How did Celiztial start?
Liz has a lifelong passion for astronomy and she is always enthusiastic in sharing the experience with other people. When there are celestial phenomena, friends and families often ask Liz about where and what time to watch the events. Since early 2010s Liz has been gathering and hosting small stargazing groups. This habit continued when she was working abroad in different countries, got a telescope in each country, and showed cosmic wonders to her co-workers and volunteers at her projects.
When Liz moved to Bali in 2016, of course her stargazing hobby continued, so she decided to get another telescope (this time a Newtonian reflector on an equatorial mounting) and started hosting small groups of friends to guide them see celestial objects and wonders. It was around this time when the seed to grow Celiztial was planted in Liz’s head. She was ready to host for public groups in late 2019 but then COVID hit so the idea was postponed.
It was until 2022 when she collaborated with another person to start another astronomy club in Bali and the duo hosted 5 events together: planetary alignment (mid 2022), Jupiter opposition (Sep’22), lunar eclipse (Nov’22), solar eclipse (Mar’23), and of course Liz’s main passion: meteor shower trip (Dec’22). Unfortunately they both had different interests and decided to go separate ways. But because there were still many people contacting Liz to host astronomy-related events, she officially started Celiztial back in 2024.
The Community
Since started in late 2024, Celiztial has over 100 members with various nationality who have called Bali as their home. While the majority are people who live long term in Bali, occasionally there are travellers who join our events, too.
Celiztial hosts regular meet ups every month during the dry season, and there are additional events for special celestial wonders like eclipses, meteor showers, and comet hunts.
As the community grows, so as our event locations. Within months of being established, we had been invited to host various events for private groups, hotels, and luxury resorts around Indonesia.
Instead of competing with big astronomy clubs, Liz prefers to keep her event groups small. She wants to ensure that all participants has a memorable and fun experience, with tailor-made explanations to fulfil everyone’s curiosities about the night sky. With Celiztial, you can expect a group of maximum 20 people per event, where everyone can make new friends, take as much time as they want to use the telescope, and ask as many questions about the night sky as needed. Celiztial is a stargazing community/astronomy club to gather all like-minded individuals. It is fun passion project where everyone can have a good time, not a big business scheme that will cost participants a lot of money.
So, who is Liz?
You see her name every time you read the brand. You call her name every time you mention the brand. But who is she?
Liz has a lifelong passion for the night sky and has been learning about astronomy since a young age. Before the era of mobile phone and internet, she spent her childhood navigating the night sky with the guidance of a planisphere. She saw her first shooting star at the age of 8-9 years old, which triggered her curiosity even more. Her first telescope was a simple refractor, which was gifted by her parents. Over the next decades, she gradually upgraded her telescope and experimented with different types.
As Liz moved places to different cities, to different islands, then to different countries and to the other hemisphere, she observed that the night sky differs from place to place. She realized that to find celestial objects in different regions require an extensive knowledge instead of a simple Google search. It was also during this time in 2013 when she first saw her first ever meteor shower. The phenomenon really got her captivated, and hunting meteor showers has been her passion ever since.
Liz is your kind of nerdy neighbor who wakes up at 3 a.m and drives into the middle of nowhere just to watch dust and rocks get burnt in Earth’s atmosphere. Then she will spend her savings collecting the leftovers from the burns.