Went to East Coast Park with Clauds last night to watch the Leonids meteor shower. We camped at this ulu jetty near the National Sailing Centre, at the mouth of Sungei Bedok. (Not the popular Bedok Jetty) Not sure what is the name of that place. Looked up several maps but the place wasn’t labeled. I think someone told me it is called the Old Bedok Jetty. Not sure man. Let me know if you know the name of that place.
Anyway it seems to be the perfect place for watching the meteor shower. The jetty is unlighted and away from strong lights. There aren’t any tall trees or building nearby and you have unobstructed view of the beautiful night sky. There aren’t many people there and we found a good spot. Bought along a garbage bag which I used for mat and 2 cushion to rest our head. And we lied on the ground and waited patiently for the meteor shower. I bought some drinks and potato chips too.
We started waiting for the meteor show at around 1230. Someone said that there is supposed to be a meteor storm at 12 midnight and meteor shower at 3am. But we couldn’t see anything and the cloudy sky wasn’t helping. It was until around 230am when I finally saw 1 meteors. (And Clauds missed it because she was busy facebooking on her phone) The clouds starts to clear and we began seeing the night sky clearer. It was around 3 to 4am when we start seeing more meteors.
Willy and a few more friends also joined us with a bunch of cameras. Check out the photo he got.
At around 4 plus, there was this huge meteor that appears in the eastern sky. Looks like a fireball in the sky which lasted at least 10 to 15 seconds. It was a beautiful sight. All the waiting paid off. And at the end of the day, I lost count of the number of meteors that I saw. I think around 20 plus. Which is quite good already since people at Japanese garden only saw 2 to 3.
It was a great experience. Watching a meteor shower should be inside the list of things to do before you die.
Don Mclean – Vincent (Starry Starry Night)
PS: Heard that you can still see the some meteor until 21 Nov. But won’t be as many as last night.
on Nov 19th, 2009 at 6:57 AM
That is called the Bedok River. Towards the end there are 6 huge pipes so that place is famously known as “liu tiao pipe” to fishing kakis.