Happy Mid Autumn Festival.  :D  How much moon cake have you eaten this year?

This year, the Mid Autumn Festival celebrated by Chinese (15th of 8th Month in Chinese Calendar) is special because of the following:

1.  It was really on “mid-autumn” astronomically because it falls on the equinox (22 Sept).
2.  Jupiter is having “jupiter opposition”, and very close to Earth (happens every 11 years but not necessary on equinox or mid autumn festival).
3.  There was a moon halo on 21 Sept night.

Thanks to my cousin and Wilson who told me about the moon halo.

14th Moon on 21 Sept 2010.

15th Moon on 22 Sept 2010.

Moon and Jupiter.

Astronomy chart shows that actually Uranus is very near to Jupiter, but we can hardly see it because of the light pollution in the city.

The magnitude of objects in the sky:
Moon -12.13
Jupiter -2.9
Uranus 5.8
Neptune 5.08

Neptune is also not far away on the East, but is also hardly seen here with naked eyes.

The 7th month in the Chinese Calendar is usually known as the ghost month by most Chinese who have traditional believes that the ghosts were coming out to the human world for the whole month.  Many people are scared about it, and the main praying ceremony is usually in the middle of the 7th month.

As I know some places has big ceremony on the 14th day, but in Kuching, Chinese held it on the 15th of 7th month.  Here, starting from the 1st of the 7th Chinese month, we can also see many little flags for the ghost which are placed beside the roads, and many Chinese start burning paper money for the ghost.

I have taken the full moon pictures above on the 15th day of 7th month (about 2 weeks ago).  On that day, the moon was in light orange, and I found an angle where I could use the tree as the foreground and moon as the background.  I was inspired by a photo where a plane is flying across the moon.  If you know photography well, you will know that this type of photo can only produce by long focal lense (at least 300mm  above).

The ghost month has just gone, it also means that the mid-autumn festival (or also know as moon cake festival) is coming soon.  The 15th of the 8th Chinese month is a day for kids to play lanterns and for adults to have gatherings, enjoy the moon cake, watching the moon and have a romantic night with beautiful poems.  What a big contrast with the 7th month - the ghost month.

Related posts:

1.  Full Moon with details.
2.  Half Moon with details.
3.  New Moon with details.
4.  Moon Cake Festival 2009.
5.  My Old Electrical Lantern.
6.  Koala Bear Moon Cake.

f/5, 15 sec, ISO 80, focal length: 45mm (approx. 252mm on 35mm equivalent), cropped, increased contrast.

The detail astronomy data of the photo above is as below:-
Time taken: 2010-08-11 20:43:36
Location: Kuching, Malaysia
Direction: West
Apparent Magnitude:-
1.  Venus: -3.4
2.  Mars: 1.5
3.  Saturn: 1.2
4.  Eta Virginis: 3.89

This is the first time I have ever taken pictures of the small objects in the night sky.  My other experiences are the moon, sunrise and sunset.

Last week, after I read a news from the newspaper about the 3 planets (Venus, Mars and Saturn) appearing very near to each other, I decided to take their photos and at the same time to test the capability of my camera.  I have waited for 3 days because it kept on raining.  Finally I got a chance to have a clear sky last Wednesday evening although the light pollution around me was heavy.

Since I used low ISO to reduce noise, I had to increase the shutter time, therefore I used 15 seconds to take the photo of the planets.

Well, you’ll never know something when you have never tried it.  There are 2 things that surprised me:-
1.  15 seconds of shutter speed is already enough for the planet to move and left a line on the photos.
2.  The camera can see more stars than the human’s eyes.

The question mark on the photo above is the star that I did not notice until I view it through my computer (zoomed).  Later I checked and knew that it is called Eta Virginis or traditional name called Zaniah , one of the stars in Virgo Constellation.  It has apparent magnitude of 3.89, which means it is supposed to be visible but I could not see it with my eyes because of the light pollution.

As you may know,  the brightness of a star as seen by an observer on Earth can be measured in apparent magnitude.  The smaller the number means the brighter a star is and vice versa.  The sun has apparent magnitude of -26.74, where as the limit of our naked eyes can see the darkest star of apparent magnitude 6.  With the help of optical or radio telescope, human beings are able to find the stars with high apparent magnitude up 30+.

f/4.4, 1/8 sec, ISO 800, focal length: 86mm(approx. 486mm on 35mm equivalent), heavily cropped, increased contrast.

My brother also joined my photo sessions of the planets, he took the photo above, and told me that there is something inside the Venus.  The noise is high, and I guess it might be out of focus.

We spent more than half an hour until the planets set into the building (instead of the Western horizon) because some buildings blocked the planets and stars.

Next, we pointed our camera randomly into the sky.  Long time exposure gave us the following effect.  Don’t be mistaken, they are not meteors.

Looking at the lines, I can feel that our Earth is moving all the time.

f/4.4, 60 sec, ISO 400, focal length: 86mm (approx. 486mm on 35mm equivalent), auto level.

f/4.4, 60 sec, ISO 400, focal length: 86mm (approx. 486mm on 35mm equivalent), auto level.

I have learned some theory part of astronomy and astronomy photography, but reading from books or webpages both give me different experiences.  I have never known that within 15 seconds, the stars have already moved silently across the sky but we didn’t feel it.

The darker lines on the photo above are the darker stars, I have never thought that there are so many stars in a small area of the sky.  With my eyes, I can only see 3 or 4 of them.

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I have seen the Milky Way with my naked eyes, have you?
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Milky way is the galaxy where our solar system is located.  From other galaxy it looks spiral, but we cannot find it in spiral shape because we are in one of the Milky Way galaxy’s arm.  I believe many people in the cities are unable to see the milky way.

Years ago, I saw it with my own eyes in Toowoomba, Australia.  It was a moonless midnight when the street lights were off.  I looked at the sky and found that there was a huge bright collections of dots  and random shapes of cloud formed a wide belt across the sky from the east to the west (Ecliptic path).  I was amazed because I have never seen it before in Malaysia.  And at that time, I didn’t even know that it is one of the arm of the Milky Way.  Later, I asked a friend from China who knows more about astronomy and she told me that it is the milky way.  And I confirmed that after I found the pictures from the Internet.

These few years, we went to the other part of Australia - Perth, but I did not see the Milky Way again because of the cloudy weather.  The Milky Ways is always above our heads, we can see either the inner arm or the outer arm at a time, but our Earth atmosphere does not always allow us to see it.

In Chinese, Milky Way has a beautiful name called- “YinHe” (means Silvery River).

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Wish List:-
1.   See the Milky Way on the sky again (not from books or Internet).
2.   Have a telescope that can connect to my camera.