Plan B

Organizer: Besides the live stargazing, do you have any backup plans in case the weather goes bad on the actual day of the event?
*Heart rate increases*
Me: Ummm... yeah, we do. We have got wet weather programs lined up for the boys and girls. I will send an e-mail of the line up when we have finalized some stuff on our side.  

It was all a bluff. I was putting on my best poker face. I had no Plan B ready in hand. I went back home and started thinking hard on what we could do if the weather really turned against us on the actual day of the event. Went online to do some research on astronomy activities but most of them are meant for small scale events of about 10-20 people, scaling it up would meant that it's going to be a logistical nightmare. So, I came up with a few astronomy-related games of my own.

Educators who are interested may take these ideas that I am sharing. No need to credit me. All I ask for is that you do not earn a monetary profit from these ideas.

It really depends on how many people are in your audience. Just play around with the numbers to form 2 teams. These games are generally inexpensive to organize. You may even set your own rules or alter the game play to suit your needs.

Premutation of numbers of players: 60 pax = 2 teams of 30 players, 62 pax = 2 teams of 31 players, 64 pax = 2 teams of 32 players, 66 pax = 2 teams of 33 players, 68 pax = 2 teams of 34 players, 70 pax = 2 teams of 35 players.

*In the event that the total number of players is an odd number, get a single organiser to participate in the games.

Form a constellation:

Items needed: 1000 glow sticks, 75 sky maps.

*Important note: Explain how to use the sky map and what are constellations before starting the game. You can download the latest Sky Maps here: http://skymaps.com/downloads.html

1. Form 2 teams of players. (let players decide which team to join)

2. Choose a game captain from each team. (let players decide)

3. Instruct all of them on how the game is being played using the sky map. (join 2 glow sticks for long constellation lines, use single glow sticks for short constellation lines, make the glow stick into a bracelet to make single stars forming the constellations, ignore other stars and planets in the sky map. Explain point system to them)

4. Advise both game captains on their roles on assigning manpower to form certain constellations and their duty to present the constellations to the judges after they are done.

5. Each team is given 500 glow sticks to recreate the constellations in the sky map.

6. Each team is given 30 minutes to finish the game.

Total points for this game is 20 points.

Leadership = 5 pts.

Teamwork = 5 pts.

Accuracy of sky map recreation = 10 pts.

Planet Pong:

Items needed: 8 small buckets, 1 soft ball, 1 whiteboard marker.

*Impotant note: Explain the order of the planets to player before the game starts

1. Label each small bucket with a name of a planet in the Solar System using a whiteboard marker.

2. Place buckets in order to the planets in the Solar System.

3. Each player is handed a soft ball and has 3 throws.

4. Players score points by successfully throwing ball into a bucket.

5. Every bucket carries different points (Mercury = 1 point, Venus = 2 pts, Earth = 3 pts, Mars = 4 pts, Jupiter = 5 pts, Saturn = 6 pts, Uranus = 7 pts, Neptune = 8 pts)

6. Encourage game captains to motivate the their teams to cheer for throwers.

Caught by a flare:

Items needed: None

*Important note: Explain to the players the dangers of solar flares and the protective qualities of Earth's magnetic field from such solar activities.

1. Each team to select a catcher (solar flare) and a shield (magnetic field).

2. The shield is responsible for shielding the rest of the players behind him/her and thus cannot be caught by the catcher.

3. Starting from the second player behind the shield to the number 9^th player can be caught and they are worth 2 points each. The 8 players represent the planets.

4. Any players behind the number 9^th player are considered astroids and are worth 1 point each when they are caught

5. Any player caught by the catcher must be out of the game and report if he/she is a planet or an astroid to the judges.

6. Total scores will be tabulated at the end of the game and the team that has the highest score wins the game. Prizes to be given out to the winning team.

Zerg Rush!

Have you ever experienced the lovely sight and sounds of hordes of children crowding around you and your telescope, eagerly waiting for you to show them what was promised? Have you ever had a near-death experience as your shirt nearly gets ripped apart by scores of little human beings wanting to see Jupiter?

I did.  

If you have played PC games from the Star Craft franchise, you would know what a "Zerg Rush" is. It truly felt like that.

Zerg Rush, a tactic used by Zerg players to engulf their opponent with waves of weak but quick creatures. Picture for illustration purpose, no kids were harmed.

I don't exactly know how to put it in words but it had a terrifying yet cute vibe to it. Seeing how these little kids were so enthusiastic about something they barely knew existed was sure an intriguing sight to me. That, I believe, is the aim of any amateur sidewalk astronomer - to awe you with the knowledge that such worlds exist.  

