Mid-Autumn Stargazing @ Bishan Park- 14 Sept (Sat)

[Gary]

In celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival, *weather permitting*, my friends and I will be conducting a Moon/Star-gazing session at Bishan - Ang Mo Kio Park this coming Saturday.

Event: Moon and Stargazing at the Park
Date: Saturday, 14 September 2013
Venue: Bishan - Ang Mo Kio Park (River Plains)
Observation Spot: Open field between McDonald's and Clover by the Park (condominium)
Time: 7:00 pm till very late evening.
Admission is FREE and open to public.

We will be bringing our telescopes to observe planets, star clusters and the beautiful Moon of course!

Some photos from last year's event at the same observation spot:











One the same evening, there will be a major Mid-Autumn event organised by a Teck Ghee constituency (Ang Mo Kio). The Prime Minister is the guest-of-honour. So expect the Bishan Park carpark to be full and very packed. If you are driving, you may want to park at the multi-storey carpark along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 and walk over instead. Or take public transport and alight at bus-stop near Bishan Street 22/25.

Do bring your kids and their lanterns along and join in the festive mood! For event photographers, this is also a good opportunity to practice their night shoots under challenging lighting conditions.

Want to take this opportunity to thank Nparks for being supportive of our mid-autumn stargazing event last year and this upcoming one!

Please take note this event is totally weather dependent. In case of bad weather, we may cancel it last minute. Please check my blog regularly on that evening for the latest updates or follow my tweets at http://www.twitter.com/astrosg.

[Gary]

Updated the original post with more info and photos. Hope to see you guys this coming Saturday! There *MAY* a special first light session for a new toy on that evening.

[weixing]

Hi,

Updated the original post with more info and photos. Hope to see you guys this coming Saturday! There *MAY* a special first light session for a new toy on that evening.

Ah... you should know what new toys will bring in Astronomy...

But I think the Full Moon "power" should be able to overcome it... ha ha ha

Have a nice day.

[Gary]

LOL! Ok, will force the new toy to first light within the next 48 hours. Bring your umbrellas out in the meantime!

[Dark Neptune]

LOL! Ok, will force the new toy to first light within the next 48 hours. Bring your umbrellas out in the meantime!

This sounds to me like you are about to bring out some BFG for show tonight. Let's hope if the PM joins us at the astro site, he won't mistake whatever new toy you're bringing as some WMD in Singapore instead. Haha

And now approaching 3-quarter Moon, last night at science centre obs, even looking at the Moon through the CPC 800 nearly rendered me blind after looking at it for a few seconds. So better bring ya guys' Moon filters along too! ^_^

[Gary]

Thanks Dark Neptune! I wasn't a believer of Moon filter, until I got my dob.

[Gary]

Reminder: Carpark in Bishan Park will be jammed packed tonight. Read this notice at the park:



So drivers please try HDB multi-storey carpark along AMK Ave 1 and walk across the pedestrian bridge.



As you can see, after much conversation with the constituency, they have upgraded the pedestrian bridge to be stargazing-friendly!

You can park near the bridge and then trolley your big cannons over the bridge to the park. If you do it slowly, may not even affect your telescope collimation.

Public bus services to Bishan Park:

[Gary]

Big thanks to all who came and helped out! It was a great success considering the weather in the past 2 weeks. We managed to see Moon, Venus and Saturn.

Special thanks to Mr Au and James for taking time of from their busy work schedule to support this event! Always a great honour and pleasure to catch up with Mr Au and seeing the audience entertained and inspired by his explanations of the cosmos. The gentleman who brought his small refractor will appreciate Galileo in a new perspective.

Glad James found a nice carpark nearby. No more excuse not to bring big monsters to the park from now on. bigahemdobahem2014.



Will continue with report and add more photos when I have more time next week...

[bornfree]

Wow, first time deploying for such a big group event. had been fun. meeting people who just wanted a peek at what your scope has to offer it has been nice..

Reaching the lawn just behind the MacD and setting up scope. The Inox is so easy to setup.. although a 3 piece, i did not dismantle the mount from the half pier so that became a one piece. spread and extend slightly the tripod legs and screw in the mount and i am ready to go.. mount the scope to the dove tail and time to find the moon.

soon as darkness falls, people starts to come and the queue starts to form. people start asking if your scope is really looking at the moon.. because the moon was a waxing gibbious moon, slightly more than half moon, from the scope it looks rounder and they wondered why the moon looks rounder in the scope? the moon in the scope is fake one? so has to explain to them perception of view when we see things in a distance.

when others were looking at venus and saturn, mine had a long queue of ppl wanting to look at the moon. i also wanted to look at the other planets. well, when i decided to bring the scope out, i intended it for "public service" so show them what they so yearn to see.

from this event, i get to know some of the folks from near and far. one family(Alex with his kid) came all the way from pasir ris. mostly are families from around the area. met ppl from all walks of life, Yaw in TV production. among others. Abi, with is cute daughter on his shoulder who was excited about looking the scope, but the daughter was saying "NO!"

good thing we have quite a good weather clear at times, but clouds keep rolling in once in a while and it seems with a little cloud cover, we can take better picture of the bright moon.

overall it had been a fun experience sharing little trivia with ppl. and lastly, Gary, why u no pass me ur little papers.. i got alot of questions of where to get more info on astronomy n ur paper really good leh... XD

[Gary]

Nice report! With your excellent "performance" last night, you earned your right to carry and distribute our "little paper" from now on.