AstroBash!VII : Dear Jacksen

"At this point in time, I have absolutely devoted all of my available time to Astronomy 2001 Singapore. I have precious little time to observe the transition of the planets and constellations, solar and lunar, much less to photograph them for now. The solar spots have been a storm; Mars has been growing too. Soon, soon.. I'm glad to even get a few days off to go stargazing." 25 to 27 May 2001 (Gunung Ledang, Malaysia)

Dear Jacksen,

Gunung Ledang Resort's probably one of the most comfy places AstroBash was ever held at. There's a swimming pool, an air-conditioned in-house café which has local dishes like Nasi Goreng to Fish'n'Chips. A huge helicopter landing area / carpark, which served as our observation grounds at night. A few steps away, a nature trail and waterfalls.

Day 1 was the usual ice-breakers though I must say the Organizing Committee has gotten *very* creative this time.. I don't remember the last time I had so much fun breaking anything. In particular was this weird treasure hunt of sorts. They wanted stuff like 2 slugs, 2 dead-or-alive mosquitoes, 7 bites per group, and the darnest thing was, I couldn't find a single mosquito carcass.

The food was excellent, the servings were most generous.. I should be raving about the service.. I haven't been to an AB party where in the middle of an observation at 10.30pm, I could just stroll out a few steps to the café and order a nice cup of hot chocolate.. *sigh!*

The first night was pleasant. After a buffet dinner, we saw Alpha and Beta Centauri in Centaurus with Crux, twinkling merrily towards the south-west side. A hint of things to come. It was still a little wispy with clouds, but the skies cleared up an hour later. The Comm brought out the C 5 and C 8 scopes and we were soon ferreting the night sky.

Constellation-wise, Sagittarius and Scorpius were overhead by midnight. The Big Dipper (Ursa Major) to the north. Near Antares in Scorpius, the planet Mars. A little further out north, two other brighter stars, Arcturus in Bootes and Spica in Virgo; Leo sliding down to sleep in the west. The summer triangle of stars Altair in Aquila, Vega in Lyra, and Deneb in Cygnus, were beginning to rise. The water signs of Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces followed alongside.

There was a little debate going on about "who" was redder. Apparently, we had 3 persons in the group with e-mails or ICQ nicknames related to Mars, Arcturus and Antares. Heck, they all looked about the same to me, Arcturus a little fainter than the orangey Antares, but Mars wins without contest.

The first object to find was Mars. The C 8's collimation was a little off, so the image was slightly blurred. I could still see some dark markings on Mars with a slight touch of white caps at the polar regions. We managed a glimpse at the Omega Centauri cluster before it set. A delectable glob of stars, one of the finest in the sky. The open clusters M6 & M7 in Scorpius, oh.. and we saw M17's Swan nebula.

With the groundsheets out, we took a couple of pillows from the room and simply relaxed under the stars. The helicopter pad was a clean concrete area, and best of all, insect-free! The resort manager kindly turned out all the lights after 12. A few shooting stars threw themselves randomly across the night.

Most of the group had retired by 2am in anticipation of the next day's climb up Mt. Ophir. For those who had stayed up the whole of the first night, Jeannie, Qihui, Peiying, Caiping, Juncai and myself (from Room 106), Choon Guan and 2 others, we got the see the Milky Way from Scorpius to Cygnus.. the most beautiful stretch of stars forming the summer Milky Way.

The rest of us cleared out at 5am.. which also meant we could barely wake up at 9am to set out for the climb. We would soon find ourselves in the midst of an adventure because of this. The first group had set out by 9.30am.. Qihui, Juncai and Jeannie were keen on the climb but decided on breakfast prior. Peiying, Caiping and I joined them for a short hike up to the first set of waterfalls before we parted ways. The 3 of us returned to the resort whilst the 3 of them continued their climb.

Day 2 was mainly hanging out by the nearby stream, and playing ball with Serena, her 2 friends, Caiping, and Celeste, in the pool till evening when the next batch of folks who would take the van up Mt. Ophir and meet the first group there with packets of dinner. Two of us remained, and I jumped right back into the pool.

