Discovering the wonders of stargazing Focus By Patricia Hului @pattbpseeds

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN WOWED THE cinematic world recently with his stupendous movie ‘Interstellar’.

Besides the film’s brilliant, mind-boggling plot, Nolan pulled our focus skywards to the celestial objects out there like the stars, galaxies and planets.

For those of us with more modest aspirations, a couple of groups here – Sultan Iskandar Planetarium (PSI) and Sarawak Astronomical Society (SAS) – shared their interest with the public by giving a talk at the second Santubong Nature Festival (SNF) on Nov 8 at Permai Rainforest Resort.

PSI and SAS joined together to give a talk on astronomy to some 30 participants. Due to the cloudy weather, however, none of the hopeful stargazers who attended the talk that night were able to see a single constellation in the sky that night.

But by using Stellarium, a free open source software that depicts the sky in 3D, simulate what can be seen with the naked eye, binoculars or telescope, SAS exco member Rambli Ahmad was able to explain the basics of how to look and spot constellations with the naked eye.

FASCINATING: Rambli pointing out star constellation with Stellarium.

Rambli started by telling the audience the legend of Perseus from Greek mythology.
Perseus, the son of Zeus and mortal Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, was known for heroic acts by beheading the Gorgon Medusa and saving Andromeda from a sea monster.

He later married Andromeda, who is the daughter of Cassiopeia.

Rambli fascinated the audience with these mythological stories because Perseus, Andromeda and Cassiopeia were all constellations that the participants were supposed to see that night.

“If you look into the sky, you can see these stories,” he pointed out.

The reason why astronomy fascinated him, Rambli explained, was that “from astronomy alone, we can learn about chemistry such as what the sun is made of, physics when looking into the planet’s rotation and, of course, mythology.”

The constellation Perseus consists of 19 stars, depicting Perseus the hero.
To the west of Perseus is Andromeda, one of the largest constellations.

Within this Andromeda constellation, one should be able to spot a fuzzy-looking object.

STELLARIUM: Besides depicting a realistic sky in 3D, what we see with the naked eye, binoculars or telescope, as well as the constellations in the sky. Here is a screenshot of the software with the constellation art depicting Cassiopeia  as a woman on chair and Perseus returning with Medusa’s head.

“That is the Andromeda galaxy, the only galaxy we can see with the naked eye,” Rambli stated.

To the north of Perseus, one can spot Cassiopeia, one of the easily recognised constellations.

It looks like an ‘M’ – or a ‘W’, depending on where you are – and is formed by five bright stars. The constellation is meant to be Cassiopeia, Queen of Aethiopian, sitting in a chair.

One of the stories behind this particular constellation is that Cassiopeia, claiming to be more beautiful than the sea nymphs, was punished by Poseidon, the God of Sea, condemned to sit on her throne and forced to wheel around the North Celestial Pole,  spending half of her time trying not to fall off.

But how do we know which constellation is where?

Rambli showed two charts that depicted the northern and southern constellations.

With these constellation charts, stargazers will be able to know which constellations will be visible and where they will be depending on the day or time.

These constellations charts are available online for free.

DILIGENT: Some of the participants cutting their own constellation charts with materials provided by PSI.

Besides the charts, he said that Google Sky Map, available on iOS and Android, is also very practical for stargazing.

When it comes to stargazing and spotting the constellations, the first thing to do is locate north and south. After that,try to find the constellations by comparing the chart and the night sky.

“You need to use your imagination and connect the star in lines to be able to spot the constellations,” Rambli reminded.

Thanks to Rambli, all amateur astronomers who attended the talk knew what they needed were a chart (or a smartphone app), a clear sky and a little imagination.

Are you interested in astronomy? Visit Sultan Iskandar Planetarium’s official website http://www.planetarium-sarawak.org/psi2/ to learn more about stargazing here in Kuching.

A glimpse of the mysterious Irrawaddy dolphin

By Patricia Hului
@pattbpseeds

 

THEY ARE CHARISMATIC and playful. Yet their friendly and fun nature has been exploited for marine tourism all over the world.

Tourist-packages like dolphin-watching and swimming with dolphins are among the tourism activities revolving around these highly intelligent animals.

Here in Sarawak, we are the only state in Malaysia that has commercial dolphin watching as a tourism activity.

GOODBYE SHORE: One of the two boats we rode on during the dolphin watch.

In Kuching, dolphins can be found in Kuching Bay which encompasses the area from Telaga Air to the west and the Bako peninsula to the east, as well as the rivers that connect these areas, Sungai Sibu Laut, Sungai Salak and Sungai Santubong.

