In 1988, with a few friends of mine, organized the University of San Carlos Astronomical Society. I also went to Davao City to view my first total solar eclipse on March 18 of this year. That year was also the year of the Mars Opposition.
On Jan 15, 1990, I received my first telescope! It's a Meade 2080LX5 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope.
In 1995, I sold my LX5 and acquired my Losmandy GM8 and my Celestron C8 along with an SBIG ST7 CCD camera. On 1996, I ordered from Peter Ceravolo his wonderful HD145 Maksutov Newtonian. On 1997, I placed my name of the now famous Astrophysics waiting list for an AP130 EDF refractor and got it the following year! Also on April 1997, I ordered an AP900QMD mount and got it 1 month later!!
I got married on 1998 to my wife Vicky! I slowed down a bit after that but not for long. I placed my name on the AP900GTO list on 2001. The following year, I got an email from Astrophysics that I can order the mount with a December 2002 deliver. I sold my QMD on August 2002. But my mount was delayed! I did not get my mount till June 2003! But it is worth it! This mount is FANTASTIC!
On 2003, I have been doing planetary imaging using my Toucam Pro Webcam. While deep sky imaging is done with either film or my SBIG ST7E CCD camera. On February 2004, I took the pludge and bought a Coronado Solarmax 60 to observe the rare Venus Transit of 2004.
Lately, I have bought a new planetary camera. This is the DMK21BF04. I have also upgraded to a Celestron C11 which is mounted on my AP900GTO mount.
On February 24, 2006, I made the biggest discovery of my life! I discovered that the white spot Oval BA of Jupiter has turned RED! The Oval BA is now called Red Spot Jr or Red Jr. I have also a member of the team headed by Dr Imke de Pater and Dr Phil Marcus that used the Hubble Space Telescope to image Red Jr on April 2006, March and May! I have also set up a site to coordinate amateur planetary imagers to coordinate with the Hubble team.
On July 2006, our team use the W.M. Keck Observatory, currently the largest telescope in the world to image the conjunction of the Oval BA and the Great Red Spot (GRS). I also processed the Jupiter image of the Gemini Observatory.
On September 2006, I was accepted as a member of the American Astronomical Society and it's Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS). On Oct 2006, I attended the DPS2006 meeting at Pasadena, California. I had a poster presentation during this meeting on the Evolution of Oval BA from 2004-2006. On October 2007, I attended the 39th DPS meeting at Orlando, Florida.
You can contact me at chris@cstoneind.com.
My AP130 is mounted on a Losmandy GM8 German Equatorial mount. Attached on the top is my 60mm Astrophysics Guidescope. This photo was taken at Tops which gives a breathtaking view of Cebu City.
My Celestron C11 mounted on my AP900GTO mount.
My son, Steven playing with the new mount
My new AP900GTO has arrived! This is a GOTO computerized mount from Astrophysics Inc. Mounted on top of the AP900 mount is my AP130 EDF APO refractor. The center picture is a picture of me with my C11. A low latitude adapter was installed to polar align my mount here in Cebu City.