Lunar Eclipse Gazing at Masjid Negara- 1/1/2010

alalalala..irham, kp ana

i'm in blue, next to me was my lil brother

sory, my handset camera quite tahi ar..

livecast shot on canvas

“New year starts with a bang!” have u heard this phrase before? If I’m not mistaken, it’s the words of tv3 advertisement that showcases a few nice movies or blockbusters in conjunction with the new year celebration. Well, the phrase, for me, reflects the rare (quite common, actually) lunar eclipse phenomenon which blasts the world population on 1/1/2010.

I knew the event only a couple of days before the new year’s eve in a public forum at falakonline.net. it’s just a coincidence, really. At first, I wanted to search the internet regarding calendar activities of falak activists’ movement in Malaysia. However, wut’ve I found was the calendar of the then 2008 activities which I think was too outdated and the panels of the websites are just not concern about the awareness of the public on falak issues. I’m not firing this accusation to falakonline alone, but also to the jabatan mufti for each state, angkasa and falaksyarie.org itself. Very DISAPPOINTING! PATHETIC! For me, it’s no use to sit in a table, discuss on how to bring astronomy to the heart of the public (hehe, I participated in the national Islamic astronomy symposium 2009) if the authorities itself don’t make a reformation towards media especially the websites.

Finish until there, continue on my reports of the event at masjid Negara. The activity starts on 1 am till 5 am in the morning of the 1^st. January. The idea of telling my parents to participate in the event was too sickening for me. Too many excuses; I’m still young, it’s dangerous out there, need to prepare for PLKN, tired, and…..shit! I knew it from the beginning that that’s wut gonna happen. But, alas, I succeeded in persuading my parents to drop me by the masjid Negara due to my persistent determination (ceih!). hahaha, am I evil? Nope! They are evil, eh no!, zalim because of not letting me go and learn sumthing valuable and pricey out there. Hihi…

~the tentative~

I met irhamni in the mosque juz when I had arrived there. Lots of people there. Mostly malays la, of course and quite a number of Chinese which I think were the amateur astronomers. I can say that a quarter of the participants came from tahfiz school and tabligh.

Wut’s on focus here is the lunar eclipse. There’s 3 types of it, namely penumbral, total and partial lunar eclipse. Wut’s happen on 1/1/10 wuz partial lunar eclipse which means the moon will be overcastted by the umbra and penumbra area of the earth. About 8% of the moon section will be dark due to the umbra. The moon’s propagation into the penumbra area started at 1.17 am in which one can hardly see the changes of the moon phases. Solat sunat gerhana followed by khutbah was expected to start at 2.30 am, so, in the meantime, the Angkasa and masjid Negara took the opportunity to make some outreach programme with the public. There’s talk, planet (mars and zuhal) gazing and quizzes. The quizZES were very fun and most of the kids came up and answer the questions. However, nizam, my smaller brother, irhamni and I managed to answer some questions and the rewardiNg is, Angkasa t-shirt. I asked an ‘abang’ regarding on how could he knew this event at masjid Negara. He said that he accidentally heard the news of the event sumwhere around the morning at tv3. poor role of media la!

After I had solat, the highlights of the programme was the maximum phase of lunar eclipse. Technically, the moon started to enter the umbra area at 3.24 am and ends at around 3.53 am. By 3.40, we could easily saw with our naked eyes the dark part of the moon. THe night was clear, the gazing of zuhal was also perfect! I can easily see the ring of it and the cassini vision! How was great! Subhanallah…

Then, there’s a talk by dr. syed kamaruzaman who was the important person in astronomy field in Malaysia. Simply love him! Btw, he’s my lecturer in uiam during the NITROS programme.

Juz some quick notes to learn…;

# why is that the lunar eclipse don’t happen in each month?

= simply because the propagation of moon around the earth is slanted about 5% from he horizontal line of earth-sun.

# lunar eclipse is usually followed by solar eclipse (15/1/2010- annular).

# solat sunat gerhana was syariated on the 5^th. Of hijri. It was done with 2 rakaat, 1 salam, and 4 ruku’. It’s sunat to recite long verses of surah in the quran.

# think imaginically, the lunar eclipse is longer in duration compared to da solar eclipse.

~the end~