Last February 18, members of the Astronomical League of the Philippines (ALP) hosted a free telescope viewing event at SM Mall of Asia SMBY near Viking area. Members who attended were ALP President James Kevin Ty and son Kendrick Cole KC Ty; Teddy-Ty Chua and son Robert Chua; Pam Sabado, Sarah Hazel Maranan, Miguel Cano and son Quark Cano. 2 scopes were setup for the event with James’ Borg 76ED refractor mounted on Vixen GPDX mount as well as a SVBONY WIFI SC311 camera mounted on Orion MiniGuide 50 scope and Teddy-Ty’s Celestron Nexstar 127.
They setup at the site at around 4:00pm but the Sun was obstructed by the clouds so no solar observation. But at around 7:00pm, clouds started to disperse a bit for them to view the Waxing Gibbous Moon as well as the gas planet Jupiter. Around 50 people were able to get a chance to view the said objects. The SC311 WIFI camera also allows up to 4 more people to observe and image the Moon through their own cellphone to get a souvenir shot for them to take home easily. The camera also allows up to 5 people to simultaneously view the Moon at the same time! They ended the event at around 9:00pm. It was a good start as ALP hasn’t been able to do their usual FTV for a while after the Covid epidemic that hit all of us back in 2020.
Hope to see all of you again this coming Saturday, February 24 from 3:30pm to 9:00pm at Central Park near fountain and ferris wheel area.
