It just happened in the last hour.

This is the second morning for us on our 3rd Ipoh trip in 2008.  Since I slept earlier last night, I wake up very early this morning for my daily prayer. 

It was 5:35am.  I was facing a window with the moon on the western direction.  I saw a crescent moon before I started my prayer.  I didn’t care much about it.  Half way I prayed, I saw the crescent moon have turned into a half moon.  I felt a bit strange; I guessed it was a lunar eclipse. 

First reason: - today is 17th day in Chinese calendar.  Between 15th -18th day in Chinese calendar, the moon supposed to be full moon.  Second reason: - it doesn’t look like covered by the cloud.  I temporary paused my prayer because I cannot concentrate anymore.  I started wanting to find out the truth.  It was now 5:55am.

I waked SiewPeng, and SMSed friends in Kuching to ask them to check whether the moon was full.  Then I quickly took photos of the moon, and search from the internet.

Yes, it was a partial lunar eclipse.

The timings of the major phases of the eclipse are listed below.
Penumbral Eclipse Begins:   18:24:49 UT (2:24:29am Malaysia Time)
Partial Eclipse Begins:     19:36:07 UT (3:36:07am Malaysia Time)
Greatest Eclipse:           21:10:09 UT (5:10:09am Malaysia Time)
Partial Eclipse Ends:       22:44:16 UT (6:44:16am Malaysia Time)
Penumbral Eclipse Ends:     23:55:25 UT (7:55:25am Malaysia Time)
[Quoted from NASA website.]

Every few minutes I continued to take photos.  The moon was slowly getting out of the shadow of the Earth.  It was half moon but 30 minutes later it turned into almost full moon.  But it was in orange colour.

The sky was getting bright but the moon was still in orange colour.

I missed the greatest eclipse time, but I am happy that I have accidentally discovered it and still can see the last part of it where the moon is still in the penumbral.  My observation ended at 6:55am when the moon sank into the cloud.  This time it was really covered by the cloud.

The moon was starting sinking into the cloud.

Wow, I searched “moon eclipse” in Wikipedia and found the moon photo taken at 4am just now were there.  They were really extremely fast and work in real time mode.  When I check it again now, it is a full gallery of the lunar eclipses happened just now.

The moon hided herself into the cloud.

I will take note on the next sun and moon eclipses, and I do not want to miss them again.

I should continue to pray now.

As said by its name, its flowers only open in the morning and close for the rest of the day.  This is the most commonly found species of morning glory in Malaysia.  Its scientific name is called Ipomoea Indica (light purple). 

Yes, the flower is light purple in colour (my favorite colour) and its petals are extremely thin and joined together.  Should I consider it as one petal or five petals?  It has strong life and can grow wildly over fences or climb on anything in a short time until I have to prune it quite frequently.  Of course it still blooms throughout the year no matter how I prune it.

I have never seen its seed, and it can be propagated through cutting.  It is different from the other species of morning glory in my garden – the magenta morning glory.  Their leaves shapes are also different.

I wish I can have more space in my garden where I can build a morning glory pergola.  The morning glory can climb all over the pergola.  SiewPeng and I can sit inside the pergola and look at the morning glory and listen to the bird song.  The pergola can also be the shade for some of my plants that cannot receive direct sunlight but still allow the rain water to reach the soil.  :)  I had mentioned it in Japanese Garden - the Pergola in an older post.  I doubt the magenta morning glory can climb all over the pergola, but I am confident that this light purple morning glory can.

I found out something which is true for many plants in my garden.  An ordinary variety of any plant usually can grow faster, stronger, and has more tolerance on sunlight and water.  It is usually the parents variety for cultivated variety.  For the cultivated variety, they have special colour or shape on their flowers, leaves or fruits, but usually grow slower, weaker and need more care on them to keep them alive, because they are human made variety, unless the outcome of the cultivation is to produce a fast growing variety.  Usually the varieties with green leaves are the parents variety, and the one with white / yellow spots or striped leaves are cultivated.  The above are just from my observation, more research needed to be done to confirm that it is a fact. 

There is another thing that I want to make it clear.  Species is not the same as variety.  A same species of plant can have different varieties.  Under plant categorization you will find the following order: - Kingdoms, Divisions, Classes, Orders, Families, Genus, Species, Subspecies.  The terms subspecies and variety are sometimes interchangeable.

*I wonder what will happen if I had studied botany instead of IT.
**I want to have and going to build a pergola.

