A small group of 4 "ALPers" had their rendezvous at the Alabang Shell gas station at around 4 PM on their way to Caliraya Hilltop resort last May 7, 2005.  Present were 3 dedicated astroimagers (James, Mon and Jett) and newbie Edgar Ang.  I was worried about the sky conditions since the PAGASA weather prediction was "cloudy with rains" and it actually rained hard when we were at the gas station.  We decided to proceed anyway since it had always been our experience that it is quite impossible to predict the sky conditions at Caliraya based on the prevailing conditions in Manila or even at the lower parts of Laguna.

We left for Caliraya at about 4:40 PM and arrived safely at our   destination at past 7 PM.  During dinner, James completed his work on the home-made dew heater for my 8 inch SCT with some help from Mon.  A few days prior to the trip I asked James' help about making a dew heater since I don't want a repeat of my previous imaging sessions at Caliraya where I was dewed out by early morning.   James constructed the dew heater using 18 pieces of 0.47 ohms resistor (1 watt each) which he stringed together in series and attached to a cigarette lighter adapter.  I brought an extra car battery with me and we tested the dew heater at the canteen while eating dinner.  It worked perfectly and I ate dinner with the assurance that I will be able to image for the entire night and early morning. 

We then set up our equipment at our usual place at the bridge near the fishing pond.  Polaris was easily visible and I did my polar alignment without difficulty although I can see ominous intermittent lightning flashes low in the horizon.  James was not worried about the lightning flashes since the sky was mostly clear in our area.  I got my newly acquired but second hand NGF motorized focuser (courtesy of Prasad) from James and attached it to my SCT without much trouble.  It worked like a charm and will allow me to do fine focusing once I get the hang of using it. I also attached the dew heater around the outer diameter of my corrector plate and turned on the power ­ ready for a full night (and morning) of imaging.

Previously I made a list of the DSOs that I planned to image which included the Blackeye galaxy, the Trifid nebula and the Dumbbell nebula as my priorities for this session.  I started with M 104, the Sombrero galaxy which I hope to image better this time. Tracking was not as bad this time and I accumulated about 8 to 10 images of about 120 sec exposure each. 

After M 104, I turned my attention to M 64, the Blackeye galaxy.  This distant galaxy (25 million light years) is a small target to image and I decided to remove my O.63 focal reducer.  Even without the focal reducer the galaxy was tiny on my LCD screen and I again had trouble focusing my image.  I accumulated only a few images at almost 2 minute exposures each.  The processed image is quite bad (poorly focused), but the galaxy with its "shiner" (characteristic dark lane) is still recognizable.  I'll try to image it again next time.

At about this time I would expect my corrector plate to have started dewing already but when I checked it was still clear and dry!  The distal part of my dew shield was already soaking wet but the part around the dew heater was free of dew.  Despite the heavy dewing around us my corrector plate remained dry up to 4:40 AM when we ended our imaging session (about 6 ½ hours duration). Thanks again James!

After the disappointing Blackeye galaxy I re-attached my focal reducer and slewed my scope towards Sagittarius which was previously covered with clouds to image the delightful and colorful Trifid nebula (M 20).  Everything worked well this time and I believe I did justice to the beauty of this object.  The three dust lanes are prominently visible subdividing the pink-red nebulosity adjacent to the fainter bluish nebulosity.

I ended my session by imaging another colorful object, the Dumbbell nebula (M 27) in Vulpecula. This is one of the nebulas closest to us (1,000 light years) and its brightness and moderate size (8 arc minutes) makes it an easy object to image. It was almost twilight and I had to hurry my shots to capture its colors.  I noticed some tracking error and inadequately focused stars but the bluish and reddish nebulosities easily came out. We left for Manila mid-morning after a short rest with a feeling of fulfillment and raring to go to back again next month, weather permitting.