We went out for dinner and returned by 9pm, which was the beginning of a huge drama. Jeannie, Qihui, and Juncai, never did rendezvoused with the first group. With all the wild speculations that flew around about their getting lost, starving, falling off some cliff, in all a lot of worries and concerns.

There was simply no news of them, and the park rangers would not conduct a search and rescue until morning light, assuming they had gotten lost on the wrong side of the trail which they claimed was a treacherous one.

Another trekker overheard and apparently encountered them on the right trail which brought some sighs of relief. From now, it was a waiting game of when Jeannie would use her mobile to call me, since none of us could get a signal to her phone. I tell you, only Singaporeans would think to trek forests carrying such technology.

The second night continued in uncertain spirit.. many were now too tired to stay up and returned to sleep by 2am. I hung out with Vincent till maybe 3am whereupon a shower of rain sent me back to the room.

6am, my phone rang.. Jeannie!! Everyone was fine, they had survived the night and even made it to the top of Mt. Ophir. A happy group finally relaxed as we sent a van to collect them and their jungle escapade back to the resort. They arrived safe, sound, full of high spirits, scuffed and lots of dirt.

Guess you can get the full story from one of them. Too bad you couldn't make this trip. You'd have enjoyed it. I think there's a videotape somewhere on this AB.

:) Later,, Lin

By Lin . 30th May 2001, Wednesday.
For NUSAS Étoile publication Sept 2001.

Camp Polaris & Camp Vega

"SkySensor units on both sides, we pretty much covered the entire universe that night. It made the stars so accessible to the campers. Star clusters were plentiful, as were the number of galaxies. Faint structures could be discerned to the keener eyes, and with seasoned averted visions. The good news then was that some of them managed to finally see M104 in Corvus." 

Camp Polaris: 14-16 March 2001 (Tebing Tinggi, Malaysia)

14th March, Wednesday. 5 am. Organization fear. Logistical nightmare. Bad weather. Murphy's Law. Malaysian customs had changed their declaration form for the fifth time on 9th March. More than enough to keep me up thinking of what else might go wrong. By the time I got to sleep, it was about time to leave for the station.

7.40am : Everyone's ready and waiting at the Tanjong Pagar Station. There would be 9 of us from Singapore. As it turns out, while March might be one of the best times to go stellar hunting, many students had to return to their college mid-term exams after the holiday week. Bummer.

These are the braver ones who would choose the stars over their exams.

Customs check. I had suffocated my GP-D mount under a deliberate artful mess of clothes in my backpack; WYO scope on one hand, the Vixen HAL tripod in another. As I expected, I got detained while the officials checked out the FluoroStar. They had their suspicions that it was a telescope capable of far more than just a mere telephotographing. Fortunately, I had pasted a huge Canon sticker over the aluminium case, and a smaller Canon Sticker over the WYO logo on the FluoroStar. They checked if the brand was non-dutiable before releasing me.

Back to the group. It wasn't long before they got comfortable with each other card-playing "tai di" & bridge. Being their first train ride, there were a couple of pointers they weren't aware of. One was the customs check protocol of "Quick = No Need to Wait in Queue." The other was the alighting procedure upon reaching destination Segamat. I was fraught with anxiety that one of them might just get left behind on the train.

12.15pm Segamat. There was a slight delay at the tracks. We were met at the station by Vincent. Two taxis were catered for the transfer to Felcra. Upon arrival, we checked in to rooms 217, 219 & 221 on the third floor. Lunch was a little late at 2pm. Free time. I dropped into bed after making sure that everyone was fine and settled.

Being a small group gave us the luxury of deciding when we would like to do what. We didn't exactly follow the planned schedule. Turned out that a couple of us (me included) were in need of afternoon naps. But in the spirit of astronomy, we were all up at 6.30pm for an introductory course in star-hopping and constellation mapping.

