Amid bad weather in the early evening of September 7th, the sky later clear up before midnight for the September 8th partial lunar eclipse to be visible mostly in all parts of   the Philippines Majority of ALPers were stationed at PAGASA Observatory to witness the event. Among the ALP members who attended the event were James Kevin Ty, Allen Yu, Alice Villa-Real, Dr. Jett Aguilar,  Melchor Pilones,  Joey Grajeda, Hans Gideon Cerdenia, Kristy Anne Abello and guest Dennis Llante.

They started to set up their equipments at around 10:30pm.  James brought along his TV-101 refractor with Vixen GP-D mount as well as his portable Meade ETX-90AT; Dr. Jett Aguilar brought along his Celestron C8 SCT  on Vixen GP-D mount and  20-180x70mm zoom binoculars mounted on Telepod ; Allen brought along his Orion 80ED refractor on EQ-4 mount while Alice brought her portable Celestron C-90 Maksutov-Cassegrain on Bogen sturdy tripod.

At around 12:30am, they were already waiting for the event to start.  The penumbral phase of the eclipse got noticeable more or less around 1:15am with some light shading clearly visible in the images the group had taken while the shadings become very obvious at around 1:45am.   Clouds tried to interfere once in a while but it didnt affect too much for the group not to have to great time :)  TV Station GMA 7 was also there to observe and get interviews of the PAGASA staff as well as ALP president James Kevin Ty as well as member Dr. Jett Aguilar.  They also took footages of the group's setup at the roofdeck of the observatory.  It was later televised first in the program Unang Hirit and Unang Balita in the morning and later in 24-Oras and Saksi news programs in the evening.  The eclipse reached maximum eclipse of about 19% at around 2:51am and slowly start to exit the Moon's surface until it was almost not visible to the naked eye more or less around 4:00am.

They started to  dismantle their equipment at around 4:45am when the hint of penumbral shading os more or less not evident anymore.  Before they left, they had a group picture taken for posterity.

In conclusion, they as well as other fellow amateur astronomers in the Philippines were lucky to had observed this event because it was mostly cloudy or rainy the whole time in the evening before and after the event. Lastly, the event also coincides with ALP 3rd year anniversary so this event is worth remembering! :)

ALP will also to thank the PAGASA Observatory staff for allowing ALP to observe at the roofdeck of the observatory.

To see more activity images , click here.

To see member's images of the eclipse, click here.

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For Comments jkty@astroleaguephils.org