Whee! Doing a stunt!

Hello, I blog!

I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.

Jan
06 2012

This is why I love skywatching …

… because you’ll never know what to expect.

Was taking a nice, slow walk back home when suddenly I felt this strange urge to look at the sky. (Usually, I don’t bother since I’m in cloud kuku land when strolling about, and also attempting to dodge cars and all … which I nearly got hit by one actually, but that’s a different story altogether.)

So, I gazed up and saw this magnificent lunar halo smiling down at me.

Lunar Halo, 06 January 2012
Lunar Halo with Orion’s belt 45 degrees to the top right.
Captured on an Canon EOS 450D, F3.5 + 20s shutter speed.

It was quite a massive halo, spanning a large area of the sky. Hurrah for wide-angle lenses. I managed to capture the entire halo along with some surrounding constellations.

The halo had faded considerably by the time I reached home and retrieved my camera, but enjoy what’s left of it. (;

Dec
11 2011

Total Lunar Eclipse, 10th December 2011

Hurray for awesomely clear skies, because it allowed me to catch the total lunar eclipse from start to finish.

Managed to catch the first half of the eclipse at Marina Barrage with a bunch of close friends … along with loads of noisy children, other astronomy geeks and surrounded by kites attached with flashing lights which (thankfully) didn’t get in the way of the eclipse viewing.

The second half was caught from home.

Total Lunar Eclipse, 10th December 2011
Click to view original size.

This is possibly the first time lady luck’s on my side, considering my last blotched attempt at eclipse watching no thanks to an overcast sky (which resulted in loads of grainy photos). Today was completely different – witnessing a total lunar eclipse under a clear night sky was an experience on a totally new level.

I’ve collated all the images captured into a composite as you can see above. Click on it to view the composite in its full glory.

Oh yeah, you can find my photo submission on my favourite astronomy site, Spaceweather too.

Enjoy!

Jun
16 2011

Total Lunar Eclipse from Singapore

There’s currently a lunar eclipse going in Singapore. (In fact, we’re still in total eclipse at the moment. Act fast, though – the moon will start to peek out in about 10 minutes time.)

All my previous attempts at lunar eclipse-geeking was thwarted by thick cloud covers, so I stayed up late today to catch this one.

Tonight, the sky wasn’t very welcoming. Lightning was flashing in the distance, but (thankfully) the cloud cover was relatively mild.

Total lunar eclipse, 16th June 2011
Moon captures between 2.27am to 2.56am.

The clouds thickened at one point, scattering light from the moon so badly that I had to abandon attempts at photo-taking for a bit (hence the blurriness of the last few pictures). Although it lightened again just in time for the final phases before totality.

Total lunar eclipse, 16th June 2011
Approaching totality at 3.26am.

I can now go to bed satisfied.

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