8pm, a slight drizzle but nothing more damaging. Venus hung low in the West sky. Jupiter and Saturn are still in Taurus. Orion was overhead. Mr Au arrived from Singapore to join us. Mr Au and I set up our equipment on the main carpark and pretty much stayed there for the night.

We had our dinner at 9pm. At about 9.30pm, a group of 8 arrived from the Segamat Teochew Association to join us for a few hours of observation. The first night was pretty relaxed. A couple of low clouds flitting in between the stars. Mr Au had plenty of stories to share with everyone.

We had a glimpse of Jupiter and Saturn. M42 Nebula in Orion. M45 Pleiades in Taurus. NGC 2237 Rosette. NGC 2264 Christmas Tree cluster. Etc. Our first night was pretty much free & easy. We hopped around to any objects that came to our minds.

M104 Sombrero Galaxy near Corvus. One of Mr Au's personal favourites. There was a thin layer of atmospheric obstruction. We took turns to search out the object. It wasn't easy. Finally after 30 minutes of sheer eye strain from both of us, I spotted the ghostly glow emanating from the dark central lane. Very NICE! To think that it was there all this time, and we just couldn't figure out why we weren't seeing it. Light pollution was very mild, I would hazard a guess about atmospheric clarity for the difficulty in seeing M104. Lijie and Xiaoqi tried really hard to glimpse this elusive galaxy. Their attempts were swathed by thin cloud layers, unfortunately decreasing overall brightness of the low magnitude object.

15th March, Thursday

2am, clouds had fogged out the stars. The Moon was out, diffusing its light from behind the clouds. We called it a night. Most of them were already off to dreamland. But not bad for their first night under the stars.

7am, the campers were up and ready for breakfast. This was the first in a series of 6 meals (7am, 10am, 1pm, 3.30pm, 7pm, 10pm). *lol!* I think there was general fear of more food today. After breakfast, we dropped back into bed, waking up to lunch at about 1.45pm. After lunch, we dropped back into bed, lazing around so to speak. An hour later, we congregated comfortably in one dorm to expound some ideas and concepts on astronomy.

7pm, dinner, and a session on observation planning before starting out tonight. This being our last night, we had minimum time to do maximum cosmic hunting. Each of us took on at least one constellation, combing out all the NGC-IC-M objects. The list is impressive. Now the hunt begins.

9pm, we were joined by two teachers who had heard about our session at Felcra. Vincent had drove up with his SkySensor unit and scope. Thin clouds soon dispersed, unveiling a nice canopy of stars which became loads clearer when we switched off all the lights at Felcra. 3-point alignments and we were zooming in on stellar treasure troves.

:) SkySensor units on both sides, we pretty much covered the entire universe that night. It made the stars so accessible to the campers. Star clusters were plentiful, as were the number of galaxies. Faint structures could be discerned to the keener eyes, and with seasoned averted visions. The good news then was that some of them managed to finally see M104 in Corvus. I was personally having a field day (night). It was hard not to appreciate the clear skies that we had at Felcra, even if the waning quarter Moon did wash out a lot of the skies after it rose at 1am.

We panned across the lunar surface, crater hunting. The features were sharp, shadows drew long over the lunar mountains into the valleys. A couple of Felcra management trainees joined us then. The Moon was fascinating to say the least.

But the best is yet to come. That also meant that Mars was out. At 150x, it resolved nicely into a faint orange globe with a prominent white polar cap on the southern end. It wasn't a uniform sort of orange, there were some slightly darker markings. I'm wishing now that I'd logged in more time to observe this planet.

3.30am, after all that cruising around the universe, the battery finally ran out. I'm personally quite satisfied at the amount of objects that we'd managed to clock together. I'm just thankful there was no serious cloud injury to the second night's observation.

Thanks for the espirit de camp, everyone! I had a really nice time. I'm really appreciative of the help that everyone offered. The Camp would not have been what it is, had you all been too reserved. Glad that none of you are too coy or shy to get a little crazy down at Camp. :)

Special thanks to Mr Au, Vincent and Sua for dropping by.

