Monthly Meetings

Last February 22nd, Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP) celebrated National Astronomy Week 2022 with its 1st Astronomy Webinar. Several speakers were lined up for the event to celebrate the event and are as follows:

Ethnoastronomy : Everyman’s Astronomy For Early Filipinos by Dr. Jesus Rodrigo F. Torres

New Jupiter: Latest Juno Findings by Christopher Y. Go

Astronomy In The Time Of The Pandemic by Dr. Jose Francisco A. Aguilar

From The Earth, To The Stars, and Back: Our Personal Journey by Imelda B. Joson and Edwin L. Aguirre

Mobile Phone Astrophotography by Peter Benedict O. Tubalinal

The event started at 8:00pm PST with Host Andrew Ian Chan welcoming everyone to the Astro Webinar. The singing of the Philippine National Anthem and Prayer invocation followed. Afterwards, he also touched on the rules of the webinar as well as invite the attendees to participate in the QnA portion after the end of each talk.

ALP President James Kevin Ty then proceeded to present a short welcome remark and state the reason for making ALP’s 1st Astro Webinar in lieu of the normal free telescope viewing that are regular made in parks and malls. But since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic starting last March 2020, ALP as well as other astronomy societies a d club are forced to do virtual stargazing a d as well zoom webinars in place of physical telescope viewing. He also shared his view on when was the 1st real National Astronomy Week started which was spearheaded by Edwin L. Aguirre and Imelda B. Joson way back in 1990 and President Corazon C Aquino proclaim it with Proclamation 544 declaring April 16 to 22, 1990 as National Astronomy Week. The annual event has to be proclaim every year and it was only until 1993 that Francisco Lao, Jr, then president of Philippine Astronomical Society, that he spearheaded it once again to make the National Astronomy Week as a yearly  event and held on every 2nd week of February and this was officially proclaimed by President Fidel V. Ramos through Proclamation 130. So overall, National Astronomy Week will be celebrating its 31st year (1991 was not celebrated) and 29th if starting from President Ramos proclamation in 1993.

This was followed by a short 8 minute video showing ALP NAW yearly celebration since 2003.

Afterwards, Dr. Jesus Rodrigo F. Torres gave a very interesting lecture on Philippine Ethnoastronomy. He also was able to share his official English translation with Dr. Dela Cruz of Dante Ambrosio’s book, Balatik. He discussed in layman’s term how our ancient ancestor fascination of the stars as well as create their own constellations and asterisms and use the stars also for navigation.

Afterwards, QnA was open for attendees to ask the speaker and then Dr. Jesus Rodrigo F. Torres was awarded a virtual certificate of appreciation for his interesting talk.

Then ALPer Christopher Go presented the next lecture entitled New Jupiter: Latest Juno Findings. He discussed the latest Jupiter data taken by the Juno spacecraft as well as latest updates on the giant gas planet Jupiter.

After his talk, QnA was open for attendees to ask the speaker and then Christopher Go was awarded a virtual certificate of appreciation for his interesting talk.

This was followed by another interesting talk by ALP VP Jose Francisco “Jett” Aguilar entitled Astronomy In The Time Of The Pandemic.  Jett touched on how the current Covid 19 pandemic which started in March 2020 had affected our way of life as well as astronomy in the Philippines. Astronomy was mostly affected as hands on astronomy to promote the hobby like doing public telescope viewing as well as actual astronomy talks and meetings were forbidden to lessen the spread of the virus. It was also  at this time that zoom meetings and webinars became the norm for all amateur astronomers not only here but also  the rest of the world, in promoting a safe alternative to promote it. With the public restrictions, amateur astronomers had to do astronomical observational and imaging  at their own house or backyard on their own to satisfy their astro urges.

After his talk, QnA was open for attendees to ask the speaker and then Dr Jose Francisco Aguilar was awarded a virtual certificate of appreciation for his interesting talk.

Then a 10 minutes break follows with ALP sharing ALPers astro imagers in action with their beautiful astrophotos.

Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre was next to share their experience entitled From The Earth, To The Stars, and Back: Our Personal Journey by Imelda B. Joson and Edwin L. Aguirre.

Imelda started her journey discussing our star, the Sun and slowly touching on each of the 8 planets as well as comets, asteroids, dwarf planets and further going out of the solar system towards the discovered exoplanets the nebula, stra clusters, galaxies and then head back again to our mother planet Earth where she shares also her love and protection our mother planets particularly birds, eagles, butterflies and so forth.

After his talk, QnA was open for attendees to ask the speaker and then Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre were  awarded a virtual certificate of appreciation for their interesting talk.

Last but not the least, Peter Benedict Tubalinal share to the attendees his expert knowledge on how to use a smartphone to doing astrophotography entitled Mobile Phone Astrophotography. He shares how he was able to use his smartphone with his telescopes and binoculars to image the Moon, Sun and bright deep sky objects.

QnA was open for attendees to ask the speaker and Peter Benedict Tubalinal was awarded a virtual certificate of appreciation for their interesting talk.

ALP host and Emcee Andrew Ian Chan then made the closing remark by thanking all the attendees both in Zoom as well as FB live. The event ended with a group shot of the speakers together with ALP event organizers. Congratulations for a very successful astro webinar event in celebration of National Astronomy Week 2022!

Join us for the First-Ever ALP NAW Webinar as we celebrate National Astronomy Week 2022!

Theme: Looking Up in the Time of Pandemic
When: February 26, 2022 (Saturday) at 8:00PM (GMT+8).

