January 10, 2015 ALP Comet Stargazing Session Report

January 10, 2015 ALP Comet Stargazing Session Report
by James Kevin Ty
Images by James Kevin Ty, Christopher Louie Lu, Arnel Campos, Saju Pillai

Last January 10, ALPers namely James Kevin Ty, Christopher Louie Lu, Arnel Campos, Ronald Sison, Shubhashish Banerjee , Saju Pillai, Andrew Ian Chan and Iah Serna went to JohnDel Beach Resort at Nasugbu , Batangas to observe and image Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy and other deep sky objects under dark skies.

ALPers James Kevin Ty brought along his Canon EOS500D DSLR with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L lens mounted on a Vixen GP-DX mount. Andrew Ian Chan brought along his Canon EOS 500D DSLR on Skywatcher 80ED refractor on Vixen GP mount ; Christopher Louie Lu with his Canon EOS 450D DSLR on Vixen Polarie star tracker ; Shubhashish Banerjee with his Canon EOS 350D DSLR mounted on sturdy tripod ; Saju Pillai with his Canon EOS 550D DSLR mounted on sturdy tripod ; Arnel Campos with his Explore Scientific AR102mm refractor on Skywatcher HEQ-5 mount.

They arrive at the site more or less around 7:30pm with Arnel and Ronald arriving at bit earlier to observe the sunset. After getting some rest, they started to setup their equipment and started to locate Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy . After checking for a short while, they located the comet which is almost visible to the naked eye at around mag 4.5 and sporting a +/- 2 degree tail! The sky was partly cloudy in the early evening but cleared up late in the evening till dusk. They were alos able to observe and image M42, M31, and other deep sky objects . The Waning Gibbous Moon then rose from the eastern horizon at around 11:00pm. They continue to observe and image until the Moon had risen near the zenith thus ending their observation and imaging session. As they were packing up their stuffs, a magnitude 4+ earthquake were felt by ALPers at the roofdeck and afer a minute of mild tremor, they jokingly stated that this is what we call ending the event with a bang (or shock) :) LOL

After getting some rest in the morning, some of them went to the beach for a dip to relax their body while others roam around the resort to get some good shots of the beach front. They left the resort at around 11:30am and looking forward in the days to come to return again with a much large group :)

Waning Gibbous Moon by ALPer Saju Pillai	Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy by ALPer Arnel Campos
Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy by ALPer James Kevin Ty	Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy by ALPer James Kevin Ty
Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy by ALPer Christopher Louie Lu	Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy by ALPer Saju Pillai
Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy by ALPer Christopher Louie Lu	M31 Andromeda Galaxy by ALPer Christopher Louie Lu
M41 Galactic Star Cluster by ALPer Christopher Louie Lu	M42 Orion Nebula by ALPer Christopher Louie Lu
M42 Orion Nebula by ALPer Saju Pillai	M45 Pleaides Star Cluster by ALPer Christopher Louie Lu
ALPer Andrew Ian Chan and Iah Serna beside his Canon EOS 500D DSLR with Skywatcher 80ED refractor on Vixen GP mount.	ALPer Ronald Sison posed beside his Celestron C90 Maksutov Cassegrain on Skywatcher EQ-5 mount.
ALPer Shubhashish Banerjee posed beside Arnel's Explore Scientific AR102 refractor on Skywatcher HEQ-5 mount.	ALPer Arnel Campos posed beside his Explore Scientific AR102 refractor on Skywatcher HEQ-5 mount.
ALPer Christopher Louie Lu posed beside his Canon EOS 450D DSLR on Canon EFS55-250mm lens mounted on Vixen Polarie Star Tracker.	ALPer Saju Pillai posed beside his Canon EOS 550D DSLR with EFS 55-250mm lens on sturdy tripod.
ALPer James Kevin Ty posed beside his Canon EOS 500D DSLR with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L lens on Vixen GP-DX mount.	ALPers in Action at Night