By Lin . 20th March 2001, Tuesday.



Camp Vega: 19-21 June 2001 (Gunung Ledang, Malaysia)

The second off-island camp in the spirit of Astronomy 2001. This time we had the stars in our hands. The binocular views of the universe were spectacular.

19th June, Tuesday
I could rest a little easier this time. One bag, a pair of binoculars, my faithful atlas, a change of clothes. *sigh..* The luxury of travel without the astronomical package.  The day progressed smoothly enough. A long lunch, a short hike up the waterfalls, a little nap, a big dinner.

The first night was pleasant. We saw Alpha and Beta Centauri in Centaurus with Crux, twinkling merrily towards the south-west side. A hint of things to come. Constellation-wise, Sagittarius and Scorpius were overhead by midnight. The Big Dipper (Ursa Major) to the north. Near Antares in Scorpius, the planet Mars. A little further out north, two other brighter stars, Arcturus in Bootes and Spica in Virgo; Leo sliding down to sleep in the west. The summer triangle of stars Altair in Aquila, Vega in Lyra, and Deneb in Cygnus, were beginning to rise. The water signs of Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces followed alongside. We managed a glimpse at the Omega Centauri cluster before it set. A delectable glob of stars, one of the finest in the sky. The open clusters M6 & M7 in Scorpius, and we saw M17's Swan nebula.

19th night to 20th morning
4 am, going on 5..
By Lin . 25th June 2001, Monday.

Starlit Night

"Waait a minute.. *Ohmigosh!!* Is that the Coalsack??!! Seriously! We're actually looking at the Coalsack patch in Crux! We can actually SEE that?!" 4-5 March 2000 (Mersing, Malaysia)

4th March, Saturday, 8am. I'm still having some reservations about going on this trip. Yes, I made a choice to go on this trip based on instinct. Truth be told, I was expected to be carrying out a work responsibility somewhere else at 11am. And yes, my conscience is stabbing me right now for trading in my work commitments for this trip. 10am, we boarded the express bus to Mersing; I guess there's no turning back now, I'll have to cancel. Excuses run through my head. Thankfully, I have a pretty good track record, so I guess I could mess this one up. How can anyone else understand how important the new moon is to me? (Sounds too much like a cult thing. *sheesh*) 10.45am, we're queuing up at the Immigration checkpoint. The phone dials.. "Ahem.. (I mask my voice with a sickly rasp.) Sorry, but I'm not feeling too well today, I need to postpone today's appointment. I'll see you on Monday. Thanks." Guilty, guilty, guilty! :)

Surprisingly, we sailed through the customs checkpoint. A valid note for worry as this was no petty equipment. It was quite a chore to drag the equipment on and off the bus and fret about the customs officer's moods. But once we passed this check, the rest of the journey would completed in mental peace.

We hit Mersing town by 2pm and hung around the KFC outlet making last-minute preparations. By 5pm, we reached Tanjung Resang. The place looked as picturesque as before. We came early enough today to do some exploring. A cattle herd of 16 grazed the nearby area. One mad cow with horns would be sufficient to take down the Losmandy G11 and its attachments. We prayed for the cows would go home when the sun set, and graciously they did.

Just to the Northeast side of this place was a delightful stretch of sand and sea. I had always thought this was a deserted place, roamed by few, sauf the German(?) guy who lived there in a stilt house. A little walk around the area revealed several other stilt houses, and a semi-resort located by the bay inlet. There was a canoeing expedition group who had just arrived at the beach cove. In addition to the cattle, a flock of sheep was spotted grazing the grassy patch of land seperating the South China Sea from the cove area.

Returned to camp just in time for sunset. A beautiful vermillion orb sinking westwards slowly behind the shadows of the coconut trees. The hunt had begun for the first star of the night.. erm, hang on.. what first star?! We got 5 bright ones right now, and more are appearing by the minute! Jupiter, Sirius, Rigel, Saturn, Capella, and on and on.

