December 13-14, 2010 ALP Geminids Meteor Shower Observation Report
by James Kevin Ty  & Armando Lee
Images by James Kevin Ty, Andrew Ian Chan, Bobby Pejvak, Christopher Lee, Christopher Louie Lu & Iah Serna

Last December 13-14, members of the Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP) held their Geminid Meteor Shower Observation at AstroCamp Observatory in SM MOA San Miguel by the Bay, Members who attended were ALP President James Kevin Ty ,  PRO Armando Lee , Andrew Ian Chan and friend Iah Serna,  Christopher Lee and Sandra Torita Lee, Michael Cruspero and friend Mathew Esteban,  Christopher Louie Lu,  Bobby Pejvak , Amir Mohammadi and newest ALPer Prabhaker Yasa. 

ALP & Astrocamp Observatory also participated the worldwide Meteor Without Border Activity initiated by Astronomy Without Borders.  Also supporting ALP activity that evening was Cutting Edge / Celestron  who provided the members with free dinner packs. 

ALPers' Early Evening Group Shot

ALPers who brought their cameras, tripods, tracking platform were as follows:  James setup with his dual Canon 500D and 400D DSLR cameras setup on Kenko Sky Memo mount; Bobby with his Canon Astro 50D and 5D Mark 2 DSLR on Takahashi Sky Patrol 2 mount; Prabhaker brought along his new Skywatcher 4.25" refractor on modified EQ-3 mount with Autostar system; Andrew brought along his Canon 500D DSLR on sturdy tripod as well as Chris Lu with Canon 450D DSLR.

Cutting Edge provided ALP / Astrocamp several  Meteor without Border banners as well as dinner packs. Thank you!	(L-R) ALPers Christopher Lee, James Kevin Ty, Amir Mohammadi & Armando Lee
ALPers enjoy the good dinner food provided by Cutting Edge, our loyal astro partner.  Thank you again!	ALPers Armando Lee and James Kevin Ty inspect newest ALPer Prabhaker Yasa's astro telescope modification.  Good job Prabhaker !
ALPer Bobby Pejvak  beside his Canon Astro 50D on Takahashi Sky Patrol 2 mount.	ALPer James Kevin Ty beside his dual Canon 500D and 400D on Kenko Sky Memo mount.
ALPer Armando Lee was the official recorder of the Geminids that evening and he also provided online updates on Geminids with fellow astronomers in Facebook and Twitter.	ALPer Andrew Ian Chan and Iah Serna brought along a sleeping bag that provide them better relaxation in observing the Geminids!

The sky was cloudy early evening till past midnight before the clouds started to break up a bit to show some stars and constellations .  By that time, they were all looking up on the clear portion of the sky and hope to see some Geminids zipped through the open skies :)  ALP imagers also started to image but some the early part after midnight was still a bit cloudy, there was an intense lightning clouds that was visible in the NW horizon and some ALPers decided to point some of their cameras to  image the beautiful lightning clouds.

Lightning by James Kevin Ty	Lightning by James Kevin Ty
Lightning by James Kevin Ty	Lightning by Christopher Louie Lu
Lightning by Andrew Ian Chan	Hey!  I saw a bright Fireball !!!  Yahoo!

At around 2:00am, Geminids meteors started to be frequent already and Armand was able to record 48 Geminids plus 1 sporadic meteor  that early morning.  If not for the clouds, the number of Geminids recorded would have easily doubled or tripled perhaps.  Aside from Geminids and lightning, ALPers were also able to view some artificial satellites as well before sunrise :)  Overall, ALPer Andrew Ian Chan was able to capture around 9 Geminids & 4 artificial satellites while Babak got 2 Geminids.

Bright Fireball captured by Andrew Ian Chan !!!	Bright Geminid zipping past Manny Pacquiao Statue as imaged by Bobby Pejvak !!!  Great Composition!!!
Whoa!  Another bright Geminids by Bobby Pejvak !	Bright Artificial Satellite captured by Andrew Ian Chan !!!
ALPer Andrew Ian Chan and Iah Serna has a shot taken with AstroCamp Observatory and planet Venus as background :)	Crepuscular Ray signals the end of the ALP's Geminids observation for 2010 !!!  Looking forward for January's Quadrantids Meteor Shower !

A crepuscular ray signals the end of the Geminid session and they were all satisfied with the results and are looking  forward to observing the January Quadrantids Meteor Shower :)