(SOLD TO OUR NEIGHBOR’S KASAMBAHAY For P3,500. Everyone’s happy with the deal.)

Brand New 21″ Fukuda Semi-Flat TV for sale!
Originally advertised this at P5,000
NOW selling for only P4,000
after we checked prices in the malls.

I won it in a raffle last week. Got too many television sets at home, and is unnecessary to keep this one. My husband opened the opened the box and tested the set. Guaranteed new and works, though we did not bother to configure for cable TV.

The box describes the TV set as:

21″ Semi-flat TV
FT21ASNF9-VX
English OSD
Blue background
Tuner Hyper Band
Full Function Remote
181 present channels
Channels pre-engaging
ON/OFF Timer function
Multi-system PAL/NTSC
Calendar & Sleep functiom
Multi-selection Picture Mode
Auto / Manual Search & Memory

Gross weight: 22kg.

It looks like it would fit a corner snugly.

Price in the malls is P4,800 to P5,500.
Price: P4,000
For pick-up only please, in BLP Condominium, at back of SM North EDSA.

Voting’s done. Four days have gone by.  Comelec simply has to complete compilation of all the votes for each candidate. So what’s next?

I am waiting for all these gentlemen and gentlewomen who have persistently tried to woo our votes in the last 3 months to prove their leadership quality.

The first thing they can easily do is to instruct all their followers to start cleaning up our streets of the posters, streamers and other debris they collectively imposed on us.

We are glad that MMDA, Comelec and military personnel have taken the initiative to do the work, even though they estimate that the work will take no less than 2 weeks to complete.

Fact is, the y don’t have to do the job. But those who littered the streets should b responsible.

So, calling on the national and local candidates whose faces we still have to confront in our community of Barangay Bagong Pag-asa in Quezon City: Mike Defensor, Fermin Bitudio Bilaos, Herbert Bautista and Joy Belmonte.

The scene above was taken at the corner of Road 3 and Road 2 near the Our Lady of Hope Parish Church and the exit road of SM North EDSA into Brgy. Bagong Pagasa.

But when one plies the barangay’s main road, Road 8. one is confronted with the giant banderitas with the names and faces of Abe Abesamis criss-crossing the road, and more of the other candidates’ campaign materials.

What we noticed though is that the posters of Vivian Tan who ran for Councilor in District 1 have all been stripped clean off the posters, road barriers and walls that we had taken pictures of during the campaign period. Thank you for being a responsible leader Ms. Tan.

May 10, 2010 is obviously a most memorable day for some 25,000,000 Filipino voters, because for the first time, computerized balloting was conducted all over the country.

Since the night before, I was floating on air with excitement, looking forward to directly participating in the electoral process again.  I had missed out on the last two elections which coincided with my trips abroad. But I had re-registered in October 2010, and became quite active promoting responsible candidacy.

Horror stories:

• re the OFFICIAL BALLOT

In Room #15, where out polling precincts were clustered with one PCOS machine, the lighting was dim, and een when seated near the window, the daylight was diffused by the tall perimeter wall of the school, thus I had difficulty

• reading the maximum number of  candidates to be elected
• the boundaries of the oblongs beside each candidate was too light

• long lines under the heat of the sun. Fortunately,  the line leading to the  door of our precinct cluster had been formed in the shade of the covered courts extension room and extended to the covered walk. Yet, we missed the refreshing wind, and had continued to sweat.

• candidates for local positions, that is, for councilor of District 1 in Quezon City, set up tents right along and in front of the entrance to the polling center. One had a sign “Voter Assistance”, but did not even mind us when we approached. We eventually realized that they were talking only to their sure supporters, or those who were willing to sell their votes. They were also handing out sample ballots where the oblongs for their candidates were blacked out.

• yes, we did hear lots of stories in our voting center of offers to “not to vote” anymore in exchange for P500 or P1000. I guess this was to lessen the votes for their competitors.

In spite of minor horror stories, many voters have found the new election process basically positive replete with stories of good deeds and heartening sites at polling centers.

• Voters were unusually patient and cool in spite of the long lines.  Their justification is the fact that many more voters have turned out with interest for the new computerized form of voting.
• Enterprising citizens set up food and drink stalls in front of their homes along and near the entrance to the polling center/ school. We were able to purchase reasonably priced foodstuffs that helped fill our gnawing tummies over the lunch hour while keepingour place in the long queues.
• Two vendors somehow were able to sell their wares to the delight of the tired and hot voters. Who’d be able to resist cold water and maybe some nice cheesy ice cream.

