P.S. Star Gazing Tonight!

Once upon a Saturday, a group of YEC members brought a group of residents over to Pulau Semakau for stargazing. Everyone went home happily after the event. That’s the short story, and now we shall proceed to bore you with all the unnecessary details.

We were seriously kidding. Just a warning – you may feel disappointed at missing out all the fun, and may be inclined to spend all your disposable income on YEC events in the future.
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P.S. Stargazing Tonight! was designed to be an overnight event at Pulau Semakau, so participants would meet us at the JSCC on Saturday at 4pm, and return around 9 am on Sunday.
Typically, with other events, some participants would be late, but this time round, we actually left the CC on the dot at 4pm (three cheers for the participants!). The bus ride to Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal was rather fast; we reached in half an hour.

The Astronomical Society of Singapore (TASOS) arrived soon after. There is restricted access to Pulau Semakau, and TASOS is one of the 3 groups that actually gained this access (three cheers for TASOS!). TASOS had their own participants, and after everyone assembled, we boarded two ferries over!
Needless to say, on a Saturday’s evening, the sea line was anything less than stunning. The ferry moved more or less vertically from Singapore, so having the sea breeze on our faces and watching the Singapore “grew” smaller did have the illusion of going for an exotic getaway!

An exotic getaway it was, for aside from TASOS leaders and a few worldly participants, our group has never stepped on Semakau’s soil before.

Now, a short and dirty history on Semakau: it is Singapore’s landfill island, where wastes that could not be incinerated are buried. This is a charming photo of a building where ships deposit the wastes for trucks to carry to the landfills.

Here’s a picture of the map. We arrived at the top right corner, but the stargazing event would be conducted at the bottom left hand corner (see the “pincer” with a house icon).

TASOS proceed to conduct a briefing for us in the Admin building, which included a brief history of Semakau (it is man-made o_o) and has been around for 10-odd years. Aside from stargazing, Semakua also hosts sport fishing events and bird-watching activities. There are also intertidal walks (YEC is looking to plan this so keep your eyes peeled!), so this is more than just a landfill island. We were warned to keep our feet on the paved road; curiosity may kill because the slopes of each cell are steep, and not to forget, the sea currents are rather strong.

TASOS also went through an itinerary for the stargazing event. They assured us that while the stargazing event is really at an ulu place, there will be bus trips back to the main building for participants to shower and rest.

Off we go! Mini buses were provided, but a few adventurous participants decided to walk over. It was about 4 km walk, and we had a first-hand experience of the smell of the landfills… There was no bad smell!
Once we reached the sites, YEC proceeded to prepare two BBQ pits for our hungry participants. We kind of specialised in our tasks right away: one was in charge of the cooler which contained not-yet-yummy food, a few would cook the food, and the rest were in charge of eating (LOL). The picture below tells all (YEC organisers were decked out in orange and black YEC shirts):

 You may notice that there were quite a few non-YEC shirt participants around the BBQ pits. Some were actually YEC members who participated in the event, and offered to help out (thank you!). A few others were non-YEC members, and they gallantly offered to help (THANK YOU!). We needed the extra help because…

The lighting was sparse, and we needed people to hold torchlights. We still managed to feed hungry people (30 in all); see their happy faces below:

While eating, participants could wander over to the area where TASOS set up their telescopes. The sky was rather cloudy (imminent rain and haze) so we could not see many celestial objects. However, we did pretend we were spies and looked at the various ships anchored around the island. The views were very clear.
This is Albert, whom YEC liaised with to conduct this event, and has been a great coordinator. The photo shows him with two very expensive telescopes:

While it was unfortunate that the sky was too cloudy, TASOS members showed us videos and pictures of previous stargazing events. They also presented some camera techniques:

It then began to drizzle. Luckily the first mini bus came and half of us hurried to take it. We then showered and slept inside the Admin building. Around 4 am, something happened… a few people were sneaking out of the building, and took the telescopes along! Don’t worry, they were TASOS people. They wanted to see if the sky was clear enough for stargazing, and it was! The news began to spread:

There was Jupiter with its asteroid belt, and Earth’s moon:

We then cleared the place and did some housekeeping, after which we took the ferries back at 7.30 am.
Last but not least, the group photo:

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If you want to keep track of Jurong Spring YEC’s events, join our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/JSCCYEC. We would also like to express our thanks to TASOS. You can find them here http://tasos.org.sg/.

Lastly, we would also like to thank all our participants, YEC members or not, for making this event a truly memorable one. Thank you and we hope to see you again!