Astronomy and Me
 The celestial scorpion and me |
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I am Vincent Lao, an electronics and communications engineer by degree, a software engineer at work, a stargazer(aka amateur astronomer) at night, and a part time biologist (I torture invertibrates) and chemist (I can cook an egg). Hehehe! Seriously I don't do any work related to chemistry or biology but I love general science in general. I am not an expert in astronomy and the sky. I have never seen half the amount of astronomical objects that my instrument is capable of revealing. But I'm willing to learn more... but not to the point where astronomy becomes another work for me. I want to separate hobby and work, if the two merges, then I'll probably stop doing it. Childhood experience
My interest in astronomy started when I was about 9 or 10 years old, although I never became truly involved in any observing sessions until later.
When I was a kid, I used to live in a small town with relatively dark sky. Power failures are pretty common in our place.
When power failure occurs, I used to sit beside our capiz shell window and stare at the sky to avoid the heat of our LPG based emergency lantern (we call them "petromax").
I remember being able to see lots of stars and a few shooting stars crossing the dark sky. I didn't understand astronomy that much then.
Although my father is a man of science and loves to teach us about everything science related, he is more familiar with biology than physics and astronomy.
When he reads about an upcoming eclipse in the news, he usually alerts us of the event and tries to let us observe it.
My lack of understanding of the subject is probably the main reason why astronomy never became a passion.
But even when I was a kid, science was already my favorite subject.  My first astronomy sketch probably looks something like this. Hale-Bopp experience
In 1997, together with my dad and his friends, we hiked up Mt. Isarog and stayed near the summit for the night.
All of us were tired due to the 6 hours long uphill climb on foot. But the view up there was excellent.
During the night, we were greeted by comet Hale-Bopp(visible to the naked eye during those times).
We didn't really intend to do stargazing, but the beautiful sight really made us do so.
The experience made me want to do stargazing over and over again. But the interest faded after a while.  This is a shot the following morning after seeing the comet while on Mt. Isarog. Enter 2004City life is tiring. After every working day, I need to go home and relax. I got bored of the routine and decided to do something fun. First I got hooked in video games (I was already a gamer while in college). But after playing roughly 2-3 hours a day after work, my eyes became a bit overworked. To relax my eyes, I would look at a part of the sky free from sodium vapor lamps. Then one December night, I saw 3 bright stars outside my window. At first I didn't know what the 3 stars were. After consulting my software planetarium and Google, I found out that these are the famous Orion's belt. After I read about Orion and learning the basics in astronomy, I decided to buy myself a binocular. It did not take me long to buy one. I just came across a 16x50 in one camera store inside a mall and immediately bought it, thinking that a 16x is better than the usual 10x or 7x recommended. It wasn't really a good choice, a 10x50 would have been better. A year later, I got a cheap 3" reflector with terrible EP. Though bad it may be, I was able to see some lunar details, Jupiter, and Saturn with it. Joining an astronomy club in 2008A few years after getting an interest in astronomy, I started to become a bit more serious. With a decent digital camera, binocs, a tripod, and a cheap department store telescope. Then I read from several web sites about astronomer's advice to join a local astronomy club. I was not sure what I'm supposed to do if I join a club, so at first I didn't bother becoming a member. I contacted the club president, regarding information not on joining, but on where to buy a telescope. Then last February 2008, I saw the club's web site regarding astrophotography seminar in SM Mall of Asia. At that time, I have already read about astronomy and astrophotography basics and doing a few astrophotography myself. I decided to attend anyway maybe just to learn a few neat tricks from the "pros". I didn't learn a lot because the lecture was designed to give people the basics which I am a bit familiar already with my own research. What I learned is that there are many people interested in astronomy just like me. What I lack now is more practice and dedication. I showed the lecturer my photos after the lecture, he said "not bad". Maybe it's just a nice way to say "it sucks" :D or he means it. He did ask me to join the club that day. But I didn't immediately join though. The following week however, he told me via SMS that they will be having a monthly meeting at the Manila Planetarium and asked me to join (What a persistent guy!). I traded messages with him. Eventually I decided to join. After joining the club, I have become very active particularly in doing personal observation and imaging. My early attempt at imaging is with a camera on a tripod setup. The setup is good for imaging constellations, star fields and nothing else. Soon I acquired a decent 4.5" Orion Starblast on a not-so-good EQ-1 mount. It enables to me capture deep sky objects and planets with my digital camera. 2 years later, I got a 102mm Mak that I now use for planetary imaging and an ST-80 refractor as a portable telescope for bird watching and wide field astronomy. After getting some good images with my rather lousy mounting system, I was hooked. I recent heard some people claiming that astrophotos are fake because they look edited. The truth is, they are basically unaware that ALL astrophotos are enhanced digitally even NASA shots. Even raw image from camera sensors are enhanced by the camera processors before the final output. Editing can create a fake photo, but it only applies to images whose details have been added by hand - details that do not exist in the first place. Enhancing images to reveal details is, in my opinion, perfectly valid. I learned to love the planets in particular Jupiter. I also like the moon and the bright open clusters because they can be observed even within the light-polluted metro. I also made a few friends in the astronomy club giving rise to our small group which we call the "astrobirders". But I do hope that the astronomy club will do more stargazing activities in the future... No affiliationSoon I find the local club not working as I have expected compared to other astro clubs that I've read. Politics inside also prevents me from enjoying the hobby at all. So I decided to quit joining a club and become an independent stargazer instead. Good riddance! My FavoritesFavorite Stars:
Favorite double:
Favorite Open Clusters:
Favorite Globular clusters:
Favorite constellations:
Favorite nebula:
Favorite galaxy:
Favorite asterisms:
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