Floria 2012 is coming up!

Floria 2012 is coming up soon at the end of this month. The theme for this year is Bougainvillea - Enduring Beauty. I believe this would be a better theme than that of roses for last year's Floria i.e Roses are Forever. Of course bougainvillea is a love-hate plant - you either love it or hate it to the core.

The outdoor/indoor garden and flower showcase will be on from the 30^th June until the 8^th July 2012. The venue is at the usual Floria location i.e. Waterfront at Precinct 2, Putrajaya. So get your cameras ready and also your wallets ready for some plant shopping at the event.

The opening hours are listed below:

Monday - Thursday:   9.00 am - 10.00 pm
Friday - Sunday:        9.00 am - 12.00 midnight

So there is no reason to say that you can't make it for Floria 2012 due to work hours etc. For more information, do visit the official website:
Putrajaya Floria 2012

Click here to see my post on the 1Malaysia International Night Floral Parade themed 'The Magic of The Night'.

The Kuala Lumpur International Music and Light Festival 2012

In conjunction with the 25th World Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur, the event management company for this conference is holding another event, the Kuala Lumpur International Music and Light Festival 2012 daily at the Esplanade, Suria KLCC, during the duration of the World Gas Conference from the 4th - 8th of June, 2012. The 2012 KL International Music and Light Festival, which carries the theme "World Peace, World Harmony, World Unity", starts daily at 8pm until 10.30pm.

Bright colourful dancing fountains was one of the highlight of the KL International Music and Light Festival 2012.

The whole Esplanade of Suria KLCC was bathed in psychedelic lights as well as a huge crowd.

On the first day of the event, the sight and sound of a fireworks display that was visible from Ampang led us to finding out about the event. According to the event website, this festival will have a dazzling showcase of the largest light installation, dancing fountains, water screen, pyrotechnics and multimedia lasers displays, video mapping - projecting advertisements and branding on Suria KLCC. This festival will also bring together international and local musicians creating music on a single platform, whilst at the same time, promoting the theme. 

The main stage where the performers are staged.

A dancing rainbow curtain of water.

People grooving away to the beat of the music. The walls of Suria KLCC becomes a projection screen for the video mapping, projecting shows.

Different performers/musical acts were listed for each of the night that the show is on. On the night that we went, a local act, Akasha was there for the night's performance. The dancing fountains and laser displays were spectacular, plus the video mapping shows too captivated the audience that were present. Many were seen dancing and grooving away with the music through the night. So if you have some time this Friday evening, do go and catch the last night of the show.

An open air, moonlit dance club?? No, its the KL International Music and Light Festival 2012.

Even after the performance had ended, the guy beside the Samsung shopping bag was still grooving to his own music.

The Last Transit of Venus for the Century

Here are some pictures of the last transit of Venus for this century. The next transit will be in 2117, which I guess we all won't be around to catch it.

Venus appears as a shadow (the beauty spot - a.k.a. the Cindy Crawford/Marilyn Monroe mole) on the left (about 9 o'clock) of the Sun's disk. Taken with a Sony DSC point and shoot, two pieces of DIN10 welder's glass, a cardboard shield and Adobe Photoshopped to remove the green cast.

Without colour correction, the welder's glass gives the image a strong green cast. The shadow of Venus is seen on the left hand side of the solar disk. This image was captured post maximum contact, at around 10am local time.

The path taken on the solar disk is a curved trajectory, because as the sun moves through the sky, the solar disk rotates with respect to the horizon. Hence the apparent trajectory taken by Venus across the solar disk is a curve and would be different depending on the location that you are viewing from. To look at what the trajectory looks like, you can go to http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/venus-curved-trajectory/ and use the flash applet provided by www.sunaeon.com to see the trajectory from your location.

An overlay of combined images taken during the transit of Venus over that of the modeled track given by www.sunaeon.com that was accessed from http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/venus-curved-trajectory/ - the combined series of images shows the 'spot' is taking a curved trajectory over the solar disk as modeled for viewing from Kuala Lumpur.

Below are a few pictures extracted from the site mentioned above to illustrate how the observed trajectory is different at different localities.

The apparent transit trajectory for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - this imaged was superimposed with images of taken during the transit and made into the image above this.

The apparent transit trajectory for Adelaide, South Australia.

The apparent transit trajectory for Osaka, Japan.

The apparent transit trajectory for Beijing, China - similar to the view from Osaka.

The apparent trajectory for Fairbanks, Alaska.

The apparent trajectory for Los Angeles.

If you like to see how the trajectory of Venus appears in other places, try using the flash object below. You can click on the Trajectory button to draw the calculated trajectory and change the location by clicking on the map.