M13 - The Hercules Globular Cluster

M13 - The Hercules Globular Cluster
First Attempt..

Object Name	Globular Cluster M13 (NGC 6205)
Constellation	Hercules
Right Ascension	3:18 (h:m)
Declination	+36 : 28 (deg:m)
Distance	25.1 (kly)
Visual Brightness	5.8 (mag)
Apparent Dimension	20.0 (arc min)

Image Details: 39 Stacked Frame, total 10 minutes, mixture of ISO 400,800 and 1600 Telescope: 5" Voyager Refractor Camera Canon EOS1000D

Well, this is my first ever astro-photography achievement, its actually the first deep sky object i target.
I had to select a target my self that would yield encouraging results that would push me forward with less frustration. Generally Globular clusters makes good target.
I didn't see the M13 in the telescope, i only had to perfectly align the telescope coordinates and circle and hope i was in the correct place, the first image yielded that am at the right inch. Centered the object and started the series of shots.

Messier 13 (M13, NGC 6205), also called the 'Great globular cluster in Hercules', is one of the most prominent and best known globulars of the Northern celestial hemisphere.

It was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, who noted that 'it shows itself to the naked eye when the sky is serene and the Moon absent.

At its distance of 25,100 light years, its angular diameter of 20' corresponds to a linear 145 light years - visually, it is perhaps 13' large. It contains several 100,000 stars; possibly a million. Towards its center, stars are about 500 times more concentrated than in the solar neighborhood. The age of M13 has been determined by Sandage as 24 billion years!!

Observers note 4 apparently star-poor regions in M13 (e.g., Mallas). Suggestions of them can be noted in some photos.

Globular cluster M13 was selected in 1974 as target for one of the first radio messages addressed to possible extra-terrestrial intelligent races, and sent by the big radio telescope of the Arecibo Observatory.

Nearby, about 40 arc minutes north-east of M13, is the faint (mag 11) galaxy NGC 6207, This galaxy has recently produced a type II supernova (SN 2004A)!!

I hope i can give it couple of other shots to refine the quality, since this is the first attempt.

Wadi Degla Hiking trip

So, yes i had time to take a break, it was a nice one, missed the family really : )
FeshFesh, Fady and Auk managed to joined and it was really nice having them in the hike...
The Hike was for a total 15KM in the bottom of the Degla river... this site is amazing, it has been there for possibly million of years.
Here is the hike map.

Its full of sea fossils that have been here for millions of years, sea shells and petrified wood.

We started the hike at like 5 PM at K0, we had to walk for like 13KM till 10 pm night, when we camped at the end of the river bed, at the very end where the river just became very narrow, only fit one person at a time. this was the waterfall that feed the river bed. It turns out that the bed was fed by a larger river through this crack in the bed creating the water fall.
let the picture talk ....

We camped at night there and made dinner, nothing fancy grilled burger and sausages.. but it was better than anything you can order....

We just slept only using sleeping bags and the nice thig that it rained!!! yes its June in Cairo and it rained..... not to mention the nagging foxes running around.. it was a horrible night for me... for FeshFeshAuk and Fady they where like dead......
to be continued... : )

Yeaaaaaahhh, Finally back

cant believe this has been over a year without posting here.... what a lazy person... it was really hard getting some time to write down anything, actually its now even harder to find a split second to do any extra thing... will try my best..... should have bazillion things to talk about....

It's Time for a full Lunar Eclispe - Updated

At last we are having one Full Lunar Eclipse observable from Egypt : )

Guys, the eclipse was seen here in Cairo from start till end.
It started at the very early hours on the 21st Feb. 2008.
The Partial Eclipse started 3:43am and ended 7:09am
The Total Eclipse started 5:01 and ended 5:51
My observation location was (30-07-N) (31-21-E) and the temperature was almost freezing. I spent like 5 hours in total freeze, but it was fun, though.
I was using my Sony Digital Camera with my Reflector Meade telescope 4.5''. I had a second digital camera that was supposed to take extremely nice shots, but i couldn't find the power charger and it went off before starting.... very bad.
The eclipse coverage was as below:


For those who still need to know how the eclipse happens, take a look here:



Now for the fun part, find below the Copy Righted images i took. they aren't so much but nice.

