Punggai Expedition report (30th May - 1st June 2008)

[rcj]

Hi all,

A group of us went up to a new place in Peninsula Malaysia for
stargazing. This new place, Punggai, is actually located just a few
kilometres south of Batu Layar, which we used to go. Note that Batu
Layar itself is about 11km south of Desaru. This resort is very new,
only opened in March, so the facilities are top-notch new (of course)
and clean. There are ten chalets with each housing up to 4 occupants.
Which means, we have a max occupancy rate of 40 people at one go. All
chalets are single storeyed and low profiled, which means it is
convenient for us who do not want to go far from our chalet unit to
set up our heavy equipment. Infact, most of us, ran electric cords
direct from the chalets to the area outside. From there we could view
the milky way straight up. The resort manager was kind enough to help
us to switch off the flood lights that help to lit up the resort,
INCLUDING the sodium-based street lamps that line the coastal road
that lie adjacent to the resort. It is also near the beach. There is
an artificial "babyish" swimming pool, pin pong table, dart board,
carrum, bike rental, and even optional field trips to the Ostrich
farm, etc (for additional cost). All units are air conditioned, and
for those that we stayed in, had hot water bathing facilities and very
clean toilets. Each unit has either three single beds, or two queen
one single bed configuration. But one thing that everyone noted was
that each unit room was HUGE. Infact, the floor area of each room
(note that there is only one room per chalet unit, which makes it a
bungalow...haha) is about 2.5 to 3x bigger than the normal wooden room
of the Mersing chalet. There is plenty of space to leave our
telescopes inside each room, plus a whole lot of other equipment and
knick knacks. There is a TV (with local channels), kettle (for boiling
water) with tea/coffee satchets complimentary, bath towels, sofa,
yellow-orange bed light and ceiling fan. Each chalet has a veranda
where you could easily move your equipment into, in case it rains. For
this expedition, most of us set up just next to our chalet, and we
could enjoy the jewels of the night sky, from planetaries, to Milky
Way tapestries. Journey time was about less than hour to Kota Tinggi,
and then another 45 minutes to Punggai from there. Total being about
1.5 hours. Without any delay, here are the pictures!

http://www.celestialportraits.com/CP_ex ... unggai.php

[starfinder]

Hey tks for the detailed report and photos!

Wow, compared to the Sari Mawar 'chalet' at Telok Sari, the rooms at this resort are super-ultra luxurious!

How much are the rooms per night? Expensive?

Also, could you describe how dark the skies are there? What's the visibility like in terms of obstructions, sky glow at horizon, etc?

BTW, from what I've read, the new Senai-Desaru Expressway is scheduled to be open this December:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senai-Desaru_Expressway
http://www.sde.com.my/

That will cut down travelling time from JB by a lot. The Expressway includes a bridge over the large Sungei Johor: this river is the reason why a trip to the Desaru area requires a circuitous detour to Kota Tinggi.

Great! (However, a downside is that it will probably lead to more development and therefore light pollution in the Desaru and SE Johor area).

[stormchaser]

Hihi,

My side of the report. I didn't bring camera, so no pictures from me. I think the skies were quite good, could see the milky way till lyra and cygnus area. But could be better cos the streetlamps automatically switched themselves on at around 1am/2am :'( so we were quite sian when the lights came on... point to improve.

A bit of sky glow at the south-western side, probably due to sg? but its not really significant cos we didn't look at that part of the sky. The only obstructions are the chalets themselves (1 storey) and the main building (also 1 storey). There is a nice sandy field in front of the chalets that can be used to setup scope, but its sandy, so maybe u can bring wooden planks to put below ur tripod to prevent it from sinking, n some groundsheets. Behind the chalets there is also another small field where we initially setup scope, also quite good, can see most of the sky. Not much wind, but weather a bit variable. Sorta playing hide and seek with the clouds, but i guess that happens everywhere.

And there are bugs galore there. they swarm around a lot! and the mosquitos attempted to bite me a lot! so we had our usual armour of insect repellant and mosquito coils, but i still got bitten quite a lot But the mosquitos didn't bite Remus!!!!! (i think?) Biased mosquitos!!! And there were some mysterious bugs that bit some of the guys all over, maybe bedbugs? (or sofabugs.. since one of the guys was sleeping on the sofa ) That place seemed to have no sandflies, at least for that short stay we had.

