July 7, 2013 ALP Monthly
Meeting Report
by James
Kevin Ty & Christopher Louie Lu
Last July 7,
members of the Astronomical League of the Philippines
(ALP) held their monthly meeting at Manila
Planetarium. Members who attended were ALP
President James Kevin Ty , wife Charito and son Kendrick
Cole KC Ty ; VP Jett Aguilar, Secretary Christopher Louie Lu
& daughter Frances Lu; PRO Armando Lee, wife Mia and son
Jason Lee; director John Ray Cabrera ; Mike Enage, Norman Marigza,
Edge Lat, Katrina Fernando, Miguel Cajita and dad Trix
Cajita, Bel Pabunan. Liza Quitlong, Nel Lagda &
guest Margareth Custodio.
Meeting proper
started at around 3:00pm with ALP
Secretary Christopher Louie Lu giving a lecture on
Celestial Navigation. He discussed two of
the best astronomy app available on Android based
platform. First to be featured is the Mobile
Observatory Pro from KreApp Development Software. This
App is filled with helpful info about celestial objects
and celestial events. But the best feature this App has
is to provide the user with the celestial events visible
to him or her based on their location anywhere on the
Earth.
The second
App featured is Sky Safari Pro, arguably the best
astronomy App for any mobile device or tablet. It
features a beautiful representation of the night sky
complete with images of most celestial objects. This App
is three types; Sky Safari – for beginner/entry level
experience, Sky Safari Plus – for intermediate/middle
level experience and Sky Safari Pro – for advanced level
experience. Also part of the Apps feature is the the
“Scope” feature whereby you can control your telescope
by attaching your mobile device to your telescope mount
by USB port. Both App is unfortunately not for free,
nonetheless, worth every centavo.
Also
discussed was the current Solar Activity of AR1785 and
AR1787. AR1785 has grown to be about 11 times the size
of the Earth. where is now facing towards the Earth.
Both Active Regions has the potentiality of giving off a
high level C – class or low level M – class flares.
Finally, an
update on the current situation of the Kepler mission,
where the 'planet finding' probe is placed into sleep
mode on May 15, due to a malfunction of one of its
'reaction wheels' which helps points the lens towards
its target star. Currently, NASA is devising a repair
plan for its crippled probe and hopefully this month
Kepler will be back in action.
ALP Secretary Christopher
Louie Lu discussed on Celestial Navigation. |
ALP President James Kevin
Ty encourage members to submit articles and
astro images as well as help get ad sponsorship
solicitation to support ALP's 10 year
anniversary yearbook project. |
Lastly, ALP
President James Kevin Ty inform the members of the
organization's plans to come out with its 10th year
anniversary Souvenir Yearbook and encourage members to
submit their articles and images for use on the planned
yearbook which will come out this September in time for
their anniversary party. The meeting ended at around 5:30pm.
|