Jan 03 2000 - Mir arrived on
time 08:29pm and is the only bright object (-0.3). Cloudy nite.
Jan 04 - Early AM. Woke up at 4.00am. Took a peep of the sky and went back
to sleep. The hazy sky will kill any Qandratids meteors.
Jan 05 - First day of work in this brand new year.. Rain dogs and cats
in the afternoon. Another wet wet night
Jan 06 - Another wet night..Jan07 clouded out
Jan 08 - Earlier evening - slight hazy sky. Orion/
Pleaides / Hyades look great in 7x50s. Bring out the C8 and do a
quick look at M42 and video taped using Watec-902H at eye-piece projection.
Visually the M42 at eye-piece looks great. Cupping my eyes
to shield off street lights, at 25mm f/10 c8, the nebulae fill the field.
The Trapezium plainly visible. M42 looks like a butterfly or a lionfish
spreading its wings. In video however the nebulae is NOT detected
despite low lux sensitivity. While bino-sweeping at Orion Belt a satellite
were observed at 20:29:38 going in between Zeta and Epsilon moving N from
SE. Sat ID in progress. Hari Raya today. My boy call to my attention of
the cresent moon from his bed room window early in the night. All three
of us ( boy/girl) saw a bright object(Venus-like) in SSW sky around 7:30pm
~ alt 60-70 degree which last for a few minutes and gone before i can focus
my c8. I believe it is one of those weather balloon
again. Jan09 AM 1:00~ 2:00. Canis Major overhead and parts of Orion visible
from my front window. Took out my 7x50s and SkyAtlas 2000 enjoying the
M41. In the SE Vela rise.
Jan 09 - 3rd day old cresent moon in the west. Look through c8. A bright
star at 2 o'clock position moving away from the lunar edge. Sky condition
slightly worse than last nite. The 'weather' balloon is at same part of
the sky tonite. Managed to video-taped it, in video the 'drift' is visible.
Also set up C8 to look at it. With 25mm on C8 f/10, a 'double'
circles much like a dougnut. Despite my constant focus and manual
tracking, I cannot detect any sharp edges,( may be a flexible surface -
helium balloon, viewed from below resulting in the double 'rim' and it
is constantly rising). No instruments were detected. At 7:31pm at ~245
degree azmiuth it disappeared from eye-piece view. Weatherman
confirmed this is one of their hydrogen filled balloon. The given az and
alt matches reported above.
Spent the whole day trying to install QI latest version.
Jan 10-11 Rain...
Jan 12.. Cloudy Sky. There goes my chance to watch StarShine blinking away..
Jan 13 - Sky cloudy, slowly clearup? past mid-nite
Jan 14 - Early pm sky was great. Quarter moon - Jupiter - Saturn. Condition
become worse later in the night. Couldn't resist, put up my c8 (preinstalled
with Watec) and have a go on the moon and a few seconds video taping...(
really need my infra blocking filter..)
Jan 16 - Sunday, have a quick look at sun using C5/full aperture filter.
Jan 17 - Monday nite rain, rain,rain..
Jan 18 - cloudy, rain. Jan19-21.22 too. clouded out
Jan 27 - Cloudy sky
Jan 28 - Cloudy sky yet still able to view N-bound
Iridium#32 on time, flare to brighter than Sirius
for 30 s. Casio magnetic bearing indicate the correct azmuith. Earlier
PM, weather balloon in the west shined like Venus. My 3rd
sightings so far.