The very moment we spotted enough stars in the sky, and figured that it was sufficiently dark, we proceeded onto photography. The first region: Orion, of special interest tonight, the Rosette nebula and M42 and M43. Come to think of it, the entire sky was about flooded with stars, but we had to work with the ones which were setting soon.

Unbelievable! Almost no clouds, just a few little puffs now and then in the lowest stratosphere. This was to be the case for the whole night. But these were strange clouds; None were reflecting light from the nearby resorts. The cloudy puffs were darker than the starlit skies. We only know they are passing by when the stars slowly polarize out of our sight. They were almost like some kind of light-absorbing dark matter. Interesting.

While Remus and I were absorbed in astrophotography, Gavin had located a couple of Messier objects. What excited Gavin most was his first glimpse at the Milky Way next to the Orion and Canis Major region. The faintest region of our galaxy. It can be quite an amazing sight for any city astronomer.

Almost perfect conditions for photography work too. Few clouds, slight wind, and NO DEW from dusk to dawn. Everything stayed dry. It wasn't even cold. The only inconvenience was the biting insects which managed to attack the flesh through our clothes. Occasionally, a passing motorist would temporarily flash us. :) The road was pretty close by. Busy night for aeroplanes too as they zipped around. Unusual though that we could not see the floodlit path of the planes, only their blinking red signature.

There were sporadic meteors abound too. We caught a couple of small ones and a few more with longer trails. They had no specific point of origin. The Milky Way was unfolding magnificently. From The region of Auriga (am I dreaming??) to Monoceros, just past Canis Major and Puppis. The Carina region was about rising and Eta Carina was a patchy sight.

The guys fell asleep just before midnight, leaving me to my own devices. While the guys napped, I borrowed Gavin's binocs and went on a Messier hunt of my own. The binocular stellar views were spectacular and the Messier objects were just waiting to be found. Even with the naked eye, I could make out several fuzzy patches of something or another.

2.15am, the first battery for the G11 was exhausted. Gavin and Remus were starting to stir. Centaurus was up, Crux was on the distant horizon, and Antares (Scorpius) had risen too. The Milky Way continued its glorious path across Vela and Carina, through Crux. Waait a minute.. *Ohmigosh!!* Is that the Coalsack??!! Seriously! We're actually looking at the Coalsack patch in Crux! We can actually SEE that?! That's a first for all three of us and how are we ever going to be satisfied with just city skies from now? Unbelievable.

Sagittarius and Scorpius wove their way into the starry tapestry continuing the Milky Way mosaic. Soon (or so it seemed) the skies were gently paleing; Is it morning already? *Sigh!* Truly one starlit night to remember.

By Lin . 8th March 2000, Wednesday.

AstroBASH!III : the NUSAS Star Party

"This was our third star party and first overland trip to Tanjung Sedili - a rustic getaway lazing on the east coast of Malaysia. 21 amateur astronomers, amateur *city* astronomers, most of whom are about to be initiated into the physical world which inspired the mappers of the URANOMETRIA. With open skies to North and East, and little city glare, the chances of having good stargazing settings were high." 14-16 June 1999  (Sedili, Malaysia)

It was everything I had hoped for.. except for the black sand, which wasn't really "black sand" but pristine sand which had been polluted by I-have-no-idea-what. Pity. There were subtle hints that the place could have been a really beautiful white beach. But that's not what this article is about.

It's suppose to be about dark nights, great skies, many suns, zero Moon, and the only cloud-like thing that won't be cursed at is the Milky Way. Of course, no significant details shall be mentioned about insects. The fireflies were lovely. I think they were the only ones that flew around and DIDN'T bite.

In fact, I'll say the whole trip was great. Two glorious starry nights are worth the zombie-fied state that followed the time after dawn.

