The trip to Rumania         Having been to Rumunia more than once with different groups of
astro-friends, I've decided to once again make a trip down with friends 
from the two astronomical societies that I'm currently in. We gathered at my place during noon to facilitate the transportation of the optical equipment to our destination. Upon final arrival at Changi Jetty (about 1400hrs), we were greeted with clear skies and beared a tinge of optimism for a night of good-seeing. We reached Pengerang Jetty, Johore, at 1550hrs, there after, squeezed into weather-beaten taxi and sped to the observing-site, Rumunia Beach.     The site was a definite haven for nature-lovers and I reminenced to my
friends about the site's legendary dark skies and setady seeing. We
began to use the autofocus camera and took advantage of the scenic
beach-scape and the miniature "Grand Canyon-like" architecture. I
remembered once when Weiliang suggested taking a shot of the entire
group pretending to "rock-climb" and to stay perched atop of rocks with
the islets-filled seascape. It was picturesque!   Soon, we were all hoping that the night will come fast as we simply
counld not wait to "surf" the night-sky. It was a blessing that the
evening sky maintained its excellent transparency and there were little
or no clouds at all! Upon opening up the packets of chicken rice and Mee Goreng (is that what you ate, Tingchuan?) that we bought from our mainland, Weiliang caught sight of Venus at the western horizon. Jupiter was later seen and wow!, they shone like jewels.As the night quickly rolled in, much of the natural world stood still,leaving us nature watchers with just a few subjects to follow. Among them are the weather, the stars, and unexpectedly, the realisation of the uncollimated Newtonian. Geessh! Quickly, Tingchuan and I used the laser collimator to correct to scope. Meanwhile, we were also
"perturbed" by the incessant heavenly desires of the rest, "Is the scope ready? Look at the STARS!". After several minutes of intense collimation (my scope simply had to free of optical errors!), we centerized the scope and began an
astronomical expedition that lasted almost the entire night. The densely-filled starry sky overwhelmed all of us; The Winter Milky Way streched from horizon to horizon, the Great Andromeda Nebula was a visual spectacle, and Venus seemed to cast shadows! We knew that we were going to be kept busy for the night. Heap Yong began to dedicate a few moments to binocular astronomy, while Weiliang was occupied with photographying the splendid star-fields.   I decided to sweep up the old-time favourites: Double Cluster, M42 or the Orion Nebula, M41 in Canis Major and many more. As the night progressed into the later hours, we all decided not to waste time looking at repeated favorites. It was time to look at the lesser-known treats such as the NGC objects and yes!, GALAXIES! Though it was a reflector that we were using, it provided us with the finest views of deep-sky showpieces when the atmosphere seemed to stand still altogether. The absence of the Moon further augmented our hopes of visual deep-sky observations.The elusive M33 in Triangulum found no place to hide away from us, the Crab Nebula displayed a mass of wispy filamentary structures in an oval and the obsure M79 globular cluster in Lupus was quickly picked out by Heap Yong  in his Protic binoculars (for your information, my handy observing atlas  listed it as "very difficult to resolve"). We began to get accustomed to the conventional but most enjoyable way of finding the celestial iternary -- starhopping. Lois showed us the famous M35 in Gemini while I began to start a verbal battle with Heap Yong regarding the seemingly similiar views of the various open clusters that we saw. Though I must say that I showed the subtle differences between clusters like the stark M41 and the more subtle M35....ahhh nevermind.   Next, our attention was focused on the barren constellation Eridanus. I suggested a the not-so-common planetary nebula NGC 1360. Though it was hardly visible in the 35mm Ultima eyepiece, the 18mm Othoscopic revealed a circular blob of haze dotted with two stars. It was only 6 arc minutes across (thirty times smaller than the Andromeda Galaxy). Heap Yong revived the M79-fever again by attempting to find the 8' globular through the Celestron Newtonian. Later, I challenged them toseeing the Hubble Variable Nebula, a cometary patch that spanned only 2' across. Nevertheless, all of us caught a glimpse of the "comet". We also paid a visit to the neighboring open cluster NGC 2264 in Monoceros. As midnight passed, we approached the realm of galaxies-searching. There was no diffiulty looking for the faint edge-on galaxy, NGC 2683, in Lynx. We compared it with the Saturn Galaxy in Corvus and found a distinct dust lane cutting across the latter. As Leo rose, we searched for NGC 2903, a Sb6 galaxy that was 20 million light-years away.   Unfortunately, our stellar voyage was disrupted by a few Malaysian soldiers .We were told to leave the observing site due to security reasons. We had realised that there was a camp atop the hill that was located behind the site. At about 1AM we found another site but it was affected with stray light from a distant flourescent lamp.Sigh.... Still, we continued to stargaze.......   As the dawn hours approached, we experienced passing showers that ceased an extended night of observing. As we brought no tent with us, Heap Yong and Weiliang cleverly made a makeshift "basha" to shield our belongings from the rain. Since then, the telescope was disassembled and we proceeded with light-hearted conversations and a celestial treat of the crescent Moon at the horizon in front of us.... That's all folks! As usual, Tingchuan provided us with a detailed timely account of the Rumunia event. Cheers to him! ==================== 1311: Manage to catch the bus to Changi Village 1355: Arrive at Changi Village. Lunch time and last-minute-shopping. 1447: Walk to Changi Jetty to wait for a boat. 1500: Boat leaves jetty. 1550: Arrive at Malaysian Jetty. 1600: Got a cab to take us to Ramunia. 1635: Reach Ramunia and start walking to observing location. 1640: Reach final destination. Photo-taking ceremony. 1730: Rest & talk. Set-up telescope. 1800: Friendly conversation with Sabri, the Malaysian Army Personnel. 1900: Feeding time. 1930: Star gazing starts. 2159: For the first time, everyone catches a meteor. 0035: Got chased away by the Malaysian Army Personnel. 0105: Found a new observing location. 0330: Overcast. 0347: Starts to rain. Pack up and make our own shelter. 0410: Shelter Ready. 0430: Rain stops. 0500: Rain again. 0510: Rain stops again. 0540: Rain again! 0550: Rain stops again!! 0630: Rain again!!!!!! 0645: Rain stops again!!!!!!!!!! 0702: Taxi comes to pick us up. 0732: Reach jetty. 0800: Got a boat and boat leaves jetty. 0850: Arrive at Changi jetty. 0910: Got a bus back.   The Captain's Log was brought to you by:   CitySea -- the official time-keeper of the Ramunia trip.