Mersing this Sat to Sun

Post by **acc** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:24 pm

Its that time of the month again for a weekend observing trip to Mersing. If you are driving up and have a seat or two to spare, please PM me or reply here. (The portaball is probably going to take a break this month though). There are astronomers and scopes who would love to hitch a ride there. Hitch-hikers pay toll and fuel.

cheers
cc

Post by **weixing** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:48 pm

Hi,
Be careful and clear sky for you guys!!

I'll be staying in Singapore to continue my imaging quest... hope the sky will clear up soon.

Have a nice day.

Canopus Lim · Post by **Canopus Lim** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:32 pm

I will be going on Sunday with 2 Singastro people. I intend to observe 2 nights if possible as not sure if new job I will have such time!

cataclysm · Post by **cataclysm** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 3:28 pm

Have a nice trip guys. I will be heading up Cameron Highland mid next week for sight seeing. Will check out the sky as well.

aquillae · Post by **aquillae** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:01 am

have fun

raychan · Post by **raychan** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:10 pm

Clifford told me about the Mersing trip this weekend, really wanted to join you guys as well as give a lift to those who needs a ride as I am a topo king..... Even with a GPS, I can get lost.

But, I already booked a weekend stay at Cameron with my family, so unable to follow you guys this time round.

Nevertheless, I hope you guys will have a great time in Mersing.

Post by **rcj** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 4:31 pm

Have a good and safe trip guys! Will be tired out from the 4D3N desaru trip next week. Gotta get lots of rest first.
Cheers!

Canopus Lim · Post by **Canopus Lim** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:57 am

Ok just got back from the Mersing 3D2N trip. The skies were hopeless on Sunday night and only last night we (Traveler[Weixiong], NeoTerryJoe[Teng Jie] and I), had 1.5h of clear skies. We did some observation from 10 plus till 12, and it started to drizzle so we had to rush to keep all the equipment and went home after that. Well, at least out of the 2 nights we did see some things. I manually starhopped (as I did not want to set up the Argo Navis DSC due to the intermittent clouds) and observed mainly globular clusters like M12, M13, M68, Omega...etc. I did not have much time to observe the objects as when I was about to switch eyepieces, the object gets clouded. We also did some widefield viewing of Scorpius with the Panoptic 35 and it looked nice especially the open clusters and small globs among the stars.

Weixiong and Teng Jie were more busy collimating TJ's C8 and testing out some eyepieces on Jupiter. They did see some objects on my scope.

It was very windy (last night) and the most windy condition I experienced in Mersing such that I found out today that my optics had a lot of salt on them. I would clean them later.

We stayed in Seri Malaysia Hotel. It is a decent hotel with aircon, TV (Malay channels only) and a proper toilet. Without this hotel, it would have been horrible on Sunday night. Anyway, we did a tour around Mersing town and went to Air Papan beach. This is the first time for me so on the whole this trip was ok since we did some touring. It was rather disappointing night sky. I have learnt a valuable lesson. If Singapore is overcast (not even a break in the clouds or any patches of blue sky), Mersing will also be overcast. Out of 3 trips that failed, all had overcast sky. If Singapore weather is good, Mersing weather would be better. If Singapore has showers but broken clouds, Mersing weather would probably have ok to good skies. Next time I will base my judgment on Singapore sky before going to Mersing. It was wrong to have base it on Mersing weather reports.

Anyway, Weixiong took some pictures. Maybe he had some to post.

Post by **weixing** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:25 pm

Hi,

If Singapore is overcast (not even a break in the clouds or any patches of blue sky), Mersing will also be overcast. Out of 3 trips that failed, all had overcast sky. If Singapore weather is good, Mersing weather would be better. If Singapore has showers but broken clouds, Mersing weather would probably have ok to good skies. Next time I will base my judgment on Singapore sky before going to Mersing. It was wrong to have base it on Mersing weather reports.

I don't think this is totally true... I had a few experience that even if Singapore is overcast and having thunderstorm, Mersing sky is still very good.

I think the most safe way is to look at the 24 hour weather satellite map from NEA to check the cloud cover and direction of the cloud movement. If you see a big very patch of cloud moving towards Mersing (like last few days), most likely the weather won't be good...

Anyway, I remember during one trip, the Mersing site weather was quite good even Mersing town was having a thunderstorm. So, the conclusion is: It's depend on your luck... make sure you pray very hard before you go and make sure no one is going to receive any new premium equipment or new premium mirror during that period of time... ha ha ha

Have a nice day.

Post by **acc** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:42 pm

Ya been to Mersing for many years now and found no correlation between the weather in Singapore and that in Mersing.

Just gotta go and try your luck, but it does seem that Mersing have a higher percentage of clear-skies night than in Singapore.