Many Singaporeans celebrated Earth Day in their own ways. Some schools turned off the aircon for a day. A few shopping malls turned down the lights for an hour (the individual shops are lighted up so shopping life still goes on). It is symbolic gestures like these that remind us that all of us - every human we know, every creature that has ever existed, every microbe that we can't see is riding on this Starship Earth. So let's not mess with it too much and be nice.
The Astronomy Society of Singapore (TASOS) also held its star gazing night on the same night in which Wisma Atria dimmed its lights. My 5-year old daughter, Natalie, is a member of the TASOS club and I guess she "invited" me to the event. We set up our 70cm focal length toy telescope (which cost about s$100 and Toys'rus) and managed to point it at the moon. The night was a clear one and we saw the uneven, crater-scarred face of our moon. Other members had powerful telescopes from Celestron and other niche manufacturers, and they usually costs thousands of dollars. One such powerful telescope was pointed at Saturn and you could see the rings of Saturn and even its moon, Titan.
We had a great time and it is good to pause and stop our busy life and think about bigger things like planets, stars and galaxies. It reminds us our uniqueness in this universe and our humility relative to it.
Harold
The Astronomy Society of Singapore (TASOS) also held its star gazing night on the same night in which Wisma Atria dimmed its lights. My 5-year old daughter, Natalie, is a member of the TASOS club and I guess she "invited" me to the event. We set up our 70cm focal length toy telescope (which cost about s$100 and Toys'rus) and managed to point it at the moon. The night was a clear one and we saw the uneven, crater-scarred face of our moon. Other members had powerful telescopes from Celestron and other niche manufacturers, and they usually costs thousands of dollars. One such powerful telescope was pointed at Saturn and you could see the rings of Saturn and even its moon, Titan.
We had a great time and it is good to pause and stop our busy life and think about bigger things like planets, stars and galaxies. It reminds us our uniqueness in this universe and our humility relative to it.
Harold
(Sent from BlackBerry Wireless Handheld)
Harold and Future Captain Nat of Starship Enterprise
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