LUNAR IMAGING SESSION: OCT 23, 2012

Waxing Gibbous at 66%

Been a while.

After rehearsals for the 2012 SAVED Festival for my band Gloryfall, I was able to capture the moon with the help of my lovely wife. I love the month of October, the best weather and also my birth month..I don't remember having any rain on my birthday, ever (7th). It was always awesome.

Saved Festival 2012 is on Friday, the only thing I am after is God's presence. I don't really care about anything else, fancy setup, big venue.. most musicians dream of. Been there, done that! Played tons of big gigs like that and it is not worth it if God's presence is missed.

I always remember Pastor Steve Ruetschle's preaching. "The Audience of One". That's the only thing in my mind whenever I play. One audience. Jesus.

Venus Transit 2012

I have been waiting for months to document this rare event. I don't want to wait another 105 years for the next one. It was awesome because I got to do it with my wife. We woke up at 5am to prepare equipment and went to an overlooking place inside our village in antipolo that faces east. Weather was not really that promising but I was still able to image through my baader 5.0 filter.

10:30AM

I am still imaging, weather looks better. I shoot everytime there's a cloud opening.

11:30AM

Imaging again.

12:10

Venus' transit speeds up from the simulation. I am imaging. The sun is at zenith and I have tracking problems. But Im still able to take good shots.I am shooting every 5 mins now.

1:17PM

Thank God that i was able to document one of the greatest astronomical event of the century.

The "black drop effect" in contacts II and III was not as pronouced as Captain Cook's observations centuries ago.

EGRESS

Black Drop Effect at Contact III

Contact IV

GREATEST TRANSIT

Venus at greatest transit (~9:30AM PST) and AR11493

Party with sunspots!

INGRESS

Contact II

Contact I Cloudy but good enough!

Solar Imaging Session:

I just had to be home to capture this. Had a hard time with the close up because of turbulence (through the window shooting). Hope to get a nice close up but that requires me to go outside the house, which is kind of hard now.

Been a while since my last solar shoot.

Mars & Saturn

After more than a month of waiting for these two wonderful night sky jewels to clear the roof obstruction, I was able to do imaging again by waking up real early. At 4am, Mars was already 37deg low to the west and Saturn just  passed zenith at 63deg. There were no clouds this morning.

I could've done this at midnight but I would have to go about a 100ft from where I live. I couldn't do remote imaging because I have no batteries. 

This is my second time to image mars I think he was only ~6arcsec back then.
The North Polar cap, Chryse and Mare Erythreum is visible.

Image comparison from the Mars Previewer:

CM = 73.21
DEC = 22.33
Diameter = 13.64
Phase = 0.9958
Mag = -1.11
N top E left

My first image of Saturn. One of the most beautiful objects in the night sky

I thank the Lord for allowing me to image these two. Always make you question how can you love astronomy and not believe there's a Creator!

Lunar Imaging Session:

Have not imaged the moon since last month, there was a conjunction last night between the moon & jupiter. Great sight! I don't have a tripod with me so I was only able to take closeup. I imaged both but my Jupiter image was not good. Improper focus and Impatience with cool down times led to a bad image.

But enjoy last night's moon!