Hey guys, skies look clear now. I am going to ECP to do some overnight obing with my scope and/or watch World Cup at ECP Macdonalds.
If you are going ECP later, contact me if you have my number or reply to this thread here so we can meet up later. GERMANY !!!!
ECP overnight session tonight - 7 July 2010
ECP overnight session tonight - 7 July 2010
Last edited by Gary on Sat Jul 10, 2010 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ok. I think I finally got over the shock how clear the skies were on the evening of 7 July so that I can write this report now. 
It was very cloudy for days and the frustration of not being able to stargaze for consecutive days was about to reach boiling point. Went out for a nice dinner to cheer myself up. After dinner, thought about cheering up myself further by going to Marina Bay Sands to watch the highly anticipated match between Germany and Spain. It's free, open to public and boasts a big 8x5 meter screen.
On my way back home, spotted Crux just above the nearby library building! Thoughts of MBS quickly got replaced by ECP!
Back home, took a quick look through my kitchen window and Scorpius and Sagittarius were shining brightly. Wow. It's time to grab and go. Took a bus to ECP and alighted at the bus stop near Saint Patrick Secondary School. In Singapore, public transport is quite conducive for grab and go. If you try to avoid the peak hours, you can usually find a seat in the bus or mrt train. Thus, you only need to carry your stuff over short distances throughout the whole trip with many opportunities to leave your gear on the floor of the bus or mrt train. There are also many sheltered pathways and HDB buildings to take shelter in case it starts to rain. You don't really need to add an umbrella's weight to your total baggage weight. So for those who are considering a grab and go scope, you don't really have to go the extreme of sacrificing a lot of aperture for a super light total weight if you are mainly observing in Singapore. More important is to have at least one free hand to grab on to something for balance or to tap your ezlink card while boarding a vehicle. The best way to gauge your tolerable weight is to try to carry some weight (e.g books) in your bag to simulate as closely as possible the weight of the scope/mount you intend to get, hold a relatively heavy umbrella/tripod in one hand and take public transport to what you feel is the best observation spot in Singapore (e.g ECP) regardless of where you are staying in Singapore.
Based on my own personal experiences of grabbing and going with my setup, especially after this trip, I fully agree with a few Singastro members that a 5 inch is about the biggest aperture you want to carry if you are taking public transport.
After alighting at the bus stop, I walked along Siglap Park Connector path toward the ECP ob site for the first time. It was about 11 pm and I could see Scorpius and Sagittarius high up in the sky and shining even brighter and against an even darker sky. What a sight. This Siglap path is littered with bright street lamps. But two thirds of the way down this path, there is quite an interesting slightly darker spot to ob with some benches nearby. The nearest street lamp was partially blocked by the nearby tree. The path there is also slightly wider so cyclists have enough room to avoid smashing into any potential scope setup.
Kind of envy the residents of the nearby HDB blocks 1, 2, 4 and 7 which are so near the pedestrian bridge leading to the ECP ob spot. Moreover, there are no steps on this bridge but only slopes. This means these residents can load a lot of heavy equipment onto a trolley and leisurely push it across the bridge to the ECP ob spot.
Upon reaching ground zero, decided to deploy at a nearby bench instead of the usual spot because I wish to observe as long as the sky is clear and dont mind sacrificing a smaller portion of the observable sky for more comfort and ease of setup and packing up. Started observing M7, M6 and NGC 6231 and they looked wonderful. Much more background stars than I have ever seen in my scope so far. Saw M4 (i think) as a fuzzy spot. Remembered some basic little info about star testing and started to observe the focus and out-of-focus airy disks using Altair which was about 48 deg above horizon using my 6.4 mm EP. When Jupiter started rising, tried observing it using different EPs and see which one will frame it and its moons nicely in preparation for potential upcoming Jupiter Watch sessions in September. Hopefully by then, base on my experiences with my current range of Meade Super Plossls, I will have a better idea which semi-premium EP to get to observe Jupiter in its full glory. Most probably it will be a TMB EP.
Clifford taught me about the Summer Triangle (Vega, Altair, Deneb) during our previous ECP trip and I am glad he did. About an hour later, I can see this Trangle much clearer than our prevous trip. What a sight to behold. The usually hidden "wing tip" stars of Cygnus can be see with naked eyes as well as Sheliak and Sulafat in Lyra near the bright Vega star. Ring Nebula's fuzzy circle can be clearly and directly through the 24mm EP and with averted vision, I can finally spot the hole in the middle which I did not manage to do so previously near my house.
This time round, Alberio is bright enough to be telraded directly with naked eyes instead of rough estimation in hazy skies during my previous ob. Beautiful to look at through a wide-field EP which highlights how outstanding this binary star looked compared to the nearby non-colored stars in the same FOV. Noticed some bright spotlights kicked in later in the early morning which really killed my already limited dark eye adaption. Are those super bright spotlights really necessary? The best way to deter crime is not through installing more and brighter lights. The police men and women should get off their patrol cars and patrol on bicycles along and nearer to the beach area. I will be more than glad to show and explain to them what I am doing.
The clouds finally decided I had too much fun and started rolling in at around 2:40 am. Packed up and walked to MacDonalds to watch the rest of the World Cup match.
Although I do understand most people are not in the situation to observe whenever there are clear skies due to work and family commitments, I do hope this report will inspire more people to be less pessimistic about observing under Singapore skies, to invest in a good grab and go scope and also not to have the mindset that I must/will only observe on weekend and I must have company whenever I am observing. Observing alone on a clear weekday night even for just an hour or two is almost like going through a meditative experience which can re-charge your batteries for the next working day.
