The Sweaty Stargazer: A Year later

Haven't been updating this blog for a year now and a lot has happened since. I am still doing what I love best- astronomy.

After 4 years of conducting astronomy outreach sessions in the public with the gang at Toa Payoh Central and Bishan Park, I am finally confident enough to come out and do it on my own. I love hanging out with the gang and doing these astronomy sidewalk sessions with them. However, I feel that when a sidewalk session is being called on our Facebook page, many of us gather at one location to deploy our telescopes. Most people flock to the biggest telescope they can find there and that leaves some of us idling about and chitchatting among ourselves.

The reason I looked for a new spot is because Toa Payoh is too saturated with many of us astronomers. I figured that by spreading out, we can actually cover more areas and share with more people the beauty of celestial objects in Space.

West Coast Park is a new spot where I am doing astronomy outreach now. It's by a jetty where you can hear the calm wave gently crashing against the coastline and the sea breeze softly caressing you. It's a really relaxing place to stargaze. Though there is a busy port nearby that constitutes to the ever problematic light pollution in Singapore.

A dear friend has also sold me his pre-loved telescope, a Kenko 102mm refractor which I brought over to West Coast Park for the first time.

It's also my first time handling an event that Singapore Sidewalk Astronomy has had the honour to receive. Jointly cooperating with NUS-Medicine and Astronomy Visions, we are working closely to make a LIVE stargazing event happen for the teenagers from the Singapore Cancer Society. Although Valdric from Astronomy Visions and I have different ideologies on how to make this event a success, we are still communicating and working together. Both of us have summitted our individual proposals for the event and are hoping for the best weather on the day itself.