This was an event that we undertook at the request of My First Skool, a kindergarten at Toa Payoh. Gary and I were there at about 6pm and we started setting up. He was in-charge of the presentation and so he was busy with the multimedia system and I was deploying the telescope, ready to be moved to the outdoors once the presentation was over. 

Big mistake. We didn't factor in how hyperactive kids could be when they see something new and exciting to them. They were rushing towards the setup and "molesting" the equipment at will. We had to constantly monitor the projector, laptop and telescope which could very possibly be wrecked by their little adventure. Besides, there were wires lying about on the ground connecting the laptop to the projector - we were worried that they may trip and fall while running about.

Then 7pm came and the event started. Gary gave his presentation to the kids and their parents who were all seated on the floor. I was figuratively biting my nails, hoping this all goes well. Once again, kids being kids, their attention span was shorter than their last toe. Some kids were up and running about, some kids took toys from the shelf to play, some kids were screaming at each other, one even rolled on the floor crying when his toy got snatched by another kid. It all went Metallica about 15 minutes after the event had started. It seemed that the parents and teachers were unable to handle them and I really thought of calling in the riot police.

Talking to the ex-students from the kindergarten whose younger siblings are also in the same school.
Photo credit: Gary

About to start with the presentation.

The calm before the storm.

Gary's presentation.

After Gary's talk had ended, I waited for everyone to exit the school before moving the telescope outside for the LIVE stargazing segment. That was when the "Zerg Rush" began. The crowd started to cluster around me once the telescope was set down to view Jupiter. The heat was building up so much that I was perspiring without even doing anything. I got a little edgy and told the parents that the session can't proceed if they didn't form an orderly queue.

Thankfully, it all went well shortly after. Uncle Wayne and Hong Lian came to join us. Uncle Wayne was busy snapping nice pictures of the event while Hong Lian was deploying his 127mm Mak nearby. If I am not mistaken, I think Hong Lian's children were also from the same kindergarten. Overall, it was a wonderful night with Jupiter brightly lit up in the sky. The families got their thirst for knowledge quenched and the headmaster and teachers were glad that the event was a success.

Although it was daunting to have had so many children as our audience, we are truly honoured that My First Skool had selected us to do an event for them. If there's such an opportunity again in the future, I will still take the job and show the kids what they can see in the sky. That being said, we will come better prepared.  

The orderly queue that I requested for.
Photo credit: Gary

Kept having to realign the telescope as the kids pushed it by accident.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

Hong Lian in action.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

Awesome view from the 127mm Mak.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

I think Gary was showing them an astronomy app on his phone.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

My young Padawans.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

After the event had ended, Uncle Wayne was kind enough to drive Gary and I to United Square at Novena to conduct an impromptu and unannounced astronomy outreach session there. We wanted to give that place a try because there is a 24-hour Starbucks beside which holds a teenage crowd during the weekends. We took a break and had some drinks before we moved out to deploy our telescopes. Uncle Wayne was gracious to stay on and took pictures of the sidewalk event. One interesting thing I learnt that night, was that Jupiter is called "Mok Seng" in Korean when I overheard a group of Koreans chatting when they came over to look at Jupiter through the telescope. "Mok Seng", which incidentally, is the Cantonese word for Jupiter too!

Uncle Wayne left later while both Gary and I stayed until Saturn was visible. I tested the view of the ringed planet using my 102mm Kenko refractor. It was decent with Cassini Division somewhat visible when the magnification is being pushed to 160 times and the planet is high in the sky.

We packed up and left at about 4am. I have got to say, that was the most tiring astronomy outreach I have ever done in my entire 4 years of doing outreach sessions. It has been 2 days since and yet my body is still recuperating from the exhaustion.

Outside of Starbucks at United Square, Novena.
Photo credit: Gary

The young crowd.
Photo credit: Gary

Group of Koreans observing Jupiter.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

A very nice and polite lady who was amazed by what she had seen.
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

Wait, I don't remember there was anything directly above at Zenith. What was I pointing at?
Photo credit: Uncle Wayne

That's Uncle Wayne right there, enjoying the view of Jupiter.
Photo credit: Gary

Workers who were doing renovation for a new shop next to us came by to enjoy the view of Saturn.
Photo credit: Gary

    

Coursera

This is actually a backdated blog entry. Around early December of 2016, I decided to enroll in a course called "Astronomy: Exploring Time And Space" to challenge myself. It's a bad habit of mine to do things halfheartedly and give up along the way, even the things I love doing. This time, I thought it would be the same. The entire duration of the course lasted for 3 months.

Nice....

