Alright, this is for sharing of your observation experience. Or, if you are arranging gatherings, star-gazing expeditions or just want some company to go observing together, you can shout it out here.
wow gavin
You really brought back memories of those nice obs reports people here used to write! And to think you actually drove there finally!
The place has no jams and only 2 hours away...looks great. Too bad I can't join you. I am pretty sure you will be uploading directions, gps coordinates and maps on the wiki?
In anycase, the place does look a little muddy yet dusty at different places.
The water ponds would account for the mosquitoes. If wind is strong there will be a lot of dust too. With Mersing at 1.0 , how would you rate Kahang skies?
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R United Federation of the Planets
Wow nice report! Guess it can be a potential place for observation. I go often to Batu Pahat, exiting at Air Hitam for other work (not astronomy). Maybe next time I can try out that site.
Not sure how to post on the Wiki. I thought it has been locked from posting/editing. I had also written a report on this website last year about the site discovered south of Sedili Kechil (dubbed Sedili South Centauri).
About the Kahang farm, it didn't seem dusty there at all. The ground was mostly hard gravel or hard dirt, with no mud encountered. E.g. even though there were several pools of water on the track road into the farm, it was not muddy at all, just brown water which splashed away.
It would be difficult to rate the skies at the Kahang farm against Mersing (ob site at Telok Sari), since I've been to Kahang only once and to Mersing many times over the years with different experiences. Perhaps taking say 20 experiences of skies at Mersing, that night at Kahang at its best 2 hours when the skies were clear would rank alongside the 8th best night at Mersing, but Mersing is getting brighter by the years.
I'm still not sure whether mist/fog would be a frequent problem at the Kahang farm. There was practically no mist till about 4.30am, when it seem to creep in from the adjacent forest. The farm is also next to wide open flat land, rather than in a valley, so that may be a favourable factor. Dew was comparble to that at Mersing, perhaps a bit more.
BTW, I've just made a correction to the post. The star that Weixing saw (SAO 184541 / HD150259) is mag 6.25, not 5.9 as I earlier thought! That's according to both The Sky (mag 6.25) and Cartes du Ciel (mag 6.26).
Kahang is a convenient place with the restaurants nearby and accommodation on-site. The ride there was comfortable, mostly on good expressways. I thought the fresh water fish was really good!
The day started off with heavy rain the the early morning. Then overcast sky and drizzles during the day. Things were not looking good. The humidity was high at Kahang in the evening when it was totally overcast. Only when there was a slight breeze did the humidity drop and the sky clear. But because of the earlier rain, humidity remained high and I think that explains the muted sky throughout the night. We could see different layers of brightness in the laser pointer's beam. All that was comparable to a humid day at mersing.
The globular comparison was interesting. M13 and M92 had brighter cores but M22 and omega were larger and more interesting to resolve. Even M5 was very nice. At 150x, the 13mm ethos framed the globulars very nicely.
We saw lots of leo and coma cluster galaxies in the 8", so it speaks for the sky brightness. I was looking for the bright long cigar-shaped galaxy (can't remember the ngc number) but found NGC 945 instead -- not bad. Could discern the spirals in M51. The swan, lagoon, triffid nebulae and eta carina were surprisingly underwhelming...hmmm. Next, we saw almost all the planetary nebulae in the Bright Star Atlas in that RA range --- pity no one else found the small ones interesting (why?). M57 was surprisingly good, showing ears at the 2 ends.
The mist was nowhere close to my last visit to Keluang, showing up as a gradual muting of the sky. But we were getting tired anyway so decided to pack up at 4.30am. Overall, not a wasted trip. I have to bring the obsession the next time.
Elton, Gavin thanks for the tips; too bad I couldn't go as I just returned from a trip. How much did you pay for the accommodation? The rates quoted on the website are a bit high for a kampung hut!
Anyone keen to go this weekend?
We do it in the dark...
Portaball 12.5"
Takahashi Mewlon 210
William Optics 110ED
...and all night long!
Hi Chee Chien, I've PM to you the rates quoted to us. These were lower than that stated on the website, and the discounted rates may not apply during the school holidays.
Just a couple of additional points about the farm for this forum:
(1) There is a pleasant feel to visiting that place, since it is in wide open rural country and the staff there whom we met are very friendly. The road from Keluang to the farm is quite rural and picturesque, though one must be careful about some sharp bends. I think I overtook a grand total of 5 motor cycles between Keluang and the farm! My passengers had counselled against me attempting to overtake a trailer, but thankfully it pulled off to one side after a few minutes. Traffic is light anyway, and nothing like the Kota-Tinggi to Mersing road.
As for Keluang itself, it is a very large sprawling town, and one has to go through some traffic junctions and circuses. It takes about 15 mins to traverse the town.
(2) It is possible to reach the farm by public transport from Singapore, or at least to almost get there. From Singapore to Keluang, one could take either the daily KTM train services heading north, or go by coach (Five Star Tours runs coaches to Keluang from Golden Mile Complex).
Then from Keluang, there are buses that run to Kahang town on the way to Mersing and/or a place called Nitar. I was told by the farm staff that these run every half hour, and indeed I saw quite a number of buses along the road of varying quality.
Alternatively, I was told that a taxi ride from Keluang to the farm (about 45km) would be about RM50-60 one way, or a pick up from Keluang could be arranged through the farm.
From Kahang, it is about 6km to the farm and I should think one can arrange a pick-up with the farm.
I envision taking public transport there and spending 2-3 relaxing nights at the farm away from urban Singapore, equipped with just good binos.
(3) When I was there, there was good mobile phone reception. 5 bars. I received a call from Singapore and the quality was good.
(4) One more point. I had omitted to make a turn along the North-South Highway after leaving the 2nd Link. I think it took place after a certain toll booth about 10-20km from the Malaysian customs. I thought we would just go straight all the way to go up the highway towards KL. However, one has to turn-off left after that toll booth to take a small looking branch that heads to "Kuala Lumpur and Melaka". The sign board for that was small and late and looked like one of those earlier turn-offs to minor towns. So we had to find a U-turn (I think the one we eventually found was an ad-hoc one near Senai) and it cost us about 10mins. I have factored that out in the earlier post on the timings.
The total toll charges were about RM23 one-way.
BTW, can all this info be uploaded to the Wiki? And the one on Sedili South Centauri too?
When I'm up to it, I'll do another one for the obs site dubbed Sedili South Centauri.
This was my post last year on that place: http://www.singastro.org/viewtopic.php? ... h+centauri
I think for now, I'll just add a link to that post on the Wiki with just a brief intro.
Hi Gavin
Thanks for burning the midnight oil to upload this one.
We astronomers do it late at night and early in the morning![smilie=cool.gif]
As always, you are detailed. I think with GPS coordinates, all we need to do is to key it in or is it better to key in some named location on the GPS?
Its been a while since I last went for Obs and itching to go but my kids have lessons on weekends till end Apr. Heh heh
The Boldly Go Where No Meade Has Gone Before Captain, RSS Enterprise NCC1701R United Federation of the Planets
![[smilie=cool.gif]](./images/smilies/cool.gif "cool")
![[smilie=cute.gif]](./images/smilies/cute.gif "cute")
