January 31, 2018 Total Lunar Eclipse

2018 will have 2 lunar eclipses visible in the Philippines. The first one which will occur on January 31, 2018 will be visible in the Philippines as well as most of Asia and the Pacific. Eclipse will start at around 6:50pm PST (Philippine Standard Time) when the Moon will enter the Earth's light shadow (penumbra). Partial eclipse will begin at around 7:48pm and enters totality at around 8:51pm. Maximum totality will occur at around 9:30pm when the Moon is roughly about 51 degrees above the eastern horizon. During totality, the eclipsed Moon will not be very dark as it crossed halfway south of Earth's dark shadow (Umbra) thus will show a light orange Moon at maximum totality. Totality lasts a generous 77 minutes, while the whole partial phase lasts about 3.5 hours more or less. Totality then ends at around 10:08pm an partial phases will continue till around 11:12pm before the Moon totally exits the Earth's light shadow by 12:10am the next day signalling the end of the eclipse. The next lunar eclipse will happen on July 28, 2018. For those who wants to observe or image the eclipse, best location to select is to have a clear eastern view as the event will entirely be in the eastern area.

Solar Imaging Session - January 7, 2018

The sky this afternoon s clear but seeing condition is fair. Not much solar activity past few months already and today's huge faint eruptive prominence in the SE limb gives some hope for some bigger solar activity hopefully this year but I think the prediction will still be a so so solar activity this year.

Lunar Imaging Session - January 2, 2018 (Super Perigee Moon)

The sky this early morning is clear and seeing condition is good. KC and I went to our roof deck to try to image the biggest Super Perigee Moon for the year 2018 using Canon EOS 500D DSLR with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L lens set at 400mm f/11 with 1/250sec exposure at ISO 100 on sturdy tripod.