Di catatan lapangan itu, saya menulis bagaimana perasaan saya waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali.

In those field notes, I write how I felt when seeing a constellation for the first time.

Breakdown of Di catatan lapangan itu, saya menulis bagaimana perasaan saya waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali.

• itu: that
• saya: I
• di: in
• menulis: to write
• saya: my
• melihat: to see
• bagaimana: how
• perasaan: the feeling
• pertama kali: for the first time
• waktu: during
• rasi bintang: the constellation
• catatan lapangan: the field notes

Questions & Answers about Di catatan lapangan itu, saya menulis bagaimana perasaan saya waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali.

In Di catatan lapangan itu, why do we use di here? Could we say dalam catatan lapangan itu or pada catatan lapangan itu instead?

Di, dalam, and pada can all be used here, but the nuance is slightly different:

• di catatan lapangan itu
  Literally “at/on that field note.”
  Focus: the physical or concrete location of what you wrote (in that notebook / in those field notes).
  Very natural and common in everyday Indonesian.

• dalam catatan lapangan itu
  Literally “inside that field note.”
  Focus: the content inside the notes. Slightly more “inside the text” in feeling.
  Also correct and common, especially in written or slightly more formal contexts.

• pada catatan lapangan itu
  Literally “on/at that field note.”
  More formal / bookish. Often preferred in academic or official writing.

All three would be understood and grammatically correct. In normal speech or narrative writing, di catatan lapangan itu or dalam catatan lapangan itu are the most natural choices.

What exactly does catatan lapangan mean? Is it just “notebook” or something more specific?

Catatan lapangan is more specific than just “notebook”:

• catatan = notes, written records
• lapangan = field (as in fieldwork, on-site, out in the real world)

So catatan lapangan usually means field notes: observations written down during fieldwork, research, or practical work outside the classroom or office.

It is not a generic word for any notebook. A physical notebook could be buku catatan, buku tulis, or just buku depending on context. Catatan lapangan emphasizes the function (field notes), not the physical object.

Why is Di catatan lapangan itu placed at the beginning of the sentence? Could we also say Saya menulis ... di catatan lapangan itu?

Yes, you can say both:

• Di catatan lapangan itu, saya menulis …
• Saya menulis … di catatan lapangan itu.

Indonesian word order is fairly flexible with adverbial phrases like this.

Putting Di catatan lapangan itu at the beginning:

• Sets the scene first (in those field notes…)
• Feels a bit more narrative or written style
• Emphasizes where you wrote it.

Putting it at the end:

• Emphasizes the action/content more than the location.
• Sounds very natural in everyday speech.

Grammatically, both are correct; it’s mainly about focus and style.

Why is it saya menulis bagaimana perasaan saya and not saya menulis tentang perasaan saya? Are bagaimana and tentang interchangeable here?

They are not interchangeable; they give slightly different meanings.

• saya menulis bagaimana perasaan saya
  Literally: “I wrote how my feelings were” / “I wrote how I felt.”
  bagaimana focuses on the quality or nature of your feelings (in what way? how exactly?).
  It suggests you described your emotions in some detail.

• saya menulis tentang perasaan saya
  Literally: “I wrote about my feelings.”
  tentang means “about / regarding,” so this is more general: the topic was your feelings, but it doesn’t highlight the detailed way you felt.

So:

• If you want to stress that you described the nature and nuances of your feelings, bagaimana perasaan saya is better.
• If you only need to say that the topic of your writing was your feelings, tentang perasaan saya works.

What structure is bagaimana perasaan saya? Is it a question inside the sentence?

Grammatically, bagaimana perasaan saya is an embedded interrogative clause (an indirect question), but in this sentence it does not function as a question.

Compare:

• Direct question: Bagaimana perasaan saya waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali?
  (“How did I feel when I saw a constellation for the first time?”) – with question intonation and question mark.

• Embedded clause: Saya menulis bagaimana perasaan saya waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali.
  (“I wrote how I felt when…”) – it behaves as the object of menulis (what did I write? how I felt …).

In Indonesian this is very natural: verbs like tahu, ingat, menulis, menceritakan, etc., can take bagaimana / apa / siapa / kapan clauses as their object:

• Saya tahu bagaimana perasaanmu.
• Dia menulis apa yang dia lihat.

So it’s question-like in form, but in this sentence it is part of a statement, not a question.

In waktu melihat rasi bintang, who is doing the seeing? Should it be waktu saya melihat or ketika saya melihat?

The understood subject is saya. In Indonesian, if the subject of a subordinate clause is the same as the subject of the main clause, it is often dropped:

• Full form: … waktu saya melihat rasi bintang …
• Shorter, common form: … waktu melihat rasi bintang …

Both are correct. The shorter form is very natural and common.

