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!
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