Lo and behold, the result of talking to myself for about 3 months, trying to figure out how certain things work in the Universe. Since I have completed the course, let me walk you through how I felt. 

It started off as a gentle stream in the beginning where you play in the water and have fun understanding core concepts of things we can relate to. As you gradually progress forward in the middle chapters, that gentle stream leads you to a raging torrent where I started to struggle to understand stuff like Black Holes, Neutron Stars, General Theory of Relativity, Olber's Paradox ect. There are concepts that I have never even heard of before such as degenerate matter and electron/neutron pressure. I took plenty of time and had to do a lot of external reading to understand these concepts. Then the course throws you off a steep waterfall near the end as things became very unintuitive to the human perception. You start to learn things in Astrobiology like "Are we in a simulation?" and be prepared for lots of hypothesis' and speculations.

Don't go in thinking that it's a course for beginners who possess zero knowledge in astronomy. That being said, I did enjoy myself throughout the whole crazy journey of staying up till 4am on certain days to ask the lecturer questions over a LIVE YouTube feed, doing external reading and watching tons of videos to understand better, literally talking to myself to create a mental image of things I didn't understand, and constantly refreshing the webpage for my result after the completion of every written assignment. After spending US$49 and going through 174 M.C.Q.s with 5 written assignments consisting of 14 topics, I made it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I would like to thank Prof. Chris Impey from The University of Arizona for his dedication in making those lecture videos and the people who assisted him in doing so. Also, special thanks to the moderators in the Coursera forum, especially Ms. Christy Read for clearing my doubts. 

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.   

A family waiting at the jetty for the Moon to arise after viewing Jupiter.

West Coast Park sidewalk session.
Picture credit: Uncle Wayne

Astronomy outreach at West Coast Park.
Picture credit: Uncle Wayne

Woes Of A Sidewalk Astronomer

Having done public sidewalk astronomy for about 3 years now, I have encountered many situations along this journey. Some of the experiences are pleasant, while some others are not so.

Speaking of which, I believe that my fellow sidewalkers have their own stories to tell. I thought it would be interesting to share mine since I am healing from a sprained back and a few nasty insect bites from the previous public outreach session.

1) I have been given the dirty look by onlookers because they don't understand what was going on.

2) Shouted at by the mentally unstable.

3) Kids manhandling my telescope while their parents stood by and watched the world burn.

4) Inquisitions by the ultra-religous individuals.

5) Suffered nasty insect bites/stings.

6) Sprained my back doing yoga-like positions to adjust a telescope while objects were at zenith.

7) Queue cutters.

8) Wacky conspiracy theorists.

Yeah, that's about all. That being said, I still love what I do. This blog update isn't about complaints, but rather, to show people that it isn't easy to do these astronomy sidewalks and to let future sidewalk astronomers be prepared for what they are about to face when they embark upon this selfless quest.

Itchy bite marks of an insect from the previous sidewalk session. This isn't the first time I've been bitten by such an insect. The itch typically lasts for 3-4 days before it subsides.

Big Things Come From Small Beginnings

Knock, knock.

Who's there? 

U.P.S.

U.P.S. who?

U.P.S. YOURS!

Joke aside, the courier came on Monday afternoon with a parcel delivered from Germany - I had ordered some telescope accessories from Telescope Express last Friday. I was crossing my fingers hoping that the shipment had gone all right. Thanks to the people handling the logistics, the shipment and delivery time were impeccable.

2.5kg worth of stuff.

Upon inspection of the items in the box, everything was fine. I had bought a 2-inch diagonal with SCT treading, a couple of 2-inch eyepieces, and a huge telrad finder. 

Is it Christmas or what?!

2" toys.

I had wanted to go from 1.25 inch to 2 inch ever since I saw the view on Dave's similar setup. The F.O.V. (field of view) was wider and I was willing to pay more for a nice view.

Eager to test it out in the field the next day, I told the usual suspects that I would do a sidewalk at Bishan Park. I packed up and brought the entire setup to Gary's abbot. He had something fun for me to try out - a quadcopter drone!

After some drone fun, Gary and I left for Bishan Park. 

The Moon and Jupiter were already high up in the sky when we reached. I hastily deployed the 6" SCT. I had to do a little bit of work on the telrad finder by removing both the sticky tapes at the bottom of the plate and replaced them with the blue tack that Gary had brought along. After it was done, I mounted the finder on top of the SCT and went on to slot the new 2" diagonal and Badder click-zoom eyepiece. The slot wasn't exactly smooth, it was a little tight-fitting. I had to force the eyepieces into the diagonal. I guess it needs to be used often.  

Aligning the finder.