[14th / 15th night]

It was still heavily overcast at dinnertime and hopes of prospecting for stars that first night appeared bleak. A picture-perfect sunset awashed with a thousand hues appeared with the sea mirroring in kind. The clouds eventually dispersed at 8pm. Other than the occasional cirrocumulus, the night was otherwise excellent. The Big Dipper, just above the eastern sea, was the first constellation to greet the observation site that was located on a bay. Attention was given to Mizar, a visible double star system in Ursa Major. To the west, Leo was readily visible with Regulus twinkling brightly. Draco, Aquila, Cygnus, Lyra, Pisces, Aquarius, among other constellations, slowly made their way across the east side.

The Milky Way, which many mistook for a wisp of cloud, became clearer as the night wore on. Conditions improved greatly at around 3am when the hazy band stretched across the zenith. It poured out from Sagittarius' teapot, with Scorpius' tail dipping in, and Cygnus careening over its surface. Scorpius was strutting around gloriously. Antares, the heart of Scorpius, and the red rival to Mars (which was close to Spica in Virgo), was bloody brilliant. The M7 open cluster and NGC 6231 were discernible. M7 looked good through a pair of 7x50 binoculars. The hunt continued for star clusters and distant galaxies.

As the stars saturated the night, they overwhelmed the novices who had a challenging time figuring out the various constellations and asterisms. Someone in his stellar confusion, thought he had seen Orion, oblivious to the fact that Orion was on his personal June vacation from the night. Light sabres cut through the night as bright and focused torchlights were used to help these budding stargazers scan the myriad of stars and guide them around the star-speckled neighbourhood. Human ingenuity never fails in confusion. Soon, one of them discovered that myopic stargazers could simply remove the glasses they are wearing. A pair of unaided myopic eyes acts as a crude filter that allows only objects brighter than magnitude 0.0 to be visible. Known unofficially as "Kelvin's Zero Magnitude Filter", it proved to be a big help to many novice stargazers. (Kelvin was our cameraman for the trip.)

Other miscellaneous objects in the night sky included artificial satellites and meteors. The brighter satellites observed that evening numbered around four. While many were delighted to see these man-made shooting star wonders, meteors drew an even warmer response when spotted. At around 5am, The stars looked even brighter and many other stars that were previously too dim now appeared. By this time, Jupiter and Saturn have risen. It was a good chance to observe Saturn as the light polluted skies of Singapore mars most planetary details. Through a 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain, Saturn looked like (quote) "a yellow squashed hamburger", an apt description which many identified with. Over at Jupiter's, two of the Galilean moons were visible, together with the two brown bands on Jupiter.

The sun rose from behind the hills at around 6.30am. It showed itself bit by bit, against a background of orange, yellow and red formed by the clouds. The sun first revealed a little edge, then a bigger fragment, which grew into a semicircle. Eventually, the sun was totally visible. The clouds became a kaleidoscope of colours, changing with each moment as Helios awoke and continued on his path across the sky. Those who were patient enough to delay bedtime by an hour to catch the sunrise were justly rewarded. By this time, the sea had receded about 500 metres from shore, and one could literally walk across the seabed.

[15th / 16th night]

The second night was dedicated to astrophotography. The southern skies looked better this evening, with Crux and Ursa Major vying for attention. Unlike Singapore skies where only Alpha and Beta Centauri are visible, the whole shape of Chiron the Centaur could be made out clearly. Through a pair of binoculars, the Jewel Box in Crux enchanted many. The Ring, Swan and Dumbbell nebulae were also observed through the telescopes, much to the delight of many who saw them for the first time. The Ring nebula was a fuzzy patch with a pinhole-like opening which require the viewer to be visually gifted in order to glimpse it. Most could not quite see the pinhole in the nebulae. The Swan nebula was even more demanding on one's imagination to visualise a bird out of a fuzzy patch. The Dumbbell nebula looked more like an apple eaten to its core, than a gym apparatus.

Just when everyone thought the second night was better then the first, dark clouds suddenly marched across the sky, snuffing out all celestial bodies in its wake. All equipment was swiftly moved into shelter for fear of rain. For most, the second stargazing session had ended. Some of the more enthusiastic ones remained under the sky, hoping that it would clear. Though shorter than the first, the second session was still quite an eyeful.

By Lin . 25th June 1999, Friday.