The Night Sky Over Seremban

I was told that if you want to do star-gazing, you must look for a place that is free from or having very little light pollution.

We are familiar with air pollution and water pollution, but what the hell is this light pollution?

Well, this is actually a photography jargon, meaning that the light from the ground is beaming up to the sky, making the sky less dark and the stars less bright. The light from the ground can be street lights, city lights, and residential lights.

Thus for the purpose of star-gazing, one must go to a pitch dark place which is far from city or housing areas, so that the darkness of the sky and therefore the brightness of the stars are not affected by the man-made lights from earth. In other words, to avoid light pollution.

In order to shoot beautiful pictures of the night sky, some photo bugs will travel to faraway and remote places, like Tioman Island, Fraser Hill, or even Bali in order to see an unpolluted night sky.

How about the night sky over Seremban which is a city?

Many people told me that it is impossible to do star-gazing in Seremaban due to heavy light-pollution. They said it is impossible to see the Milky Way here.

On the other hand I find it quite tough to follow others to trek in the wee hours in mosquito-infested places for the sake of photographing the night sky. So I wanted to take the challenge of shooting the stars in Seremban although my friends were quite scornful about the idea.

 Near my former house at Taman Bukit Kepayang there is a little limestone hill. It takes 15 minutes to climb to the top. I planned to carry out my mission up there.

One early morning, at around 5:30 am, I went up with my gear.

It was a bit chilly and windy, but the air was fresh. I could see the stars very clearly. I could even see a faint Milky Way.

The Milky Way was of course not as clear and impressive like what you see in the pictures taken at dark places. But it was still an image of a Milky Way captured in metropolitan Seremban. 

 If you are not familiar with the Milky Way it is call ‘Star River’星河 or ‘Silver River’银河 in Chinese. It is a long silvery stretch of stars that appear like a long shinny ribbon in the sky. According to Chinese folklore, the Cowherd牛郎 and Weaving-mate织女 who are separated by the ‘Silver River’ will meet once a year, that is on the 7^th day of the 7^th lunar month, on a bridge formed by the Robin Magpies across the River.

I managed to capture quite a number of pictures of the starry night sky over Seremban.

The night sky over Seremban is so beautiful, in spite of light pollution. Don’t you agree?