During the past weeks, I couldn’t help but be engrossed with astronomy and the stars and the far reaches of the universe. Diliman Preparatory School’s mobile digital planetarium had been released by customs of several weeks. Now local astronomers were busy studying the capabilities of the accompanying software and hardware, which made the planetarium the first and only fully interactive planetarium in the Philippines.

After attending my fifth viewing this morning, I still learned many more bits of information about our night sky, and astronomy as a field.

For instance, a Filipino amateur astronomer, Christopher Go from Cebu, discovered the  second of Jupiter’s red spots in early 2006. Other astronomers worldwide confirmed the discovery, actually the change of the spot’s color from white to red, and was eventually dubbed Red Spot Jr., or Red Jr. The history and developments on Jupiter’s Red Spot Jr. are recorded on http://redspotjr.christone.net/.

Some days ago, I had searched the net for the Digitalis website, and excitedly downloaded a sample astronomy simulation software Nightshade, and had fun experimenting with images of the sky on my PC. Coupled with the free sample astronomy curriculum, one can easily get engrossed in self study about outer space. Stellarium is another planetarium program, in Open Source, that can also be used on regular computers for astronomy classes.

Of course, these are too far behind the technology of the Digitalis software that  powers the interactive presentations at Diliman Prep’s mobile interactive planetarium.

The local astronomers said enough about how they were not only getting used to the many varied features of the Digitalis program, but will soon be inputting the localized images that will enable more Filipinos to relate and understand astronomy.

We found out this morning that while many of us are more familiar with the formation and names of constellations based on the Roman gods, various cultures had looked at the same skies for millenia, and had interpreted and formed their own images from the heavenly bodies based on their day to day life. We were showed simpler formations in the shape of a house, or standing person, or a box among the cultures of Indonesia, China, Polynesia or the American Indians.

We also learned how constellations can be recognized as asterisms or as illustrations, and that these can vary greatly from culture to culture, as they recognized shapes among the heavenly bodies from their day-to-day lives.

Filipino folk lore had referred to Orion’s belt of three stars as Tatlong Maria — Mariang Mambabalut, Mariang Magmamane, and Mariang Magtuturon (or whatever). The astronomers hinted that they will be inputting more localized interest topics into the presentations to include perhaps the local astronomers and imagers who have discovered several of the heavenly bodies, and have been cooperating with the international community to leap and bound farther into the deepest recesses of the universe.

We also learned how constellations can be recognized as asterisms or as illlustrations, and had downloaded to my laptop,

I can’t wait till my next opportunity to view yet another presented in the mobile digital planetarium, for I’m sure that even with my own revitalized interest and research  on the universe, I will still acquire a few more its of information about the nature of our universe.

I am sure that my interest in astronomy now is not a coincidence. And beyond the willingness to ride the waves through this most interesting phase of my life, I have awakened a keen desire to remember knowledge that I know we all already possess. For we are star people, ever connected to the universe that we continue to understand with our limited minds. Deep inside though we know that every bit of new information brings us closer to a better understanding of ourselves.

In my whole life, I remember visiting a planetarium only three times, twice at the Pag-asa Planetarium on Agham Road in Quezon City as part of school field trips, and once at the Griffith Observatory and Museum in Los Angeles. These planetariums were huge simulations of the night sky, brightened by an illuminating bulb to simulate day time.

At the Pag-asa Planetarium, the positions of planets,  stars, galaxies  and nebulae were fixed, but all rotated together as the holed projector cover they were projected through was moved.

At the Griffith Observatory which I visited with two of my siblings and their families in 2008, we watched a 20-minute film documentary — about the history of the universe, a simulated trip to the Sun, the Moon, and Mars, and highlights of space adventure –  that had left us feeling awed and a little more knowledgeable than before. The space museum that supported the planetarium was breath-taking, which was partially interactive.  We particularly loved the weighing scales calibrated to show how we would weigh on the moon, and on other planets.

Today, however, my daughter and I experienced a preview (three in fact) of the vast infinitely deep outer space  at a 7-meter-diameter Mobile Interactive Planetarium set up at the gym of the Diliman Preparatory School along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City.

Our view from Earth

Real live astronomers Bamm Gabriana and Rochelle Derilo asked us to note the local time on a digital clock near the horizon, toured us through tonight’s night sky,  the rising sun tomorrow, traveling up across the sky and down again towards the western horizon and sunset. They explained that the earth’s atmosphere causes the day and night illumination of the sky as the light from the sun is reflected through it.

I can only assume how this happens but I should have asked the astronomers after the preview — Why and how does the atmosphere create the day and night on planet earth? Does this happen on all planets? So many whys and hows? All the while I thought it was as simple as the earth facing the sun half of the time.

