Mobile vs CCD

  Sorry for not making the next post early. This is not going to be a new one, but a continuation to my earlier posts. Remember the time I posted Photographic Records. You will know what I mean.

The last time I shot pictures of the moon via telescope and mobile wasn't appealing due to the poor mobile camera. So I have stopped it. However, I have started  it again. This time I am doing it with my new mobile which has better resolution and sharpness. Not so appealing, but  better than the images I had taken in the past. This time I am targeting on Saturn and Jupiter using this technique. Currently I am unable get a better picture of Saturn. But I will continue to try.

  The technique may sound easy as it looks. However it takes a lot of sweat, trail  error and the right posture depending on the telescope. The posture plays an important role in reducing the difficulty faced while capturing. If your telescope does not have a strong altitude mount, you will need to make a tripod stand for your mobile phone. Secondly adjust the mobile phone as well as camera brightness to the lowest to avoid unnecessary light. A good start will be the moon as it is the most easiest to target. Full move would not reveal much details as it shines very brightly. Best time for lunar details will be from gibbous to quarter. If you are comfortable with the moon you can try it on brighter planets. 

Capturing sky objects through mobile phone from telescope isn't a great form of Astrophotography. I am doing this for the liking for the night sky and the records I store for each gaze. If you are into capturing details of planets and deep sky objects, you should by a CCD. A CCD  has a highly accurate mounting system and its ability to integrate with computers makes capturing easy.  But all goes to the saying no price, no gain.

Over the weeks I will try uploading images of moon and bright planets taken by this method. Whether appealing or not they all come from effort.

UFOs real or fiction

  Over the years there have been rumours that people have seen  strange flying objects or moving lights in the sky. Such sightings have turned out to be one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th century. UFOs spark a lot of questions regarding extra terrestial intelligence and the most important question, Are we alone?

  No one exactly knows when the first UFO was sighted. From past astronomical records UFOs may have been sighted way before 19th century.  However not all strange sightings can be regarded as UFOs. Some could have been bolites, meteoroids which burst on the lower parts of the Earths atmosphere producing a glow.

  Certain types of aircraft, especially military ones and satellites are sometimes mistaken for UFOs. So how does a real UFO look like? The most famous shape would be the disc or saucer  shape or in layman terms a flying saucer. Some UFOs are polyhedral in shape, which is an almost round shape made of polygons. These polygons are usually hexagons and pentagons.  There are other unusual shapes of UFOs that look like a beam with a head. These UFOs were classified as Big UFOs or star ships.

  Star ships are different from the ones sighted in the sky.These were sighted by telescopes pointing towards various star systems. Astoundingly a strange glowing matter was spotted moving at a few light years per second. This video by Josh Escamilla shows interesting stuffs about star ships. Is there anything out there that can travel faster than light or is it a calculation error of its location. This doubts me a lot as looking at object offsetting lights speed would mean resulting in several images to the observer. What is even astounding is that what is the big matter doing out there. For now this is not yet proven.

  What is the behavior of UFOs on Earth. Most witness claims that they hardly remain for a few minutes. They just appear and disappear in a flash. What about the Aliens? Unfortunately the aliens taken from some UFO crash sites were all hoax. So no one knows how a real alien looks like. This is an example of an dead alien recently found in a UFO crash site near Russia. It is unknown whether it is genuine or another hoax.

   Are UFOs evidence of extra terestial life or are they just illusions created by God. After all God created the Universe. No one knows what other mysteries that lie waiting to be discovered.

Video by Josh Escamilla: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnMvITk5D6c&feature=related
Alien recently found in UFO crash site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-5sZ852VYU&feature=relmfu

Its never too late to Start. But its too late to completely stop.

 Interestingly this is the first post for the year or may I say after such a long time. Reason being is that I was starting to lose interest in Astronomy ever since I have decided something promising. Ambitions do change over time but interest will remain deep inside ourselves if not disturbed by unforeseen circumstances. What made me not post anything? Simply because it is difficult  to come up with something new. Now that I have finally got back much of my liking, I will continue my Astronomical journey at times when I am free.

 Two things made me replenish my interest. The first thing was the discovery of the new solar system known as Kepler-11. It is found among the ten thousand stars between the constellation Cygnus and Lyra. A system of six major planets in which five of them lie very close to the star. What kind of atmosphere would you expect in such planets. How high will temperatures be in such a small distance away from the star. Do all solar type stars contain solar systems like ours. With such a discovery we think of plethora of questions.

 The second thing that struck me was on March 19, where moon appeared to be larger compared to its actual size when viewed from Earth. It was the day where the distance between Earth and Moon was the least after hundreds of years. I spent my night out starring at the moon. I thought of taking pictures but my camera had a poor zooming power and did not get an ideal location. Instead i am glad I saw how large the moon was than its actual size.

 Did just two things started to spin my wheel? The two events struck me the most while there are other things that brought back interest on the way.  If I was losing interest all I needed to do is to think back. The potential in us keeps getting better making it invaluable. But losing that potential may cause your hobby to be slowly forgotten. So hopefully I will come up with more new ideas on the way. Sadly there won't be much changes to the web except for facts and posts.