We are fortunate to have five esteemed speakers who will be talking about some very interesting and highly relevant topics:

▪️Ethnoastronomy: Everyman’s Astronomy for Early Filipinos
– Dr. Jesus Rodrigo F. Torres

▪️New Jupiter: latest Juno Findings
– Christopher Y. Go

▪️Astronomy in the Time of the Pandemic
– Dr. Jose A. Aguilar

▪️From the Earth, to the Stars, and Back: Our Personal Journey
– Imelda B. Joson & Edwin L. Aguirre

▪️Mobile Phone Astrophotography
– Peter Benedict O. Tubalinal

Congratulations to ALP Vice-president and Life Member Dr. Jett Aguilar for having his very own asteroid named after him for his dedication in providing neurosurgical services to Filipino children for more than 20 years as well as for his contribution as  an mateur astronomer in the Philippines. He joins other 3 ALP members who also have asteroid named after them for their excellence and great contribution in the field of astronomy in the Philippines namely:

6282 Edwelda (1995) – Edwin Aguirre and Imelda Joson

4866 Badillo (2005) – Fr. Victor Badillo, SJ

30100 Christophergo (2015) – Christopher Go

Asteroid 7431 Jettaguilar revolves around the Sun in between the planets Mars and Jupiter at an average distance of about 463 million kilometers and takes it about 5.4 years to complete one orbit. It is currently about 643 million kilometers from Earth, shining very dimly at magnitude +19.5 in the constellation Sagittarius.

Asteroid 7431 Jettaguilar was reportedly discovered on March 19, 1993 by the European Southern Observatory in Chile and was initially given the designation 1993 FN41.

The naming of the asteroid was proposed to the IAU to recognize Aguilar’s contributions to the medical field and Philippine astronomy. The IAU’s 15-member Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) is the sole scientific organization with the authority and responsibility of assigning names to small solar system bodies such as asteroids, comets and the satellites of minor planets,

International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially named the 8-kilometer-wide asteroid, which is also considered a minor planet, “7431 Jettaguilar” in honor of Dr. Jose Francisco “Jett” Aguilar, a neurosurgeon at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, Philippine General Hospital, and Cardinal Santos Medical Center. He is also currently the Vice President of the Astronomical League of the Philippines, Inc. (ALP)

Aguilar has been providing neurosurgical services to Filipino children for more than 20 years and is known in the medical field for successfully removing a parasitic twin from a three-week-old infant in 2019.

He is also the clinical director of the Philippine Movement Disorder Surgery Center, which pioneered ‘Deep Brain Stimulation’ surgery for Filipino patients afflicted with a rare genetic movement disorder called  X-Linked Dystonia Parkinsonism.

Jett is also an avid astrophotographer for  almost 18 years, and his photos of the Sun, the transit of Venus, lunar eclipses and other celestial events have been published in Spaceweather.com and Sky and Telescope magazine as well as many astro publications.

Jett is  also an avid solar eclipse chaser, and he has traveled overseas with members of the ALP to observe and photograph total and annular solar eclipses in China, Indonesia, the U.S., and Singapore.

The naming of the asteroid was proposed to the IAU to recognize Aguilar’s contributions to the medical field and Philippine astronomy, the agency disclosed.

The IAU’s 15-member Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) is the sole scientific organization with the authority and responsibility of assigning names to small solar system bodies such as asteroids, comets and the satellites of minor planets.

 

Dr. Jesus Rodrigo F. Torres, an ALP 2017 Father Victor L. Badillo, SJ Astronomy Service awardee, together with Dr. Ruby-Ann dela Cruz , were able to successfully after 4 years to finish the translation of another fellow 2013 ALP Father Victor L. Badillo, SJ Astronomy Service awardee Sr. Dante . Ambrosio ‘s Balatik, an Etno-Astronomy Book. The translation project began in March 2017 when Dr. Torres  attended a lecture-seminar of the History and Heritage Working Group of the Southeast Asian Astronomy Network held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

As a student-participant,  he knew almost nothing about the topics which were all about Archaeastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Professor Wayne Orchiston talked to him during one breakfast if he could translate the book Balatik by Professor Dante Ambrosio because he said “we want to read it too!”

Wayne had a copy with him.  Jesus looked at the pages, read a few paragraphs, and he  knew the work will be difficult. Nevertheless, he said he would do the translation, and when he returned to the Philippines,  he worked on it right away.

But administrative work in two big State Universities gave him little time for the translation. The work of Professor Ambrosio, however, began to grow on him and he looked forward to the time in the evenings when he could lose myself to the world of Filipino beliefs and knowledge about the heavens and the phenomena in the sky.  He got so lost in the work that he did not notice the months and years passing. Right in the beginning, he sought the assistance of Dr. Ruby-Ann Dela Cruz whose research in the technical indigenous terms which had became so indispensable that it would be just fair if she was included as a co-translator to his project.

Professor Mayank Vahia of India, and Professor Duane Hamacher of New Zealand informed him also that it would be best if Balatik can be read by interested astronomers in the world.

Dr. Torres knew that he had a noble task of translating the work of Professor Ambrosio, an important aspect of Filipino culture as well which the work expounds, known to the world. Thus after 4 years, the project was finally done and is now ready for publication.

 

We are deeply saddened about the passing of the first curator of the National Planetarium, and a member of ALP, Mr. Maximo P. Sacro Jr.

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