The Malaysian Nature Society Kuching Branch (MNSKB) held a guided dolphin watching trip on Aug 24.

This lead-up activity to the Santubong Nature Festival (November 8 – 9) was jointly organised with Permai Rainforest Resort and supported by Kuching City North Hall and Sarawak Museum.

Over a dozen members of MNSKB, members of the public and media boarded two boats heading to the mouth of Santubong and Salak rivers.

As the boats stopped hundreds of meters away from Pulau Kera at Kuching Bay, all of the dolphin watchers managed to catch sight of at least four Irrawaddy dolphins riding the waves.

It could have been beginner’s luck; due to the behaviour of these dolphins, the participants were warned of the possibility of not seeing any dolphinsat all.

The educational boat ride was cut short due to rain and choppy waves splashing everyone on board.

A windy, choppy day to be out dolphin watching.

Unfortunately, we only managed to catch blurry images of these dark Irrawaddy dolphins as the choppy waves made the boats unsteady and the Irrawaddy dolphins were too swift.

Still, everybody who signed up for the trip did not leave empty handed as during this trip to educate the participants on these lovely cetaceans was Cindy Peter, a research fellow from Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conversation (IBEC) University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).

“The opportunity came back in 2008 when I finished my degree. I wanted to do something about wildlife again because I studied wildlife management for my degree,” said Cindy as she remembered how she got involved with dolphins studies in Sarawak.

The opportunity was as a research assistant for Sarawak Dolphin Project (SDP) which was launched in May 2008.

SDP was a project founded through a MoU between Unimas, Sarawak Forestry Corporation and Sarawak Shell Berhad where they focused on the four dolphin species most commonly found in Sarawak waters, Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris), finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides), Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus).

Through this project Cindy was able to continue her master research in 2009 to study Irrawaddy dolphins in Kuching bay.

Cindy shared that for her studies, “I looked at the habitat preferences, how far from the river mouth they prefer and as well as the population number.”

She pointed out that through her masters studies there are about 150 to 200 Irrawaddy dolphins in Kuching Bay and Bako-Buntal area and about 150 finless porpoises in that area.

A question was raised to Cindy whether this population of dolphins in Kuching was growing or not.

Cindy shared, “It is hard to say whether the population is increasing or not because last time back in 2008 no one knew how many dolphins there were.

“Only now that we have the number,” she said “we have to continue monitoring. Only then we knew the number increasing or decreasing.”

What does the future hold for dolphins in Sarawak? Cindy hoped that she could study the morphometric and genetic makeup of Irrawaddy dolphins for her PhD, believing that the gene pool for the population here could be different from the ones they found in Australia and Indo-China.

“And another thing we are hopefully looking into is acoustics. Acoustics is the study of dolphins and whales’ sounds,” Cindy stated.

So far, the study of dolphins in Kuching bay has been restricted due to the dry season from March until October and daytime for safety precautions.

Little is known about what the dolphins do during the wet season.

She explained, “Using acoustics, we want to deploy equipment in certain areas and we want to see at what time they were there and they are doing.”

Currently there are no dolphin studies using boat surveys being done.

“We are now looking into the economic value of dolphin watch here in Kuching because we know it is a blooming interest, an economic importance but no one knows how much profit it is bringing to the state,” Cindy said.

“It is hard to say if it is affecting the population here. That is why everyone emphasised Safe Dolphin Watch, not only is it safe for us humans but also safe for the dolphins.”

According to Cindy, there is always risk when there is wildlife and human interaction anywhere even on the lands.

“If it is done responsibly, it is safe for the animals.” Cindy emphasised on not feeding or touching the dolphins as we do not know what disease they might have.

Boaters are highly advised to drive their boats in a predictable manner and avoid sudden changes of direction.

Cindy also shared that any complaints on irresponsible dolphin watching by any tour operators can be made to the Sarawak Tourism Board.

These dolphins are protected under several laws here in Sarawak; Fisheries Act 1985, Fisheries (Control of Endangered Species) Regulation 1999 and Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998.

Unlike their land counterparts, it is hard to know what these marine mammals are doing underwater.

Hence for Cindy, studying dolphins has always been intriguing for her as dolphins are mysterious.

The Irrawaddy dolphin is only one of the animals that call the vast spread of Santubong offshore home. Back on the dry land of Santubong Peninsula, many more animals are waiting to be discovered.

One of the ways to discover Santubong is by joining SNF where MNSKB are giving environmental awareness on both the natural and cultural values of the Santubong peninsula.