And having aircon was such a luxury in that hot weather! =D But the aircon was not really functional, it remained hot and stuffy until we decided to blast everything, turned the aircon temperature to 18 degrees(thermostat not working?), and fan at full blast for the entire few dayS and nightS to keep the temperature just right.

Room service, I wasn't hoping for much, i think it was unexpectedly good compared to mersing, got nice clean warm dry towels provided and changed everyday, and people coming to mop the floor too.

ok that's about all from me

[stormchaser]

oh and there is HOT water for bathing, in a shower! not bathing with a pail! yaay, hooray, hallelujah! =D

[rcj]

the mosquitoes were there, but i had worse experiences in mersing and batu layar. the mosquitoes at the resort was fine. infact, once the fan was on at high intensity, don't think it was a problem. as the resort is only about 5km away from batu layar, the view of the night sky is similar to batu layar experiences. in terms of sky glow, there is a source of light pollution from the southwest direction which comes from a factory. but the glow was not as bad as the southern glow in mersing. as for the street lamps, there were timer-adjusted, and according to the resort manager, the personel involved in adjusting the activation time for the street lamps was on leave that day, and thus did not extend the "off" time. but keeping this mind, perhaps it could be better to observe from the "back" of the resort, where there are no street lamps and the chalets will provide a blockage of DIRECT interference from the front-based street lamps. nevertheless, personally, i feel it is a pretty convenient and good place for stargazing when it comes to having the creature comforts of the proximity of a chalet (for sleep retreat) versus outfield stargazing with nothing in provision. also, as singaporeans, we have to continually be grateful that we have a high standard of living in contrast with other countries, and be thankful for that. i think u get what i mean... lolx

[swat_pup6433]

LOL i get your last part!! ohh howcome noone mentioned about the food??? its suppose to be one of the most important factor!! okok i'll cover the food part! lets start with breafast, basically its "Alacarte buffet" style so you pass them a little food cupon, and u start ordering non stop.. dont know if there's a limit but its tested 3 rounds acceptable.. *winks* for the breakfast menu , u have local malay dishes like nasi lemak, prata, longtong, mee soto and so on~~ and basically all the drinks you can get from a typical coffee shop for breakfast they can make it there for you.
as for lunch, its also buffet style~ same goes for dinner. with all kinds of malay delights, including fruits. desserts and soup~ all in all food is not bad but a little towards the "heaty" side. but we have the luxury of dining air conditioned dinning hall~ ohh and can we get them to prepare the mutton for every single meal nx time ?? well, this is definitely one of the more convenient locations for astro. and the most luxurious one i have been to compared to the fild camping in mersing and batu layar. even segamat resort~

[Clifford60]

Oh, I am the odd one out in the trip, only paid for the chalet and the breakfast. Since I drove there, the 1 lunch and 2 seafood dinners were done at Sg Rengit, about 15km from the chalet. Driving also gave me the flexibility of moving around a bigger area than just around the chalet.

One point to note, the chalet management team is very friendly and helpful.

If we go there again, it will be much better if we can book the whole place as the 2nd night, there were other families occupying the rest of the units where they were doing BBQ when the obs was on, so there were free smoke and may be oil. However, there was free supper too from one of the friendly "neighbor"

[wx1985]

Sounds like a nice trip!! When's the next trip gonna be?

[stormchaser]

Yep the trip was a nice trip. Look out for the next one!

Just to entice more people to punggai trips, this trip is probably one of THE most luxurious places you can get where you can stargaze and enjoy aircon. You can't even do that in pulau ubin. Hot water shower, aircon, good food, swimming pool, dart board, ping pong table, electricity, good toilet, good mattress, all at your fingertips. What more luxuries can you ask for a stargazing trip? haha.

Of course it is not a perfect place, the aircon was not exactly very functional, but it still spewed cold air, so better than no aircon. Also there were bugs n mozzies, which are always my chief grouses cos i'm a mozzie attractor, unfortunately in southeast asia, wherever there are good dark skies, there are hungry bloodsucking bugs too. can't be helped.

So, if presented with a 3D2N mersing stargazing trip and a 3D2N punggai stargazing trip, I'll choose punggai anytime

[Ekezial]

Questions for the camera Owner in picture punggai300508_11.jpg

1) Is the Camera Lens a 500mm Mirror Lens by opteka or tamron?
2) how's the Performance of the mirror lens like?

Thanks!