[Note: Click on all the photo below, you can see higher resolution photos of the stars in the sky]
When you live in a city, every night, when you stare at the sky, you will be happy to see Mars, one of the brightest star you can see with your eyes in a city. If you are lucky, you will see other stars, may be 1 or 2 dozens of them in the sky when there is no clouds.
For many years, the kids have been living in a world where they can see only these 1-2 dozens of bright stars. Their knowledge about the universe and galaxy are so limited simply because they have not learn the truth yet until last week.
We were at Nikoi Island and the night came. We can see a lot of clouds in the sky.
Then, we had a long dinner. After dinner, the kids were all shocked staring at the sky. Quickly without knowing what is the best setting, my wife shoot the sky and we can clearly capture this blurry sky full of blurry stars.
The kids has never seen so many stars in the sky before.
Quickly, my wife googled how to take photos of Milky Way and stars in the sky. With a high ISO > 4000 to 10000, with f4.5 and 25 seconds to 30 seconds shuttle to capture the lights. She soon used her Canon to capture a lot of photos with many stars in it. Some photos, she even manage to capture the light of an airplane flying across 30 seconds (becomes 3-4 tiny straight lines).
The kids then learned how big the universe is. There are so many of them in the sky. "Why we cannot see it when we are in Singapore?"
So, a demonstration can explain this. Lights! City is full of lights and with all the bright lights surrounding us, our eyes cannot capture the tiny lights emits from the stars in the sky.
In a city there tends to be more clouds too.
So, let's take a photos with the Moon in it. And you see less stars.
Got it?
At Nikoi Island beach, there are lesser lights. It is also away from the town which has lights at night too. So, your camera are able to capture more star lights if given enough time, i.e. 25 seconds or more to capture the lights.
Here is another example where the jetty has all these small lamp and it was captured inside the photo. Can you see lesser stars in the sky?
We downloaded many star char app on our iPhone and iPad. The best one we used so far is the StarTracker app. It uses the GPS and the accelerometer and Gyro sensor to figure out where you are, how you stand, where you staring at, and it gives you a very precise view of what you seeing into the sky. Simply align the iPad in your viewing path.
We are able to find the Sagittarius constellation.
The scorpion constellation.
The Libra.
We saw Mars and we saw Saturn.
Every night, after the kids were tired and tucked in their beds, Mommy will bring her Camera trying to capture more stars.
How big is the galaxy?
It is big!
Is there any life out there?
What do you think?
Of course there are.
Somewhere up there, on many of those stars, there may be an island similar to Nikoi, and there are those Aliens watching towards us too...
"There, that's the Solar Systems."
"There may be life on some planets within the Solar Systems."
Can you guess what is the constellation of this star formation?
All the stars are gone when the sun rise.
So, this is another great reason to go to a nice beach to take photo of the stars. Actually most of the beach is like this at night, it does not need to be in Nikoi Island.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
