April 12, 2015 ALP Monthly Meeting Report
by James Kevin Ty
Images by James Kevin Ty and Alberto Lao

Last April 12, ALP held their monthly meeting at Exploreum at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.  Members who attended were ALP President James Kevin Ty, wife Charito and son Kendrick Cole KC Ty;  VP Jett Aguilar, Secretary Christopher Louie Lu and daughter Frances;Auditor Edgar Ang,  director Edge Lat, Ronald Sison and Mike Enage ;  Shubhashish Banerjee, Saju Pillai , Justine Garcia, Miguel Cajita, Jason Comia, Val Villanueva and Norman Marigza.

Meeting started at around 2:30pm with ALP Secretary Christopher Louie Lu discussion on the latest on our Solar System.  He touched on each planet as well as dwarf planets extensively that includes its composition and , number of moons, etc. This was followed by ALP VP Jett Aguilar who discussed the highlights of the recently concluded April 4, 2015 Total Lunar Eclipse. He presented the various images taken by members of ALP as well as touch on the hotly debated issue if the April 4th eclipse was really Total of Partial.  Although the mere issue of the debate is about the magnitude percentage of the eclipse if it was indeed 1.008% or 0.999 but most of the members with good proof to conclude that it is indeed a total lunar eclipse.  The slight brightening in the northern limb was mostly caused by atmospheric refraction and that the Moon did indeed entered the Earth's shadow completely.  Also tackled was the mistake PAGASA announced in the newspapers as quoted by the media that there will only be a partial lunar eclipse that will be visible in the Philippines while the entire Asia will see a total lunar eclipse.  This is also a reminder for ALPers to also monitor any astro related event announcement in the newspapers and news of they are correct or not.

President James Kevin Ty then invited members and guests to join the Global SunDay free public solar viewing which will be staged at SM By The Bay (SMBY) at 4:00pm.  Also mentioned is  the upcoming April 25 Global Star Party to be held also at SMBY in partnership with Exploreum.  The meeting ended at around 3:45 pm.

ALPers attended their first monthly meeting held at Exploreum.	ALP Secretary Christopher Louie Lu discussed on the latest updates and summary of our Solar System.
ALP VP Jett Aguilar discussing on whether the April 4, 2015 Lunar Eclipse is Total or Partial one.	ALP President James Kevin Ty invited members and guests to the Global SunDay free public solar viewing at SMBY after the meeting.