This is the prettiest climber in our garden.  We bought it years ago, but now there is only a few plants left because their lives are short and the bugs and snails like to eat them.  This plant is the fifth generation if I’m not mistaken.  Each generation is less than half a year.  Luckily it produces seeds after flowering, but not all the seeds can grow.  It cannot grow very well also because of the limited space and we planted it a pot.

I guess if I plant it on the ground, each generation would have a longer life and it can climb higher.  Every time I have to collect the seeds and replant manually, otherwise it would have been extinct from our house long ago.

You can see the white colour filaments in the middle of the flower waiting for the bees or butterflies to help the pollination process.  I would like to thank all of the insects that help with this process.  I do not forget about the wind too.  It can also carry the pollen.  Without the pollinators, I would not be able to show you these pictures here.

You can see how weak they are.  They flower petal is extremely thin.  When the rain comes the flowers can drop easily.

This is how the flower buds look like.  They are hairy.  Not only the buds, but the leaves are hairy too. 

Its leaf is similar to the maple leaf.

When I touch morning glory flower, I have accidentally folded it inward.  I touch it carefully so that it won’t drop.  I try to unfold it and it works. :p

We have another type of morning glory in our garden as well.  I will show you in the next post.

This is the night view of the Astana, located in Kuching.  You can read more about it in our previous post.  If you notice carefully, there is a UFO on top of the sky!!!  Can you see it?  Let me zoom it in.

It is actually the DBKU Building (Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara or Kuching North City Hall) where the cat musuem is located.  It is located across the Sarawak River from Kuching Waterfront.

Finally, I have broken the bottle neck again to come out with Light in the Night 5.  From Series 1 - 4, they all are quite similar.  This time, let me tell you a new method I used.

I did not bring my tripod because it is too bulky.  I held my camera steadily to take all of these photos.  Some of them are blurred because of shaking.  Some of them were purposely shaken to create the panning effect.

The method I used this time compare to the previous method is the shaking times were reduced.  If I released the shutter for 5 second, I let it held still for 3 second and the last 2 second I shook the camera.  That’s why you can still see the reflection on the river remain the same.

This photo is produced by hold still first to let it absorbed the building light and shake it vertically.  That’s why the building can still be clearly seen.

This is the view of Kuching Waterfront from the Ala Cart building (from Star Cineplex floor).

Can you see the Tua Pek Kong Temple?  Recently they have just removed the green fences that they used when they did the renovation.

From both of the picture above, please take note on the green-lighted-trees on the left corner.  Here come the new series of Light in the Night 5.

On the next four pictures, you can see the green horizontal lines; can you guess what are they?  This is the effect of hold still before shaking – my new panning photography method.

Again, let imagine and put yourself into the world of abstract art.

Let me give you another clue: - the photo is taken in vertical, but I do not even bother to rotate it since it is the abstract art.

The four horizontal lines are actually the green-coloured trees.

We found this type of mushrooms on a tree somewhere not far from the exit of the 1.6km jogging track in Stutong Park.  This type of mushrooms is categorized under Polypore. 

When the mushrooms line up on the surface of the trunk of the tree, they look like the staircase that allow small animals to climb up to the tree which is similar to what we can find in cartoons.

Polypores vs Boteles

[Polypores are a group of tough, leathery poroid mushrooms similar to Boletes, but typically lacking a distinct stalk. The technical distinction between the two types of mushrooms is that polypores do not have the spore-bearing tissue continuous along the entire underside of the mushroom.] – Quoted from Wikipedia.

From the picture above, it is proven that what the Wikipedia said is true.  [Polypores are often found on rotting logs, and are rot-resistant to the extent that they themselves often last long enough to have moss growing on them.] – Quoted from Wikipedia again.  :p  The moss was just next to it.

Continue my read up in Wikipedia, although their looks are not as attractive as Boletes, there are no poisonous species for Polypore and edible Polypores are quite common.  However, I do not dare to eat them unless I buy it from the supermarket.

[The famous Ötzi the Iceman was found carrying two different polypore species. One was notable for its antibacterial properties. The other was likely used for starting fires.]  I was amazed that the Polypore actually can be very useful.

I have heard that a type of Polypore called “Ling2Zhi1” in Chinese.  In can be used to cure cancer.  I am not sure it is true or not, but I found that its scientific name is called Ganoderma lucidum.

These are the aged polypore, their colour has turned dark and they have dust accumulated on their body.

Next time if you see polypores, do you dare to pluck them, cook them and eat them?