June 21, 2020 Partial Solar Eclipse

I was initially planning to travel to Chiayi, Taiwan to document the June 21, 2020 Annular Solar Eclipse but unfortunately, due to Covid19 pandemic situation, international travel is very restricted due to very strict quarantine procedures :( So I together with my son KC setup at our roofdeck in Manila, Philippines to document the partial solar eclipse which will start at 3:01pm PST with maximum eclipse of 68% at 4:22PM PST and ends at 5:31PM PST. I set up my Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera on TV-101 refractor on Vixen GPDX mount while my son use Canon EOS 500D DSLR on Celestron C90 Maksutov-Cassegrain on Nexstar SLT Mount. Eclipse started partly cloudy at around 3:00pm but we were able to play hide and seek with the clouds till 4:10pm PST before we got clouded out and made a final tease for us to make our final image of the eclipse at 4:43pm PST, after more than 20 minutes past maximum eclipse at 4:22pm PST. After that, the clouds shut us down totally till 5:32pm before we end the session and packup. We were also able to see a iridescence colorful cloud formation while we were clouded out at maximum eclipse as a consolation.

Solar Imaging Session - June 7, 2020

The sky this afternoon is not good and seeing is also bad. I try to image the new AR2765 Sunspot Group in Ha wavelength but encounter bad seeing that virtually is smearing the image although one can still see some bright flaring activity in the smaller pores of this group. I was also able to image the Sun in full disk whitelight but unfortunately got clouded out trying to image the group at high resolution :(

June 6, 2020 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

Last June 6th, I went up our roof deck at around 1:00am to observe and document the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse that is visible in our country. I setup my Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera on Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L lens set at 400mm f/11 and mounted on Vixen GP-DX mount. First contact occurred at around 01:45am and reaching maximum penumbral phase of 57% at around 03:25am. The southern limb of the Moon near the Tycho crater shows a lightly shaded area. I continue to image the eclipse till around 04:45am before clouds covered up the Moon which by that time is less than 5 deg above the western horizon. I pack up at around 5:00am.

Lunar Imaging Session - May 4, 2020

The sky this evening is clear but the Waxing Gibbous Moon is a bit bright that washed out any attempt to image some deep sky objects so I just this opportunity to image the Moon instead using Borg 76ED refractor with Orion 0.8x reducer and ASI 294MC Pro camera mounted on Vixen GPDX mount.

Deep Sky Imaging Session - April 24 / 25, 2020

The sky this evening is clear so I started to setup early but unfortunately, my northern sky was clouded out so I can't do polar alignment and it was frustrating as the other area of the sky are clear!!!  So I missed my plan capture of NGC 2174 Monkey Head Nebula in Orion as it was setting fast in the western horizon :(

I got to do polar alignment past 8:30pm already so opted to start my imaging session to  image M46 galactic star cluster in Puppis first and had also a consolation added object inside this tight cluster,  NGC 2438 planetary nebula with total exposure of 24 minutes. I then proceed to re image the Leo Triplet Galaxies in Leo which contain NGC 3628, M65 and M66 with a much longer total exposure of 60 minutes.

I then become curious and wondering how the NGC 4039 Antennae Colliding Galaxies would look like so I also spend another 1 hour 45 minutes imaging this small but beautiful pair with an add on extra spiral galaxy NGC 4027 in Corvus.

It was past midnight already that I got carried away from a planned 2hours night imaging into an overnight imaging session as the sky was very clear! I then set my eyes on M51 Whirpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici, this galaxy was extra hard for me to image because I have a very huge Northern building arc that is obstructing my view of the North thus imagine I had to moved my entire rig from my original setup area on our roof deck to the westenmost area for me to image this object!  But I'm still happy with the output I got from a short total exposure of 45 minutes because I got obstructed again by our roof deck perimeter fence this time!

I then ended my session with the pair of M16 Eagle Nebula and M17 Swan or Omega Nebula in Serpens with a total exposure of 30 minutes and 20 minutes respectively before I catched up dawn!  I hope to give more exposure time for these 2 pairs again in the future.

I also asked myself why should  I be complaining as I'm imaging in the light polluted city sky and not in dark skies of Caliraya. Tanay or Nasugbu! :) LOL  I used again my Borg 76ED refractor with my Vixen GPDX mount with ASI294 MC Pro for this session.

Deep Sky Imaging Session - April 22, 2020

I waited till past midnight before going up our roofdeck to image NGC 6357 Lobster Nebula and NGC 6334 Cat's Paw Nebula in Scorpius using Borg 767ED refractor and Vixen GPDX mount with ASI294 MC Pro. A total exposure of 60 minutes and 45 minutes were made to both objects respectively.

Deep Sky Imaging Session - April 21, 2020

After doing an errand to buy some grocery for our home use, i got back home for a very late dinner and saw the sky once again tempting me to image again so after getting some rest, i went up again to our roof deck past midnight and was able to image NGC5139 Omega Centauri globular star cluster in Centaurus which is again positioned very low in the sky less than 30deg SW. I got to expose for around 39 minutes total exposure before I got obstructed :( Afterwards, I try to image M4 , another globular star cluster in Scorpius with a short 24 minutes total exposure only as I had to deal with meridian flip. The last but not the least, one of my favorite deep sky objects, the pair of M8 Lagoon and M20 Triffid Nebula in Sagittarius to wrap up my imaging session with only a total exposure of 24 minutes as dawn catches up with me. I use my old Borg 76ED refractor in tandem with Vixen GPDX mount and ASI294 MC Pro.