You can also use ketika instead of waktu:

• waktu saya melihat rasi bintang
• ketika saya melihat rasi bintang

Here:

• waktu is neutral–colloquial.
• ketika is a bit more formal or written.

Meaning-wise, they are the same: “when I saw a constellation.”

What is the difference between waktu, ketika, and saat for “when” in this kind of sentence?

All three can introduce a time clause and can often be swapped without changing the basic meaning:

• waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali
• ketika melihat rasi bintang pertama kali
• saat melihat rasi bintang pertama kali

Nuance and register:

• waktu

  • Very common in speech and informal writing
  • Neutral and natural in everyday Indonesian
  • Slightly more casual than ketika and saat.

• ketika

  • A bit more formal and common in written Indonesian (essays, stories, news).
  • Frequently used in narrative or descriptive writing.

• saat

  • Also used in written or semi-formal contexts.
  • Often feels slightly more literary or serious, similar to “at the moment when / at the time of.”

In this sentence, all three would be acceptable; waktu sounds nicely natural and conversational.

What does rasi bintang mean exactly? Is this the usual way to say “constellation”?

Yes. rasi bintang is the usual, standard way to say star constellation.

• rasi = constellation
• bintang = star

So rasi bintang literally is “star constellation.”

Related words:

• rasi alone is also used, especially in astronomy contexts.
• gugus bintang = star cluster (more technical, not exactly the same as constellation).
• konstelasi = constellation (a direct borrowing from English/Latin; used but sounds more technical or formal).

For general, everyday use, rasi bintang is natural and widely understood.

Why is pertama kali placed after rasi bintang? Could we move it or say untuk pertama kalinya?

In waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali, the phrase pertama kali (“for the first time”) modifies the whole event of seeing the constellation.

Common options:

1. waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali
   Very natural. Pertama kali comes after the object, but semantically it refers to the whole melihat rasi bintang event.

2. waktu pertama kali melihat rasi bintang
   Also correct and very natural. Now pertama kali is right after waktu, clearly modifying the seeing event.

3. waktu melihat rasi bintang untuk pertama kalinya
   Slightly longer and a bit more expressive or emotional. untuk pertama kalinya literally “for the very first time.”

All three are grammatically fine. The original order (melihat rasi bintang pertama kali) is completely natural in spoken and written Indonesian. The choice is mostly stylistic:

• Shorter and simpler: pertama kali.
• Slightly more emphatic or narrative: untuk pertama kalinya.

There is no past tense marker in this sentence. How do we know the action happened in the past? Could we add sudah or telah?

Indonesian usually does not mark tense with verb changes like English does. Past, present, and future are inferred from:

• Time expressions (waktu …, kemarin, tadi, etc.)
• Context.

In this sentence, waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali already implies a specific time in the past: the time when you first saw a constellation. So listeners will naturally understand it as past.

You can add:

• sudah or telah before the verb if you want to stress completion:
  
  • Di catatan lapangan itu, saya sudah menulis …
  • Di catatan lapangan itu, saya telah menulis …

Nuance:

• sudah = very common, neutral, spoken and written.
• telah = more formal, often in written or official language.

They are not required; the original sentence is already correct and naturally understood as past.

Why is the pronoun saya repeated in perasaan saya instead of just saying perasaan?

If you just say perasaan, it can mean “feelings” in a general sense, not clearly tied to a specific person.

• perasaan = feelings (in general)
• perasaan saya = my feelings

In this sentence you are specifically talking about your own feelings, so the possessive pronoun saya makes that explicit:

• bagaimana perasaan saya = “how I felt / what my feelings were like”

If you dropped saya, it would sound incomplete or unclear:

• saya menulis bagaimana perasaan waktu melihat …
  This feels wrong/unfinished to a native speaker; we expect siapa punya perasaan (whose feelings?).

So perasaan saya is the natural, clear way to say “my feelings” here.

Is the overall sentence formal, informal, or neutral? For example, could we replace saya with aku here?

The sentence as given is neutral–polite:

• saya is the neutral, polite first-person pronoun used in most formal and semi-formal situations, and also very common in writing.

You could replace saya with aku:

• Di catatan lapangan itu, aku menulis bagaimana perasaanku waktu melihat rasi bintang pertama kali.

Notes:

• If you use aku, the natural possessive is perasaanku, not perasaan saya.
• aku is more informal/intimate, used with friends, family, diary-style writing, or in some literature.

Because catatan lapangan suggests a somewhat academic or research context, saya fits very well. If this were a very personal diary entry instead of “field notes,” aku might feel more natural.