April 10, 2011 ALP Caliraya Stargazing Session Report
by James Kevin Ty
Images by James Kevin Ty & Pejvac Parhizkari & Christopher Louie Lu

After the ALP monthly meeting at Rizal Technological University in Mandaluyong City, ALPers James Kevin Ty, Bobby Parhizkari, Amir Mohammadi , Christopher Louie Lu and family went to Caliraya , Laguna to continue their observing & imaging session.

They arrive at Caliraya around 12:15am and setup their equipment. ALP President James Kevin Ty brought along his Canon EOS 500D DSLR with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L Lens on Kenko Sky Memo-R mount ; Bobby Parhizkari with his Canon Astro 50D DSLR with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 lens on Takahashi Sky Patrol 2 mount while Christopher Louie Lu brought along his Celestron Powerseeker 90mm refractor on EQ-1 mount.

The sky was partly cloudy but lots of opening skies as well for them to observe and image that early morning. It was Christopher's first observing session at Caliraya and was amazed at the dark skies and numerous DSO and stars that he can observe that morning with binoculars and his telescope.

Unfortunately, the wind was very strong as well thus they have to use their cars try to make a wind breaker out of them :( They had to struggle with the strong wind that the had ruin numerous exposures that James and Bobby did that morning. Nevertheless, they still mange to get some shot of amid the windy situation.

Dark Sky Condition at Caliraya

James tried out the Lagoon and Triffid Nebula in Sagittarius as well as his target of the night which is the Veil Nebula. Unfortunately, I could only managed to image Veil with 4 5 mins exposures for a total of 20 minutes exposure which still give a noisy image. But amid the situation, James was still quite happy for after more than 8 years of longing to image the Veil Nebula, he finally was given a chance by mother nature for me to image it amid the lack of sub exposure to make the image better. Bobby , on the other hand, image the Lagoon Nebula region and Omega Nebula wide field region section of ther Milky Way.   Christopher Louie also tried to image the Summer Milky Way as well as constellation shot using his Canon 450D on sturdy tripod.

They hope to try it again this coming April 30-May 1 session at Caliraya again with fellow ALPers.

M8 Lagoon & M20 Triffid Nebula by James Kevin Ty	NGC 6992 Eastern Veil &  6960 Western Veil Nebula  by James Kevin Ty
Lagoon Nebula Wide Field Region by Pejvac Parhizkari	Omega Nebula Wide Field Region by Pejvac Parhizkari
Scorpius / Sagittarius Region Wide Field by Christopher Louie Lu	Summer Triangle Region Wide Field by Christopher Louie Lu
Big Dipper by Christopher Louie Lu	ALPer James Kevin Ty beside his Kenko Sky Memo and Bobby's Takahashi Sky Patrol 2 mount.
ALPer Bobby Parhizkari beside his Takahashi Sky Patrol 2 mount.	ALPers James Kevin Ty & Bobby Parhizkari beside their portable imaging setups.
ALPers James Kevin Ty , Bobby Parhizkari & guests Amir Mohammadi	Canon EOS 500D DSLR with Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L Lens on Kenko Sky Memo mount.
Canon Astro 50D with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 lens on Takahashi Sky Patrol 2 mount.	ALPer Christopher Louie Lu beside his Celestron Powerseeker 80mm refractor on EQ-1 mount.