Finally caught the AP bug and just figured how to photography constellations using my 3-year-old Canon A720IS compact non-DSLR camera (thanks to the AP postings in this forum). Hopefully will be able to show you guys how the skies looked like in Bekok (Johor Malaysia) in my future trips.
It was very cloudy for days and the frustration of not being able to stargaze for consecutive days was about to reach boiling point. Went out for a nice dinner to cheer myself up. After dinner, thought about cheering up myself further by going to Marina Bay Sands to watch the highly anticipated match between Germany and Spain. It's free, open to public and boasts a big 8x5 meter screen.
On my way back home, spotted Crux just above the nearby library building! Thoughts of MBS quickly got replaced by ECP!
Back home, took a quick look through my kitchen window and Scorpius and Sagittarius were shining brightly. Wow. It's time to grab and go. Took a bus to ECP and alighted at the bus stop near Saint Patrick Secondary School. In Singapore, public transport is quite conducive for grab and go. If you try to avoid the peak hours, you can usually find a seat in the bus or mrt train. Thus, you only need to carry your stuff over short distances throughout the whole trip with many opportunities to leave your gear on the floor of the bus or mrt train. There are also many sheltered pathways and HDB buildings to take shelter in case it starts to rain. You don't really need to add an umbrella's weight to your total baggage weight. So for those who are considering a grab and go scope, you don't really have to go the extreme of sacrificing a lot of aperture for a super light total weight if you are mainly observing in Singapore. More important is to have at least one free hand to grab on to something for balance or to tap your ezlink card while boarding a vehicle. The best way to gauge your tolerable weight is to try to carry some weight (e.g books) in your bag to simulate as closely as possible the weight of the scope/mount you intend to get, hold a relatively heavy umbrella/tripod in one hand and take public transport to what you feel is the best observation spot in Singapore (e.g ECP) regardless of where you are staying in Singapore.
Based on my own personal experiences of grabbing and going with my setup, especially after this trip, I fully agree with a few Singastro members that a 5 inch is about the biggest aperture you want to carry if you are taking public transport.
After alighting at the bus stop, I walked along Siglap Park Connector path toward the ECP ob site for the first time. It was about 11 pm and I could see Scorpius and Sagittarius high up in the sky and shining even brighter and against an even darker sky. What a sight. This Siglap path is littered with bright street lamps. But two thirds of the way down this path, there is quite an interesting slightly darker spot to ob with some benches nearby. The nearest street lamp was partially blocked by the nearby tree. The path there is also slightly wider so cyclists have enough room to avoid smashing into any potential scope setup.
Kind of envy the residents of the nearby HDB blocks 1, 2, 4 and 7 which are so near the pedestrian bridge leading to the ECP ob spot. Moreover, there are no steps on this bridge but only slopes. This means these residents can load a lot of heavy equipment onto a trolley and leisurely push it across the bridge to the ECP ob spot.
Upon reaching ground zero, decided to deploy at a nearby bench instead of the usual spot because I wish to observe as long as the sky is clear and dont mind sacrificing a smaller portion of the observable sky for more comfort and ease of setup and packing up. Started observing M7, M6 and NGC 6231 and they looked wonderful. Much more background stars than I have ever seen in my scope so far. Saw M4 (i think) as a fuzzy spot. Remembered some basic little info about star testing and started to observe the focus and out-of-focus airy disks using Altair which was about 48 deg above horizon using my 6.4 mm EP. When Jupiter started rising, tried observing it using different EPs and see which one will frame it and its moons nicely in preparation for potential upcoming Jupiter Watch sessions in September. Hopefully by then, base on my experiences with my current range of Meade Super Plossls, I will have a better idea which semi-premium EP to get to observe Jupiter in its full glory. Most probably it will be a TMB EP.
Clifford taught me about the Summer Triangle (Vega, Altair, Deneb) during our previous ECP trip and I am glad he did. About an hour later, I can see this Trangle much clearer than our prevous trip. What a sight to behold. The usually hidden "wing tip" stars of Cygnus can be see with naked eyes as well as Sheliak and Sulafat in Lyra near the bright Vega star. Ring Nebula's fuzzy circle can be clearly and directly through the 24mm EP and with averted vision, I can finally spot the hole in the middle which I did not manage to do so previously near my house.
This time round, Alberio is bright enough to be telraded directly with naked eyes instead of rough estimation in hazy skies during my previous ob. Beautiful to look at through a wide-field EP which highlights how outstanding this binary star looked compared to the nearby non-colored stars in the same FOV. Noticed some bright spotlights kicked in later in the early morning which really killed my already limited dark eye adaption. Are those super bright spotlights really necessary? The best way to deter crime is not through installing more and brighter lights. The police men and women should get off their patrol cars and patrol on bicycles along and nearer to the beach area. I will be more than glad to show and explain to them what I am doing.
The clouds finally decided I had too much fun and started rolling in at around 2:40 am. Packed up and walked to MacDonalds to watch the rest of the World Cup match.
Although I do understand most people are not in the situation to observe whenever there are clear skies due to work and family commitments, I do hope this report will inspire more people to be less pessimistic about observing under Singapore skies, to invest in a good grab and go scope and also not to have the mindset that I must/will only observe on weekend and I must have company whenever I am observing. Observing alone on a clear weekday night even for just an hour or two is almost like going through a meditative experience which can re-charge your batteries for the next working day.
Finally caught the AP bug and just figured how to photography constellations using my 3-year-old Canon A720IS compact non-DSLR camera (thanks to the AP postings in this forum). Hopefully will be able to show you guys how the skies looked like in Bekok (Johor Malaysia) in my future trips.
Last edited by Gary on Sat Jul 10, 2010 3:39 pm, edited 9 times in total.