"You see at all these places you go, there are so many people terribly interested in these things. And you have to understand that the population of the Earth is several billions, with all those eyes waiting to see, all those ears waiting to hear, all those minds eager to understand. And somebody's got this job to do." - John Dobson  

The rest of the gang; Thejo, Kwan, Dave, and Ava came later in the evening for the sidewalk at Bishan Park. Thejo brought his 8" Meade SCT and the view of Mars and Saturn through it were amazing! It was thanks to him that I managed to tighten the Vixen Porta mount. The gearing that controls the altitude was coming loose and he lent me a no. 2 hex key to fasten it. Thanks to Kwan for getting us the much needed bottles of water from a nearby provision shop. 

Note the dire wolf-looking dog on the right. Yes, another 4 more days to Game Of Thrones Season 6!!!

I also realized something about myself that night - I need to get a new pair of spectacles. I had trouble looking for many deep sky objects through the telrad while Dave and Kwan was telling me it's there. They can see it while I can't.

An astronomer's worse nightmare - deteriorating eyesight.   

  

   

Boothy Call

Wait, what's that sound? Oh no, it's raining!

The heavy downpour started in the early afternoon last Saturday when we were about to leave home to do an event at 1 Degree 15, Sentosa. It was the Singapore Yacht Show 2016. 

It was a rare chance for me to try to setup a proper astronomy booth for the first time and the skies didn't quite take too kindly at first attempts. My decision had begin to waver as to whether I should bring the mobile booth along to the event. Not much time to think, Gary was on his way to pick me up in a cab. I braved the torrential rain and lugged the portable booth along.

Our plan was to reach and setup our telescopes by 3pm. Some of them would do solar astronomy, while others waited for sundown to view Jupiter. No luck to those who brought their solar telescopes - the sky was still bleak with a promise of rain.

Fortunately, the evening sky showed mercy and decided to clear up a bit at the Eastern side. James already had his 6" APM Apochromatic refractor on standby. Gary, too, had his 5" Maksutov Cassegrain at the ready. Then came the funny part. Siddarth had brought along a small, cute-looking refractor that looked like a toy. We tried looking at distant objects with it in the afternoon and strangely enough, the optics was okay-ish for a $30 telescope. It had a zoom eyepiece and the main objective lens even had anti-reflective coating on it! I stole a peek at Jupiter through it and the planet had a funky greenish hue, ha-ha-ha!     

Oh the monstrosity.

Jupiter is up!

Gary's 5" MCT and Siddarth's cute refractor.

Looking at Jupiter with the cute refractor. LOL!

Then came the time for me to shift the astro booth from the indoors to the outdoors. 

Here comes the crowd.

I tried to keep the booth as simple as possible, but not to the point of being disengaging. I had two cork boards - one with a short introduction of our Solar System, topped with a lego astronomer with her telescope, the other with pin-made constellations that I could tell a story with. Next, was the orrery board showing the phases of the Moon. It also doubles up as a board to explain the difference between astrology and astronomy. Also, I brought along two samples of meteorite fragments for the public to admire. A kid even wanted to buy one off me! Flanking to my left and to my right were an Ipad showcasing the different sizes of celestial bodies in our Solar System and a poster of Space exploration respectively.

Cork board with a depiction of the constellations.

Orrery to explain the phases of the Moon. Above, an introduction to the Solar System with the lego astronomer in the middle.

It was thanks to Ava and Gary that the booth became more interesting. Ava had offered her free astro bookmarks of Jupiter and Saturn. She had also conjured up some last minute cartoon drawings of the planets to give away. Gary brought along two puzzles for anyone who had the time and gusto to fix them. I especially love the one with the 3D effect and boy, was it trippy to look at. I felt bad when I learned that one of the puzzle pieces is now lost. Gary suspects that it went missing in the cab while we were going back home.    

Ava's bookmarks and drawings.

A very special thanks to Ava for manning the booth while I was away. Also, I would like to thank the rest of the crew; Dave, Thejo, Kwan, and Siddarth for helping me with the assembly and dis-assembly of the booth which can be quite a tedious chore.   

Lastly, thanks to Gary and Dave for the awesome pictures taken that day. 

When the crowd at James' station started to dwindle, I made my way over to take a look at Jupiter through his 6" refractor before we packed up and left. As usual, it was stunning!

Using the Ipad to make visualization of the sizes of celestial objects easier. 

Engaging the public with the astro booth!

Look son, it's Jupiter up there!

Asking a little girl to guess how many Earths could fit into the Sun's volume. I guess she was mind blown at the end. 

Telling an ancient Greek story of the constellations.

Puzzles, adults and kids were welcome to try!

The astro booth at night. I made sure that the lighting was sufficient.