Date:  Sep 10, 2019

September school holiday.  Jay Jay invited his best buddies to our place for “Video gaming + Board Gaming + Basketball + Makan + Star Gazing + Do Homework” party from 10am to 9pm.  10 of his buddies came and all of them had a lot of fun.

Don’t play play.  When I mentioned “Do homework” in above sentence you must be thinking in your mind, “Sure boh??? Do homework?”  hahahahaha

Here is the proof.  (Taken by my wife, yesterday was busy delivering mooncake so, cannot be at home with the kids, but my wife managed to observe the most precious moment).  Those friends are from Nanhua and RV.  hahahahaha… So, they take 1-2 hours time to do their home work seriously.  They also helped each other in solving math questions since they uses same text book.

Sun is setting.  A funny episode … the girls wants to take the nice sunset photo, I told them, I have asked Jay Jay to bring my camera up, but this boy take so long, and by the time he brings me the camera, the sun is setting.  Hahahahaha

I took these photos to “extend” the timing for Aiden.  He suppose to be at home at 7pm.  But I told him, 7:25 sun set completely.  Then, Mercury, Venus will come out a while and then, be gone, followed by Jupiter until 11:30pm, and Saturn until 2am the next day.  So, I sent this pic to his daddy to ask for permission to stay longer.  hahahaha

Of course, JinXuan and Elyse also needed to be home to eat at home, buy dessert home.  I told them to sent this nice Jupiter photo to their parents, so that they can stay back another hour to see it with their own eyes.

Not to forget the main attraction of the night.

I also prepared my camera to take the moon.

Jay Jay started to calibrate the telescope.

And here comes the moon.

The kids look at the moon with amaze.

It’s not full moon, but the craters can be seen clearly.  And this is given the fact that the sky is quite hazy, that is why the sun sets so fast into the haze just then.  So, we are lucky we can see the moon so clear.  This was taken from my Fujifilm X-H1 without the telescope.

So, I told them, now you can sent this photo back to your mommy and daddy.  As a proof that they really learning Astrology from me.  hahahahahaha

This was taken using iPhone XS camera pointing the lens into the 6″ Telescope.   As you can see the dark blue round shape of the eyepiece and the moon inside.  And it is so clear.  You can see the craters in even more details.

This is our moon.

Here is a short video looking into the eye piece of the 6″ Telescope.

No joke, lovely.

While Jay Jay searching for the new planet to see, the girls enjoying the night lights…

This is what they are looking at.

And of course, if you are a clear non-hazy day, you can see JB town, across from the Woodland from here.  Very vibrant too.

The main star of the night is our moon.  Not a full moon, but another 5 days to be full.  This is the best time to see the craters.

Of course, I am trying out my new Rollei Astroklar Filter, the effect is very nice.  It actually filtered a bit light pollutions away.

With the correct aperture and ISO and shuttle speed, you can make our moon looks like a star.  The star inside the photo is actually our moon ya.  Surrounded by the some other stars.

Taken using my Laowa Zero-Distortion 9mm F2.8 lens, plus the Rollei Night filter, I managed to capture 20-37min (max 37min) of lights too.  hahahaha  Again, I am still learning.  hahahaha

While I am at my iMac, let’s do some PS (Photoshop) fun things.  Let’s assume if the moon rise in between those two tall radio tower, what should it be like?  I think it will look like this.. hahaha

Yesterday I showed the kids the StarTracker or Sky Guide or Night Sky or Star Chart or Star Walk app (yeap, I have downloaded all of them).  There is actually a milky way on top of our roof top.  We just could not see it because of the light pollution here in Singapore.  But imagine if you go to a beach with almost zero light… This is what you will see on top of the sky at our roof top.

I taught them quite a bit of common knowledge.

If a star is so far that I need to travel 1000 light year to it.  Whatever we see now, is 1000 years ago.  1000 years is about 15-20 generations.  Technology can be very advanced within this 1000 years.

Not all the stars are 1000 years away.  Some are 3 light years and some are 100,000 light years away.

There are billions and billions of billions or zillions starts above us.  Our galaxy our universe is very big.  So, don’t tell me there is no life out there.

But the problem is they have to solve physics.  How to travel 1000 years and not getting old.  hahahahaha  Given that warp engine is not real, Spore drive is not real, hyperdrive is not real, FTL is not real, etc… hahahaha

Some discussions of stars and universe.

The two girls were amaze how I got this photo given there is no light turned on.  Well, that’s magic.  Aperture of f1.8, Zeiss Tout lens of 32mm for Fujifilm with auto-focus.  It gathers light ya.  hahahaha

It’s time to go home, don’t forget to show the clear moon, Jupiter and Saturn photos to your parents ya.

They ended up playing Explosion Kitten to wrap up a wonderful Sept Holiday.

Friends is important, and we as parents wanted our kids to remember their pre-school friends, their Primary School friends and next Secondary School friends.  So, school is not about always do home work, is about networking, communicating, and making lots of good friends.

I am happy with Jay Jay with this bunch of friends.  They have been gathered I think the third time this year, not counting wearing school uniform went back visit the teachers last week during the Teacher’s day.

So, keep playing, keep gathering, and not forgetting doing your homework!  hahahaha