starpeace event between pakistan and india

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:05:21 +0500

Society of the Sun, and Kutch Amateur Astronomy Club held a StarPeace event in SOS villages of both countries on February 9th, 2009.

KSS IYA2009 Celebration continues

Mon, 2 Mar 2009 19:43:33 +0500

Update: Due to sudden change in weather, this event will now be held on Monday 9, 2009. Same place, Same time.

Phool Nagar is about 50 Km drive from Lahore. Khwarizmi Science Society got a request from Govt. High School No.1 Phool Nagar to hold a Falakyati Mela (Astrofest) in their School, where thousands of students of their and surrounding schools, are eager to know about stars & planets in the sky and about Astronomy in general.

So we responded and on 6th of this month, KSS is going to Phool Nagar! and i will first give a basic ppt-intro about Planets and Galaxies, then after sunset i will setup my C14 and with a webcam and multimedia projectors will show them, on two huge screens, various craters of Moon, Venus and Saturn. This will be one of the most rememberable star session i have ever attended.

Clock is ticking...

Friday Stargazing session

Sun, 1 Mar 2009 19:41:42 +0500

Forecast was clear for Friday (27th February); so i invited Lahore Astronomical Society’s Members at my home in DHA. Few could make it in such a short notice but we had a Wonderful time!. People like Irshad, our ATM project manager was there as well. We were also joined by our friends in KSS, Wasif and Rafi and by Usman Anwer, who is Regional Volunteer Leader for The Pakistan Planetary Society.

Here is a detailed report from one of our most active members, Ali.

Comet Lulin ‘nears’ Planet Saturn

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:35:12 +0500

Tonight is when we can see Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) getting nearest (in our field of view) to Saturn. I just observed it and it was a small blob of light. I tried to dark-adapt my eyes for 30 minutes but no tail was visible either.

Anyway, its a nice comet and tomorrow evening, along with Lahore Astronomical Society, i will try to view it from my telescope.

Here is more about this comet.

Khwarizmi Science Society’s first FALAKYATI MELA

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:27:21 +0500

Pakistan’s most active and organized Public Science Society has a detailed plan for IYA2009. KSS joined hands with Lahore Astronomical Society on 29th January, 2009 and showed hundreds of people for the first time in their lives live views of Venus, Orion Nebula, Apollo 11 landing site and lunar craters like Hypatia, Kant, Ibn-e-Rushd, Theophilus etc. The ‘wow’ factor was amazing. I was constantly being asked about different aspects of planets and lunar history and formation. Early solar system’s history was also discussed, along with the craters formation processes and geological events that shaped our moon.

Indeed it was a fantastic experience..here is a clip from Express News Channel.

Camera updrage

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:48:51 +0500

Just got the word from SBIG that my camera has been upgraded and now it has a port (lower left) for SBIG external autoguider CCD camera. Luckily i was not charged as much as i expected earlier because it already had the latest style of circuit boards.

Hopefully, i would be able to externally guide ST9XE camera and that would enable me to use narrowband filters for extremely long exposures. Attached with Astrodon off-axis guider and SBIG AO8, it is going to be a real pain in the neck to harmonize the whole imaging system..prayers please..

Sinus Iridum - Bay of Rainbows

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:49:38 +0500

236 km wide this half filled huge crater is one of the most viewed and imaged area of the moon. See for yourself..so much beauty..waves still heading toward the bay area.

Copernicus

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:39:01 +0500

Today i spent more than 4 hours to multipoint processing (17 of them). The result is that this image has lost some of it’s earlier unnatural look. But still there is a high contrast problem; this is because i was not careful in setting the gain/brightness settings with my webcam in the first place.
On the left of copernicus, the largest of the twin crater is 12 Km wide. Counting the individual pixels in that crater, i tried to find out the size of the smallest crater in the image. The blue arrow points to a crater, roughly 1 km in diameter!

I wrote the following earlier:

Named after the Polish Astronomer, Copernicus, who is famous for heliocentric model of the Universe, this crater is also one of the most famous craters in the Moon. Having a diameter of 93 km, this gigantic crater is 3.8 km deep! Can you imagine the super-fast huge rock coming to the surface and burying so deep..

The Massive impact has made its effects on the nearby surface. This crater shows multiple rims, which are common with the big craters. On the upper left, you can see beautiful twin craters, the largest is about 12 km wide and the smaller is about 8 km. Apollo 12 got this image from the orbit and it shows these twin craters.

There are numerous smaller craters in this image, which are (i am guessing here) less than a km of diameter. I used CCD Infra-red filter for this image so that it stays more stable, hence enhancing the resolution.

Do you see a band of increasingly smaller craters on the bottom right? I wonder how this formation occurred? On its right, it also indicates a lava flow. My guess is that a small meteoroid broke into smaller fragments (remember jupiter 1995 impact) and landed side by side?

In-Orbit View

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:37:21 +0500

This is my first attempt to capture an “in-orbit” view of the moon. Ah..i would just so love to capture Mars’ or Jupiter's orbit view..if only i had a 100 meter scope!

The crater i am orbiting here is Plato, right at the bottom. I am not very happy with this image, though i did try multipoint processing.