Buwan at Bituin

Telescope Viewing 🔭, Asterism Making ✡️, Meteorite Viewing ☄️, Rocket Launching 🚀... These were some of the engaging activities that the UP National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development (UP NISMED) prepared on the night of November 15 for the "Buwan at Bituin," a public astronomy event that UP NISMED organizes every decade.

The event was marked by hundreds of people coming in to view the planets through the telescopes—including UP NISMED's 16-inch reflecting telescope!—and the variety of fun stations set up on UP NISMED's rooftop. My personal favorite was the asterism-making station, where you can design your own asterism using a bunch of push pins and yarn strings. I've been wanting to try this activity for sooo long but I quickly realized that I haven't really thought about what I'm going to create. I ended up making something reminiscent of a wild horseradish from my current game obsession, Stardew Valley.

It was really funnn!! A ticket and an event map were issued to us upon entering the venue and on the back of the ticket, there were empty spaces for each of the 8 stations available. To claim a reward, at least 6 of them must be stamped by the station masters. Since my attendance was one of impulse, I decided to enjoy the night and ignore the reward. But my competitive spirit was instantly awakened when I saw what the reward was: a postcard of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" 🌌 I loveee "The Starry Night" so I bid the moon's spirit and raced to complete 6 stations. Unfortunately, the postcards had already ran out by the time I finished and I got stickers instead. The event ended around midnight with a show of water rocket launching 🚀

Lastly, we got to meet the fellow members of the Philippine Union of Student Organizations for Astronomy (aka PUSO for Astro). Fun, fun astro night 🤩

Ad astra, always 💖