GEMS - a celestial downpour Dec 15 2015

Mersing Dec 11 - 13 2015

Mersing Astro Trip ( ... updating in progress)

   STARS - ARTIFICAL SATELLITES - METEORS 

   It had been a long while since I last visited Mersing. In those hayday i remembered Allan Teo remarked the  'white band of light' that never seems to be moving away from an airstrip in Mersing in the 2000s. He thought it was a stationary clouds.  For this trip I brought along the new Canon G5X.  Wanted to use the f1.8 8.8mm lens for wide field star field. Two other cameras are ready if the sky cried out Geminids. 

 On the first night we had a good start - Dec 11 Friday the sky was moderately clear and starry starry night just a few steps from the chalet.  [ cannot compete with Rinjani Mountain top air clarity and deep magnitude sky]

  IT will be a waste just to do star trails using the build in mode Instead individual time exposure with 25-30 S at 8.8 mm and widest aperture f1.8 were made.  I let the camera picks the ISO. (800). Fixed tripod and with 2 sec delay after i pressed the button. [ wireless intervalometer is available for this type of operation ]

Orion clearing the lines of young trees in front of our  sea- facing #23 - 30 chalets

Here Pleiades and inverted 'V' Tarus on the left.  Deepskystacker x3 LF x0 DF

Two streaks from  artificial satellites from a stack of two images Oval shaped Andromeda Galaxy M31 is noticeable from the upper top left.  More short artificial satellite streaks below too. ( DSS, x3 LF)

There is a hint of milkyway registered on above two pictures.  A faint band was detectable visually.  

  DAY activities 

In and around the chalets.  First off to the beach... sandfly or no sandfly... umbrella to shield against the sun...and or rain. 

Goat  in nearby field

We set off exploring the sea shore towards the Mawar Island. The satellite map reveals an interesting body of water with a thin strip of sandy beach in between.

Saw this from Srikandi Resort and decided to explore the region.

 Sea shells debris deposited by the receding waves 

Beach flowers

Two bays with mangrove on both sides.

These are from the mangrove with Javelin-like seed pod and star-shaped flower

Visual Island hopping with Coolpix P900

Intriguing 'hang in the air ' look on the extreme left of the orange-red cliff face. Do you get it how it was formed ? .

Breathing roots of mangrove during tide out 

The  man and the dog 

Low tide and i counted 120 steps walking to the water edge

Sea almond and gardener doing the leaves burning creating this scene

Line of foams from the ocean

Remus mentioned about blue bird and it must be the white throat king fisher. Another one is spotted nearby

The rocks leading the view to a rainbow in the distant. Sat 4-6 pm. 
 Very  low tide as the sea water receded nearly 120 steps to the water edges. 

With umbrella on hand and wiping off raindrops on the lens this is a small portion of the rainbow. Later an end-to-end rainbow was seen.

Shore birds P900

P900 2000mm view of Pulau Mawar

Visual Island hopping - looming in the distance is Tioman.

Tioman Island close up showing the Gunung Kajang peaks (~1038 m) of volcanic origin. Interested to do trekking on this mountain?