By Dan Dan
In the evening of 9 July 2011, a ethusiatic group of humanists and their loved ones stepped on Singapore first and only offshore landfill: Pulau Semakau! The island is incredibly clean and well facilitated, and a short introduction to this modern marvel left a deep impression on us. The team from The Astronomical Society Of Singapore (TASOS website) then gave us a short briefing on astronomy and the July night sky, raising our expectations.
And we were not disappointed: as our Sun goes down, thousands of stars showed themselves. Even though we were joined by two extremely bright tankers from the sea, they did not stop us from tasting many celestial objects with our eyes, such as a close up of the quarter moon, ring of Saturn, Jupiter and its four moons, and more than a handful of Messier Objects. That is not all, we also had the opportunity to be “wow-ed” by more than one satellite flare. I also discovered that a moonset can be so much more romantic than a sunset!
The TASOS team which provided us with great facilitation and the opportunity to look through their telescopes consists of Albert Ho, Albert Tan, Thomas Ang, and Kapilan. These awesome photos are taken by my dear photographer friend, Chew Hun Kai (website) !
Until the next trip! 🙂
