Partial Lunar Eclipse 17.08.08

I woke up at 3am last Sunday, still disoriented and dizzy. Feeling sleepy, I fought my body's yearning to go back to bed in spite of the urgent whispering in my ear to observe the lunar eclipse happening at that moment. I pulled my telescope out of its storage and dusted off my tripod for immediate set-up. I climbed up to my "viewing deck" only to find out that the moon was well hidden from view. I hurriedly set-up in the living room instead and pointed the telescope out of the window facing the southwest. Just while I was setting-up, Irving texted me to ask if I was awoke and said that he was already seeing the umbra. I replied yes and informed him that I was already imaging the event. I took series of images every half minute until the moon set behind my neighbor's roof.

The following day (Monday), I started to experiment with Photoshop. I combined the series of images I took and selected some to form a sequence of the eclipse. Fortunately, I found Photoshop to be intuitive and came up with the posted picture. Hmmm, I felt satisfied with the result. Wished that I could have joined the others at the UP PAGASA Observatory . . .

On to the fields in search of astro site

Last Saturday, 05 July 2008, I sent text message to Irving to come with me to scout for a suitable site for sky watching. We planned to visit the new circumferential road near the shore of Laguna Lake. Irving rode his bike and arrived at our home at around 5:00 pm. Looking at the sky at that time, I decided to use my old Daihatsu Charade car in going to C6 road. Reason is that, sky was slowly deteriorating and instinct told me that there was a probability of rain. Initially, we planned to ride our bikes in going there. So, off we went to the site. I noticed that there were mud holes along the dirt road near the site and it was quite a bumpy ride. Finally, we arrived at C6 road and we decided to tour the its length to gain an idea where is best site to set up our telescopes in the future. Truly enough, we found some interesting sites along the way. These were unfinished bridges that looks stable enough and out of the main road. We guessed that during summertime, these sites will be good enough. However, not all is promising. As we gazed on the surroundings, we also had an uncomfortable notion that security may be an issue. Irving remarked that it will be easy for anybody to mug or harass us and we will be so far to cry for help. Anyway, I plan to investigate this concern later on. We continued our way up to the foot of a bridge linking Taguig with Pasig. We stopped there and got off the car and looked at the surrounding area. We spotted a small plateu that looks ideal for setting up scopes. However, as we looked up, the sky was getting uglier. Then, all of a sudden, raindrops were starting to strengthen and before we knew it, it was raining hard! We hurriedly went inside the car and drove our way back home. On the way, rain stopped and the sun slowly creeped out again. Irving stayed for a while and we hoped the the sky opens up, but it seemed it decided not to. We just had a quick snack prepared by my wife. I later showed Irving my collection of "Sky & Telescope' magazines. By around 7:00 pm, the sky looked hopelessly clouded out, so Irving decided to go home.

We hoped to get a clear night next week. Hmmm. . in July?

Milky Way Cruise

Last Sunday was an eventful day. Typhoon Frank suddenly made an unexpected turn towards Metro Manila. I woke up suddenly around 2:30 am due to some rumblings over our bedroom's ceiling. This could only mean one thing-there was a strong wind blowing at the roof deck. I hurriedly climbed the stairs to the third floor, and sure enough, the wind was strongly moving everything in its path. The rest of the day was spent securing our house from water leakages and of course, sleeping.

But, yesterday evening was very different! After arriving from MegaMall at around 7:30 pm, I walked outside and behold! Stars were very visible against a velvety dark sky. I hurriedly got my Vixen Ultima binoculars and was astonished that the sky was very clear. Most probably typhoon Frank cleaned the city air and brought away the clouds. I started viewing the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud from the tip of the Teapot and as slowly panned the Milky Way. I began to recognize the Lagoon Nebulae as a misty haze. But wait, what was that cluster near the sting of Scorpious? Oh, I forgot to bring out my handy star atlas. Anyway, I promised myself that I will just look at it later. I continued to move further up and saw a couple of nebulas and cluster. Somehow, I got a good feeling that I was beginning to like this patch of sky. It was as if I could have stayed all night exploring this part of the Milky Way. My mind kept on drinking the spectacular views and wondered if this was the same emotion that drove Edward Emerson Barnard to stay all night photographing the beauty of the Milky Way. Well, I believe it was something else. As I cruised the galaxy, I was constantly reminding myself that I was at my house lest I got carried away by the beautiful sirens of the universe.

