February 25, 2018 ALP NAW Closing Free Public Observation Report
by James Kevin Ty
Images by James Kevin Ty

Last February 25th, Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP) celebrated National Astronomy Week closing day by hosting another free public telescope viewing session at SM By The Bay at SM Mall of Asia , Pasay City. Members who were present are ALP President James Kevin Ty ,  Treasurer Andrew Ian Chan , Secretary Justine Garcia , Auditor Edgar Ang  , PRO Edge Lat , Directors Ronald Sison, Peter Benedict Tubalinal  and Shubhashish Banerjee ; Adi Bontuyan , Mike Enage and Mark Ian Singson.

They  started at around 3:30pm by setting solar telescopes at the fountain area at SM By The Bay Central Park. James brought along his Kenko 60mm f/9 refractor with Daystar Quark Chromosphere Ha Filter on Nexstar mount ; Andrew with his Skywatcher 80ED refractor with Baader Solar Filter on Vixen GP mount ; Ronald with his Celestron C90 Maksutov-Cassegrain with Thousand Oaks Solar Filter on sturdy tripod .The sky was partly cloudy but they were able to let the people get a safe look at the Sun but unfortunately, the Sun has no visible sunspots as well as no solar activity in Ha wavelength.

At around 5:30pm, The Waxing Gibbous Moon is visible already as it comes out from the clouds so majority of the scopes ere pointed at the Moon as well as the Sun simultaneously. James brought along  his Kenko 60mm f/9 refractor on Nexstar mount ; Andrew with his Skywatcher 80ED refractor  on Vixen GP mount ; Ronald with his Celestron C90 Maksutov-Cassegrain on sturdy tripod ; Mike with his 114mm f/8 Newtonian reflector on sturdy tripod , Edge with his Meade 90mm GOTO refractor scope , Shubhashish with his Celestron Powerseeker 70mm AZ refractor on altazimuth mount.

They setup till 9:00pm with more than 1500 people got to observe the Sun, Moon , Sirius , Orion Nebula and Pleiades star cluster.  At 9:15pm, they packed up their telescopes to wrap up the National Astronomy Week celebration with a bang!

Group Shot

Wacky Group Shot