AstrOrdinary Camp at Pulau Ubin
20th - 21st June 2009
Report by Siu Yung
We met for lunch at the Changi Village Food Centre and took the bumboat ride over to Pulau Ubin. Clouds were rolling in and it seemed like bad weather was heading our way. We loaded our equipment onto a hired van and the 3 of us whom didn’t know how to cycle boarded the van to head to our campsite while the rest rented bikes for transported. All was well till we were near the campsite. It so happens that a dead tree had fallen across the only path heading to our destination.
There was no way that the fallen trunk could be cleared in time therefore we decided to unload everything and carry them to the actual campsite. We were lucky it was a 15 min walk to our ob site or the weight of all the bottled water would have broke my back.
We set up the tent and laid our groundsheet once we had all our stuff over to the campsite.
The clouds came in passing while our cyclists went exploring round the island.
At one point the thunder and lightning near the western horizon seemed to be heading our way but it headed towards Singapore mainland instead. (We found that it rained over at the mainland after the trip. Lucky us I guess.) Tried to do some solar observing but the Sun was blemish free on that day like most of the past year. We managed to catch some crepuscular rays though thanks to the thunder clouds.
As evening approached the clouds seemed to be gone for the most part with some passing clouds. We started off our overnight stargazing with Saturn. The clouds kept interfering with our view of the ringed planet but it was still nice to sneak a few peeks. I decided to take a look at gamma Leo, a nice looking pair of yellow stars. Jewel box was not particularly fantastic due to the skyglow over Singapore mainland over our southern horizon and some passing clouds. The view at omega centauri was also affected similarly. The view over the north was much better. Mizar and Alcor was a pleasant sight as always. We took a quick view at Rigil Kentaurus as well. As the night passed, we looked at M13, M4, M6, M7 and NGC6231. The open clusters were lovely sights with good contrasts under the darker sky. M13 was prominent and appear resolved to the centre. The Ring Nebula was nice and good through the OIII filter but the lagoon nebula was spectacular particularly through the OIII which resembled some of the short exposure photos. Albeiro did not fail to impress with its nice contrasting blue and gold. We could make out most of the constellations in the sky that are usually not visible or incomplete on mainland. Libra, Sagitta, Delphinus, Corona Borealis and part of Draco are some of the hardly visible ones on mainland that we had seen on Ubin. The Coathanger was great as you could easily see how it got its name and no explanation is needed. Jupiter rose at around midnight with its Galilean moons but only 3 was visible as Europa was in transit. The north and south equatorial belts made a pleasing sight through the telescope. Close to 3am, Europa showed itself as it ended its transit across Jupiter. IC4665 in Ophiuchus looked sort of plain in the telescope. We could see the entire constellation of Pegasus and Andromeda as well as Cepheus and Cassiopeia as the night passed. Even Capricornus and Aquarius was visible. The Andromeda galaxy showed its familiar oblong disk shape in the telescope instead of just the core that we normally see under mainland skies. I fell asleep for about half an hour and when I awoke I was greeted to the sight of a manmade satellite making its way across the southeastern sky. Through the night I managed to catch sight of 2 meteors that were not particularly bright. As the morning twilight approached, the dazzling Venus rose in the eastern sky along with Mars to its left. The slightly more than quarter gibbous phase of Venus was clearly visible in the telescope while Mars was unremarkable as a small orange-red disk. As it got closer to sunrise, I was pleasantly greeted by the Moon with its razor thin crescent while the rest of the moon was lit up by earthshine clearly visible to the naked eye. It made a wonderful view through the telescope. As the Sun rose we had breakfast and packed our equipment to head home. It was a good trip as we seldom get clear local skies while getting to see so many different objects. Hope to more people joining us on our future trips to share the great celestial sights.
Clear Skies Always!
