Monday, October 17, 2011

I watched the stars tonight

It's Singapore and it's too bright to see stars.

Most of the time at least.

But the past 2 nights have been especially clear, and appearing next to the almost full moon was what looked like a bright star, but was actually Jupiter.


2 yellow street lights, one white full moon shining through the trees, 
and the tiny white speck above - that's Jupiter.


I had long suspected these stars that appear in the night sky were planets, especially since all other stars could not be seen. Only the light from closer celestial objects within our solar system would be visible.


I've been taking a module on the universe, and have the handphone app that can tell me identify the stars (Download Stellarium on iPhone or Google Sky on Android). I told people about Jupiter 2 nights ago, but almost everyone was in disbelief. I guess we imagines planets would look much more like the pictures we see on the internet rather than stars in the sky. The first time we had a star gazing session for our module, I could not believe it either.


Tonight I was watching the stars, while trying to hide from glaring street lights.

I pointed my phone to the sky and I identified a flickering star to be Neptune.

Then I noticed a bright yellowish dot at the horizon. It was Jupiter again.

And as I looked down at my phone, I realised that right in between the 2 planets... was Uranus.

I looked up and to my utter amazement, gazed upon the 3 Jovian planets lying in a straight line in the night sky.


It's one thing to see solar system models in school, of all the planets circling the sun on the same plane.

It's another thing to see it in the sky, where the vastness of the universe hits you.

In the entire sky of tiny stars, there is a line of planets spinning round each other.

I could almost feel the earth move as I thought about this.


We are part of something bigger than the sum of all of us.

2 comments:

  1. I still can't believe that planets look like stars in the sky!
    But, anyway, that iPhone app sounds interesting (hopefully it works for the iPad! :D)

    I have to agree that the sky has been really, really these past few nights - in fact, I think I saw the moon every single day this week! :D

    I'm not sure how the sky in Punggol is like, but here in Siglap (on the hill), I actually do get to see quite a bit of stars in the sky! Like, tonight, I see 4 stars! I always feel happy when I see stars (or, er, planets, I guess?) ^^

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  2. Angeline! It's even better on iPad! Download it, and change the settings to night mode and bring it outside. It uses the GPS and accelerometer in the iPad to determine which direction you are pointing it, and identifies what you are looking at. You might even be able to identify meteor showers after midnight!

    It's not that great in Punggol, coz there are lamps even on the roof so it's really hard to see, but the sky was really, really last night! Eh do you have a bino? You could use it to stargaze too if your house has a good sky view!

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