Well, there was my wife calling my name that it was time to put my sons to sleep and I had to go down. As I was putting the binoculars back in its case, I smiled gently at it and whispered, "good job, my spaceship!"

"Yes, I'm coming down now."

Milk got spilled on the sky (and saw it!)

Last Friday night was a good night for sky viewing. It is funny that it is already June and supposedly rainy season and yet here I am enjoying a good sky! My observing buddy, Irving sent a text message that he was joining me for a short sky viewing and will be arriving at around 7:00 pm. I arrived home from office at around 6:00 pm, had a quick dinner with my family, and off to preparing my new set-up.

The moment I walked out of our balcony, I felt a quiet excitement as the sky was real blue indicating good transparency. Although there were some patches of clouds in the north and western part, I quickly informed Irving that there's a good chance of clear sky later on. He likewise replied that it a GO for him to come. I started bringing out my new GPD2 mount and HAL130 tripod. Whew! the box is quite heavy as I was coming from downstairs up to the balcony on the third floor. By the time Irving arrived, the mount was already raring to rock. He used my 8-inch Dob and brought along his impressive 27mm Panoptic and LVW's. I brought out my Megrez 90 and couple of EP's. My first target was the waxing crescent moon. First I used the 27 Panoptic to locate the Moon then zoomed in with the 6mm Radian. Wow! this Radian never fails to impress me. Very comfortable to use and with rich contrast. Oh, how I wished that I could identify all those craters and marias. At least it will add up to my enjoyment knowing the names of those features I was looking. Well. Tani, better manage your time to squeeze in lunar study! I was lost for nearly five minutes enjoying the lunar view. Irving was also hands full looking at some DSOs. I was amazed that given the light pollution at my place, he had the skill of finding some good deep sky objects. Everytime he found an object, he would called out to me to have a peek. Imagine, I could see the Ring Nebulae and the Dumbell Nebulae in this sky even without filters. Irving regret that he forgot to bring his filter set, otherwise we could have seen these objects in lot of contrast.

Jupiter started to rise at around 9:oo pm and I started also to point my scope towards it. Lots of turbulence as the image seemed boiling in unsteady air. Talk about good transparency and poor seeing! I had to contend myself using my Vixen Ultima Binoculars finding the star clusters in the Crux area. How I wished I could point my scope towards that area. But hey, I have to wrecked the third floor of our house just to have a southern sky.

Then, I realized that the whitish patch in the eastern sky in the Teapot area, all along I thought to be some fine layer of cloud was actually the Milky Way! Slowly, I felt lucky having a location that is near the city and yet dark enough just to provide a glimpse of the Home Galaxy. I told Irving that it was my first time to actually see the Milky Way at nightime in our place. I once saw it early morning after the typhoon Millenio and no more after that. Numerous clusters and bright nebulaes were visible. I felt an itch of getting my Canon DSLR to photograph the sky, however, some real clouds were inching their way towards the Sagittarius and Scorpious areas so I decided not to do it anymore. Additionally, my good neighbor suddenly turned "on" their balcony lights so I guessed it was the end of our session. Besides, Irving was going to call it a good night by 10:30 pm. So, after dismantling my set-up, I drove Irving to Pasig.

On my way back home, images of the Milky Way keep on flashing in my mind. Now that I discovered that it was possible to see it at our place, I promised to set up again in the days (nights) to come. Hope this weather holds on or even gets better!