Mersing Report - 19-21st Dec 2014 : Against all odds

[antares2063]

One phrase to sum up this trip : Extreme Stargazing !


Day 1:

The weather on friday wasnt already very promising to begin with , we met up at Dover MRT busstop as the majority of the participants this time round were from SPAstro (Singapore Poly astro club). 17 members from the club went on their first ever Mersing trip in this rainy, unpredictable month...

Basically, 2 rented MPVs left from a rainy singapore into a rainy JB. And just like in the movie Interstellar (my fav movie for 2014) Van #1 had a flat rear tire midway through on a Malaysian highway. Luckily we jumped into Van #2 while the 2 drivers changed the flat tire with a spare.

Then , just a few km before reaching Mersing town, disaster struck again for the exact same MPV! Apparently the driver drove across a puddle of water at high speed, and the water gushed upwards resulted in the rear bumper almost being torn off.. In the end to save the bumper, it was taken off and placed into MPV #2 diagonally.

Upon reaching the chalet, it was wet , drizzling and puddles everywhere on the field, nothing much could be done after dinner so mostly just chitchat and deployed the scopes in the shelter area. The first night was pretty much gone as it had drizzling rain even until 430am . So first night was a bust...

Day 2:

It finally stopped drizzling after breakfast time and the water puddles started to drian away slowly...
After dinner it was still abit cloudy so some of us went to use Ivan's laptop to watch the movie : Contact. Around 9pm the skies seemed to be better and we went out to check and monitor the sky. Some stars were spotted! There was high winds blowing very fiercely so the stars were fading in and out from view. We had some great views of some DSOs like Andromeda Galaxy, the Perseus double cluster , M36 open cluster in Auriga and Orion Nebula. However the winds were blowing very strongly all the way till about midnight...talk about wobbling scopes! Also , in the time it took to change the eyepiece, clouds came in and obsured the current target the scopes were pointing at...it was like playing hide and seek with the stars amongst the clouds.

We managed to spot Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 visually around midnight, fighting the clouds, some of the imagers managed to take sub exposures of it . The tail is not very distinct in the eyepiece but it is the brightest comet visually that I have seen in a very long long time...

Around 1am onwards, Jupiter put up an appearance in the Mewlon , wow so much detail and jawdropping . The sky became more stable , and it was so good that Meteors were seen, even the very faint Orion Milky way arm was visible ! spanning about half the sky down to Carina / Vela region .

Around 430am, clouds came in again and the drizzle resumed, but feeling happy, all scopes were dismounted and we awaited for the journey back to singapore

will post some pics later...cheers to the organisers and the group who went up..Merry xmas!

regards,
Junwei

[acc]

Looking forward to the pics and Merry X'mas too!

[Airconvent]

A very challenging and brave trip Jun Wei..I just saw Remus's comet photo. Been a while since I last saw a comet. The last one was Holmes..
No trip announcement this time round? .

[Great Red Spot]

I mounted and dismounted my Mewlon at least 4 to 5 times. It was the first in line to take the force of the wind. And the sky kept giving hints that it may cry soon ...

When the sky became more stable, we had great views of M42. Its long thin arms were very prominent. At about 270x E and F of the Trapezium were clearly seen. Also tried looking at it unfiltered, with UHC and with OIII. They all gave different views and it comes down to a matter of preference. My personal favourite is through the binoviewer - very good details.

Jupiter played hide and seek for about an hour, then appeared brightly after the GRS was gone (zzz). But we did get a peak of the GRS between passing clouds. Very prominent details on the planet - clear bands, white ovals, festoons, etc. Best view of the planet as of yet (for myself), but I believe the view could improve with better weather. The Mewlon is bought for this purpose and it has shown its worth.

Eta Carina, unfortunately, was not at all prominent. A far cry from what we have seen during the March trip.

We did not see as many things as we usually do in other Mersing trips. But a great trip nonetheless. Got to test my new toy. More importantly, very nice food and good company!

[antares2063]

Hi Richard!

This trip is primarily for the SPastro club, and plus its high chance of failure cause of the wet weather conditions, once back to March 2015 and hotter months, Im quite sure Remus will announce here

Some pics :

The flat


Waterlogged


Group shot


Many thanks to ausrex for letting me try out the polarie for fun


Regards,
Junwei

[Airconvent]

Thanks Junwei. Glad to hear the SPastro is still going strong. I wonder if the others (Ngee Ann, NTU, etc) are still at it?
I can recall the 2 Marswatch organised by Singastro that had the participation of so many school clubs and individual. That was something!
Keep obbing!

[antares2063]

oh yeah....the MarsWatch at Chinese Gardens mrt field...

[Airconvent]

oh yeah....the MarsWatch at Chinese Gardens mrt field...

And not 1 but 2 events! Not too sure if we are still able to mobilize that kind of power today. There are a whole lot less active people these days. Even the weekly Toa Payoh obbing seems to have quiet down already...Let's hope Remus' ECP Comet watch will bring the Singastro Roar back!