For more information on Santubong Nature Festival email to mns.santubong@gmail.com or visit http://mnskuching.blogspot.com/and http://santubongnaturefestival.blogspot.com

Rocking Santubong in Geology walk Travel By Patricia Hului @pattbpseeds

PEOPLE TAKE THINGS for granted. When you visit a nature park you listen to birds chirping, look at the branches swaying, leaves falling, tree standing tall, insects crawling. The last thing you go out of your way to look at when you are out in nature are the rocks.

Why would you look at rocks anyway? One rock looks like another; unless you are a geologist by profession.

Former geologist, Hans Hazebroek led a group of 18 people – myself included – on a trek through the Santubong National Park on Aug 2 telling us there were more to the rocks than meet the eye.

It was a trip called ‘Geology Walk’, one of the lead-up activities to the Santubong Nature Festival (SNF) jointly organised by Malaysian Nature Society Kuching Branch (MNSKB) and Permai Rainforest Resort and supported by Kuching City North Commission and Sarawak Museum Department.

Before we started our 45-minute trek to the waterfall in the national park, Hazebroek explained the geological basics of Santubong.

Hazebroek giving a briefing before starting the trek.

Mount Santubong is made up of sandstone. Sandstone is composed of sand-sized grains of mineral, rock or organic material.

Besides sandstone, Hazebroek also explained to us about intrusive igneous rocks. It is formed when magma flows from the cracks within the crust of our Earth which already cooled and solidified, surrounded by pre-existing rock.

Speaking of crust, do you know how Mount Santubong was formed? Our Earth’s crust is divided into continental crust and oceanic crust.

When these two crusts collide and slide under each other, the continental crust gets pushed upwards, which explains how Gunung Santubong is presumed to have risen up from the ocean.

Overall, here are some geological features you should take note if you find yourself in Santubong National Park:

The Rocks on the Streambed

Have you ever noticed how round the rocks in a streambed are? No corners, no sharp edges. Hazebroek had an explanation for it, “First we have the mountain being pushed up. As it is being pushed up, since sandstone is brittle, it will cause a crack in the sandstone. Water flows into the crack leading the crack to get bigger.”

Example of sandstone can be found in streambeds in Santubong.

“Eventually, part of the sandstone breaks off and rolls down because the mountain is quite steep.”

He explained that when the water started pushing them, these rocks start bouncing and knocking each other which explains why the rocks are smoother.

Hazebroek also asked us to imagine the power of water as it could push some of the big boulders that some bigger than us.

The Rocks Lying Around

We also noticed some boulders lying around the forest near the trail. Some were even taller than an average adult human’s height.

An example of a boulder found in the middle of Santubong forest, most probably weighing several tonnes.

According to Hazebroek, “The last ice age ended about 10 thousand years ago. There were several ice ages; in between these ice ages are warm periods called interglacial.”

During these interglacial periods, he explained that the tropical areas including Borneo had severe raining weather. Due to the heavy raining, there were big avalanches causing a lot of rocks to fall from the steep mountain.

Another example of big rock near the trekking trail of Santubong National Park.

Voilà! That is how those huge rocks get in the middle of Santubong forest.

The Waterfall

Our final stop during our trek before heading back was the canopy bridge built over a waterfall.

We took turns in groups of five going up to the canopy bridge to listen to Hazebroek explaining about the geological features beneath us.

Hazebroek (second right) explaining on the geological features to some of the trekkers while on the canopy bridge.

He introduced us to the term ‘cross-beds’ which we could see at the waterfall. They are sedimentary structures of big rocks with lines running across formed by downstream migration of bedforms such as ripples or dunes in flowing water.

Cross-bedded sandstone at the waterfall where you could some lines although most of the surfaces are covered with mosses.

From the canopy bridge, we could also see three bedding planes at the waterfall; surfaces separating layers of sedimentary rock.

So what does this geological structure tell us? Hazebroek said the cross-beds were where sands were deposited due to flowing water so thousand years ago this area could have been a riverbed or shallow seabed.

Hazebroek also shared how old these rocks were; based on pollens found inside these sandstones dating back to upper Cretaceous to early Eocene period time which is about 70 to 60 million years ago.

“But the intrusive rocks here are much younger, about 35 to 5 million years ago,” he stated.

So the next time you visit Santubong National Park, don’t take the rocks for granted. They have been there longer than you can imagine.

We are happy trekkers!

For further information on MNSKB and their upcoming SNF, contact them at mnskuching@gmail.com. You can also visit http://mnskuching@blogspot.com or www.facebook.com/mnskb.