This is Before the Eclipse starts:

This is a multiple exposure image for the first 2/3 of the Lunar Eclipse:

This is a short video for the first 2/3 of the Lunar Eclipse at high speed:

Guyz, the images are copy righted :) ... i didn't stay 5 hours freezing my toes to death to take a the pictures for someone to copy it somewhere else... : )))

I would greatly appreciate your comments :)))

Do Managers really have to be totally insane or hilariously smart???

There should be a pattern... Don't tell me this is total coincidence!!
Its either the skill is attracted to such wonderful job, or the job really deserves such a skill??!!!
am confused who's first? the chicken or the Egg?
or may be it is the one who is being managed??
People above you in the corporate hierarchy tend to exhibit some unexplainable and abnormal way of thinking and analyzing. certainly this id due to the huge responsibility they hold....

No no really, why do i have to deal with the most bizarre managers in Egypt ????

I have worked under managers, who tend to look very experienced and honestly very knowledgeable, but on the other hand they are very very mean and wicked.... So it is either you play it naively and say "Yess, Masterrr..." and work for his hidden filthy agenda OR you just confront him and WAR it is.. :)

I have also worked with totally unexperienced managers who think that experience is meaningless, it is intelligence and smartness the keys to business success. Well, i said may be thats true.... am still young and sure there are allot of successful business schools.
Common sense told me this is defiantly not going to work... the Smart innovative way didn't work out. For my surprise, i was told by colleagues that they also concluded the same thing, when they were shocked with an intense pulse of innovative business project...

"for the sake of larger sales numbers we will bundle our Antivirus with Coke cans in super markets"

What the &^#$%!(&$ ?????

now, with a third managers type...... this one is really cool. it is a hybrid type of both the above types. it is the Wicked Mean unexperienced manager..................???
That is a rare Gene, but it does exist.... and this one is very fun to work with..... I dont know if i have met such a type or not but defiantly i will soon.
Imaging a manger acting very mean and on the same time very unexperienced with business... imagine how hilarious is that????


Why is only good managers are the ones we learn about in MBA books ??? mmm not really some does really exist in our world, i guess i have meet some in this world.....yes the world of Corporate Slavery......

Sci-Fi Brain Storming

Long time ago, it was me and my dear FeshFesh thought of one hell of a Sci-Fi project, that never saw light, may be a little. The first step was to choose some Sci-Fi topic and generate some fictitious story and a plot for a 6-Million dollar trilogy novel....... duuhhhhh. the cool thing was that it was based on some wacky science idea that would totally shock you..... not really, it was just yet poor :)
any way one step back we had the below list of topics that we had to choose from....

• Cloning
• Alines - Area 51
• Will we make contact? or did we already!
• Asteriod hitting the Earth?
• 01+01 = 10 ! How come!! (how do computers do what they do!)
• Living on MARS! (or manned Space mission )
• The 10 Most Famous Conspirecies!
• Echelon
• The Matrix: An Indepth look at the Religious, Secientific and philosophical asspects)
• Time Travel / Time Machine
• Prallele universe
• Global Warming
• Crops Circles
• Bermuda Triangle
• Planet X
• Biogeometry
• How big is the universe?
• Atlantis - The lost civilization

Surprisingly the topic we came up with was not on this list..... am just mentioning the list to kick some power into FeshFesh memory........
Any ideas ????

Till i remember the exact plot : ) the Novel was to be called "..... wait, thats not logical to publish the name and the plot of the novel here, FeshFesh lets take this offline for a while.....

Tell then, what do you think of the abov list????

My Ultimately New Nissan TIIDA

Well, surprisingly my first day to Blog is the same first day to drive my new Nissan TIIDA.
Please, do not tell me what is the relationship, but it is considerably very rare to experience two new things at the same day.
Never thought of writing about my car but i really like it, nice to have a noise-less 1.6 engine with so much horsepower under your feet.....
Not to mention that the seventy-something-kilometer-daily-work-drive needs something leathery and comfy so that you don't reach work with a pain in your neck and a cramp at your feet :))
They told us IBM is nice, yes in a relative universe. but in Nasr city universe it is PAIN, with a big I.

Hope the new car will ease the terrible trip :)