Tanjong Pagar Train Station

Last Saturday, Dave, Ava, and I went to the now defunct Tanjong Pagar Train Station for an event called 'Singapore Really Really Free Market' which is held monthly at different locations. We attended one last month at an industrial area at Bukit Merah and we have decided to go for it again this month. This event is about reducing wastage and giving away stuff for free and you can also provide free services, too. I have seen people offering portrait drawings, one dude offered free tarot card reading service, one lass offered free yoga lessons, and another dude even played music for the crowd. We offered to teach astronomy and live viewing of celestial objects. Everything is for free!

If you would like to participate in such activities, then 'Like' their Facebook page to receive updates every month on their whereabouts. I have attached the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/srrfm

I met Dave and Ava at Commonwealth MRT Station first and brought them to Cantoment Road to have an early dinner at a zhi char stall that I frequent. The food there was super awesome!

After the meal, we left and took a short walk to the train station. We arrived at about 6pm and we went into the station to look for the event organizers and informed them of our arrival. They appeared nonchalant and just asked what time were we going to setup. We told them that we were planning to setup at 7pm, outside of the train station when the sky darkens a little. But heck, we setup right after we were done talking to them. The 6pm sky looked cloudy but we thought to wait for awhile and it may just clear up later. Our backup plan was to look for Gary and James at Toa Payoh if the sky was still the same.

Our setups outside the train station.

Once we were done with our setups, we took turns to go back into the station to take some photos while one of us were looking after our belongings outside the station. There were not many people at the event when we arrived. It was a good time to take pictures because on normal days, that place was restricted to the public. I was chased out the night before when I went in to do a little reconnaissance of the Eastern and Western skies.

Inside the train station. Look at the beautiful murals.

One of the four statues outside the train station. 

People giving away free stuff.

When 7.15pm came, Dave spotted Jupiter first - what amazing eyes he have! I still had trouble looking for the obscure dot embedded in a still-baby blue sky. After Dave trained his telescope on Jupiter, he came over to help me point my telescope at the same object. I was still squinting to look for the King of the planets. Time to go for an eye checkup.

Okay, okay, I finally spotted it at about 7.25pm when the sky got a little darker. A few curious folks started coming close to us and we ushered them to our scopes to look at Jupiter. The human traffic was very low. Less than 10 people came to us. We ended the session at 8.30pm and started to pack up.

We then took a taxi over to Toa Payoh to look for Gary and James. When we got out of the cab, we witnessed the both of them entertaining what seemed like throngs of people queuing up for Hello Kitty plushies at Macdonald's except that there weren't any cats, the people were there for the telescopes!

Dave and I had a short discussion and we decided to go with his telescope, mounted onto my tripod. I was free to roam about to take pictures and helped out at Dave's station by manning the scope and explaining to the crowd what they were seeing when he needed a break or to help Gary at his station. Our combined setup was pointed at Orion's Nebula, Gary's 5" MCT was pointed at the Moon, and James' huge ass 10" Takahashi Mewlon was pointed at Jupiter. The scope was not as cumbersome as his 8" istar refractor, but it was still a giant to me.

This way to Orion's Nebula.

This way to the Moon.

This way to Jupiter.

For the first time, I got to look through the 10" Tak Mewlon and I managed to see Jupiter's Great Red Spot clearly. The image was better than the 8" istar. After the crowd lessened, James began to plug his Cannon DSLR to a TV and attached the camera into the telescope. There were a few hiccups here and there while trying to fine-tune the whole setup to gain a better image on the TV screen, James even dropped his DSLR and 5x Televue Powermate barlow onto the ground once - Dave's heart skipped a few beats and my gut gravitationally accelerated to the ground at 9.8m/s^2. Luckily, his equipment was fine.

It all went well after that and there were soft wows from the small crowd when a properly resolved footage of Jupiter finally came on-screen. We were watching Jupiter LIVE on TV! It was like watching some Nat Geo program.

Fun night we all had!

Setting up the LIVE view of Jupiter and a chance shot of Dave enjoying his Chicken Mcnuggets.

It's a different feeling looking at Jupiter LIVE from a TV screen.