June 6, 2010 ALP Monthly Meeting  Report
by James Kevin Ty & Armando Lee
 

Last June 6 , 2010, members of the Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP) held their monthly meeting at the Manila Planetarium at 3:00pm.  Members who attended were ALP President James Kevin Ty  , Charito Ty and son Kendrick Cole (KC) Ty, VP Jett Aguilar, PRO Armando Lee, Andrew Ian Chan,  Treasurer Henry So and friend Marilene Ng, Tommy Tan, Belen Pabunan, Christopher Louie Lu , Dennis Buenviaje, Dante Cruz, Rommel Palacpac, Mark Ian Singson, Michael Cruspero,  Crispin Riosa, Kevin Dagunan, Christopher Lee, Nel Lagda , Desiree del Rosario, Micky Natividad, and new member John Ray Cabrera.

The meeting started at around 3:30pm with ALP VP Jett Aguilar giving the members some updates on the Jupiter Impact that Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley got to image and view live last June 6, 2010 with our very own ALPer Christopher Go imaging it as well as confirming the impact!  They were the only 2 amateur astronomers that were able to document this event!

Afterwards, ALP PRO Armando Lee lectured about the large scale properties of the Milky Way galaxy. He lectured about the: 1. Interstellar extinction; 2. The range in luminosity for stars in the region of the Sun; 3. Stellar populations. Again, these are rare topics which are seldom presented in astro club meetings. He started off by speaking about atmospheric extinction to explain its relation to the study of the whole Milky Way galaxy. The previous error in estimating the size of the Milky Way was explained in the light of interstellar light extinction in the galactic disk. Kapteyn’s underestimation and Shapley’s overestimation of the size of the Milky Way galaxy was discussed in relation to interstellar light extinction.

ALP VP Jett Aguilar giving the latest update on the Jupiter Impact last June 3, 2010.	ALP PRO Armando Lee gives an interesting lecture on the large scale properties of our Milky Way.
More than 20 ALPers attended the meeting.	ALP President James Kevin Ty gives a summary report of the May 16 Venus Occultation by the Crescent Moon as well as discussed on the upcoming June 26, 2010 Partial Lunar Eclipse..

Afterwards, ALP President James Kevin Ty gave a summary report of the May 16 Venus Occultation by the thin Crescent Moon.  This event more or less happened around 7:36pm with the planet Venus disappearing on the dark limb of the Moon and reappearing again on the bright limb of the Moon more or less around 8:16pm.  All 3 ALP observing sites at AstroCamp Observatory, Nasugbu Batangas and Candaba Pampanga all successfully documented the ingress and egress of the event.  Still and video images of the Venus Occultation were also presented to the members. Armand then  reminded the members/audience about the atmospheric extinction (earlier explained in his lecture) as he showed his video (with GPS time inserted frames) of the said event.

He then discussed on the upcoming June 26, 2010 Partial Lunar Eclipse.  The event will start several minutes earlier when the Moon rise from the ESE horizon. Full details of the event will be posted in the ALP main page in the days to come.  ALP IDs were also distributed to the members as well.

Lastly, James announced this year's ALP SportFest will be held this coming July and August,  The 5th ALP 9 Ball tournament will be held first on July 18, 2010 at Playdium. 2008 Champion Andrew Ian Chan will be defending his title against participants James Kevin Ty, Edward Eli Tan, Henry So, Aldrin Palacio, Rommel Palacpac, Rich Pijuan and Babak Parhizkari.  ALPers who wants to participate on this event should contact ALP President James Kevin Ty for further details pertaining to this event,  Registration fee is P500.  Trophies will be gven to the top 3 participants.

As for the2nd ALP Bowling tournament which will also be played in Playdium in the month of August (exact date will be announced next meeting.) Among the early participants are James Kevin Ty, Andrew Ian Chan, Edgar Ang, Melisa Bata, Rommel Palacpac, John Ray Cabrera, Armando Lee, Myra Lee, Rich Pijuan, Christopher Louie Lu, Micky Natividad.  Members are encourage to join either or both event as these activities are for our group bonding asd well as have fun and relax during the rainy season.  Competition is only secondary so join the events.

The meeting ended at around 5:30pm.