Last February 22, the UP-Astro Society invited ALP President James Kevin Ty to be one of the 3 invited lecturers for their Astro-Forum Discussion at UP Physics Bldg (Llamas Hall.)  James touched on Basic Digital Astrophotography. The other invited speakers for the day were PAS chairman Engr. Camillo Dacanay , who will touch on Across the Universe: A Big bang Series , while Dr. Dante Ambrosio of the UP History Department will touch on Philippine Ethnoastronomy. Among the ALP members that were present were James Kevin Ty, Dante Cruz, Dante Noche as well as Edmund Rosales.

The session got delayed a bit because of last minute changes. The original venue which was supposed to be at UP-NISMED Audio / Video Room was needed to NISMED to accommodate foreign guests so the UP-Astro Soc had to transfer the venue instead to the Physics Department's Llamas Hall. Nevertheless, the session got started at around 10:30am with Engr Camillo Dacanay presenting his topic entitled  "Across the Universe: A Big bang Series" . He touches on the wide range of cosmology topic such as the difference between astronomy and cosmology , the different theories that pertains to the Big Bang, the different types of forces in the universe, how small our world is as a grain of sand compared to the vastness of the entire universe, etc,

At around 11:30am, ALP president James Kevin Ty was next to discuss on the "Basic Digital Astrophotography." He started off by discussing the different types of digital cameras that are available in the market for the amateur astronomers use such as compact point and shoot cameras, digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, webcams and cooled CCD cameras.  Since the topic will be touching on the basics, James touched only on the compact point and shoot as well as DSLR systems.

Then he explain the advantages and disadvantages of the digital cameras compared to film based cameras, as well as what materials were needed to get started in astrophotography. He also explains what features one should look for when buying a digital camera for astrophotography use.

He then proceeded to tackle on the proper use of compact point & shoot and DSLR like how to setup the cameras for use with the telescope, different adapters to connect camera to telescope, how to focus afocally, etc.  He ended the session with a Photo Gallery presentation on some of his works.

Lastly, at around 1:15pm, Dr Dante Ambrosio of the UP History Department was next to give the audience some knowledge on Philippine Ethnoastronomy. He touch on the history of the local tribes of the Philippines and explain how the locals understand the sky on their own perspective.  Different tribes also have different folklore as well and the topic was really fascinating to say the least.

The session ended at around 2:00pm with UP-Astro Soc president Anthony Longjas presenting each lecturer a Certificate of Appreciation and a posterity group shot of UP-Astrosoc members and lecturers together before the session adjourned.

 

For more images of this activity, please click here.