ALP August 10, 2008 Meeting Report
by James Kevin Ty

Last August 10, members of the Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP) had their regular monthly meeting at the Manila Planetarium. Among the members who attended the meeting were James Kevin Ty , Dr. Jett Aguilar, Dr. Armando Lee , wife Mia and son Jason, Melisa Bata, Angie Tan, Ma. Belen Pabunan, Jomar Lacson, Edgar Ang, Peter Benedict Tubalinal, Theodore Marc Gutierrez , Joel Limcangco , Hernando Bautista, Tommy Tan, Kristy Anne Abello and newest member Aran Lester Rueda.

The meeting started at around 3:00pm with ALP president James Kevin Ty welcoming the members as well as introducing the lecturers for that afternoon ,  ALP Observation chairman Peter Benedict Tubalinal and Dr. Armando Lee.  Peter started out with the basic topic on Astronomy Terminologies.   This was done to teach specially the newbies and beginners some of the basic terms of astronomy such as how to differentiate terms such as transit, occultation, eclipse, conjunction, opposition, elongations, etc.

ALPers chat with each other as they wait for other members to arrive.

ALPers looked up the planetarium dome to view the powerpoint presentation made by Peter Tubalinal.

Afterwards, Armando give an interesting lecture on Life of Stars, a simplified version of stellar evolution that uses more of animations and graphics rather than mathematical approach in helping understand the birth and death of stars.  Members easily absorbed his lecture well as he use very basic terms in trying to explain each stage of life of different types of stars.

James then proceeded with inviting fellow members to observe and image the upcoming August 17th Partial Lunar Eclipse at the roof deck of the PAGASA Observatory in UP-Diliman.  ALPers will start to setup their telescopes as well as cameras at around 10:00pm of August 16th.  But due to the  bad weather  we are having lately, everyone hope and pray that it will be clear that morning to observe the event.

Then, ALP Ways and Means Chairperson Melisa Bata then gave a short rundown on the status of ad solicitation for the organization's upcoming 5th anniversary souvenir yearbook. The meeting ended at around 6:00pm.

For Comments jkty@astroleaguephils.org