At one point, Bamm advanced the sky view to May 5, 2010.  Some of us shrieked in delight as we caught meteors streaking through the night sky. He explained that on May 5 and 6, the Eta Aquarids will peak and be radiant in the constellation Aquarius,  best viewed in the east after midnight.

Closing in at warp speed

Two planets can be seen from Metro Manila tonight — Saturn and Mars. We closed in on Mars and noted its polar cap composed of  frozen carbon dioxide. We flew in to Saturn at warp-speed and checked its thousand rings of debris and empty space,  and 7 of its 56 satellites.

Back on earth again, with a click on the remote control pointed upward, Bamm revealed the imaginary line connections that form and give the constellations their names.  We viewed the night sky with superimposed views of the constellations and their boundaries.

Turns out that on a totally dark night, the naked eye can see some 6000 satellites, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae (3,000 or so from each hemisphere), as opposed to the claim that one can see a million stars. But beyond some of these luminous specks in the sky are galaxies and nebulae that contain millions of galaxies with billions of stars.

With another flick of a button, we see the artistic rendition of the constellations and their imaginary boundaries. More ohhs and ahhs.

AstroLOGers, not astroNOMers, would refer to aspects of our birth charts based on the position of the sun, moon and planets within these constellations at the time of our birth. AstroNOMer Bamm noted that reading palms does not make one an astroNOMer.

Orion Constellation

We closed in on the constellation Orion, the hunter of Greek mythology.  At his shoulder is the bright North Star. We recognize Orion’s Belt of three stars — Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.  Local folk lore refers to these stars as Tatlong Maria.

Below Orion’s Belt is a vertical group of bright objects forming the Sword of Orion. One of these objects is the Orion Nebula some 1,450 light years away, where so many new stars are being born. Again we flew in closer to the nebula and were aghast at the thought of millions of stars staring back at us.

Hubble’s Deep Field

Finally, Bamm zeroed in on an area of space that scientists call the Hubble Deep Field, a tiny area which the Hubble Telescope focused on for a long time, and came up with images of galaxies and stars far beyond our vision.

January 15, 1996: One peek into a small part of the sky, one giant leap back in time. The Hubble telescope has provided mankind’s deepest, most detailed visible view of the universe.

Representing a narrow “keyhole” view stretching to the visible horizon of the universe, the Hubble Deep Field image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime 75 feet away. Though the field is a very small sample of the heavens, it is considered representative of the typical distribution of galaxies in space, because the universe, statistically, looks largely the same in all directions. Gazing into this small field, Hubble uncovered a bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of evolution.”

(Sourced from Hubblesite)

Watch a video about the Hubble Deep Field

I couldn’t resist asking: If  the most sophisticated man-made telescope was able to record how far reaches of the universe looked like billions of years go, do we have an idea of how big the universe is?

Astronomer Bamm Gabriana casually replied: “We can only speculate, but not actually say the actual size of the universe. We use the only fixed measurement that we have right now — the speed of light at, 299,000 per second — and are able to compute the approximate distance of many of the farthest objects we see. Beyond that, we can only assume.

Piqued my imagination again

The 20-minute re-introduction to astronomy inside the Diliman Prep School Mobile Interactive Planetarium pique my interest in astronomy again. It inspired me to record this most memorable experience here on my 365 Stories blog, with some online research on the bits of facts I learned, and photos of space (in place of the blurry ones that I tried to take with my smartphone) to link my story to.

“Astronomy is the starting point  for most youngsters to get interested in Math, Physics, Chemistry, the earth sciences and the environment,” says  Bernard Llaguno, a professor at the Philippine Science High School who heard about the mobile planetarium’s  launch and wanted to see how his students can experience it too.

Outside the planetarium in the Diliman Prep gym, almost a hundred other people waited their turn to enter the planetarium. But they did not have to wait too long as time went by more rapidly with the fantastic collection of NASA space photographs taken through the Hubble telescope and several space missions, and a hands-on meteorite exhibition.

Many posed for photos with Diliman Prep president, former Senator Nikki Coseteng, or some of the astronomers, with one of two state-of-the-art telescopes (purchased by the school in January this year, in time for the annular solar eclipse on January 15 2010. I believe I wrote a blog item on this not too long ago.)

The planetarium will be on tour to various schools nationwide, starting July this year, so that more Filipinos can become interested in astronomy and the various sciences.  As Nikki Coseteng explains, more creative and scientific minds can help us Filipinos meet the growing challenges of our life on this earth, including climate change.