Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Last Friday was a good day. I met for lunch an old ex-colleague, Bob, at the university. The last I saw him was at the Central Bank during the launch and book-signing of a book I co-wrote with four other very good writers. I asked if he could attend the book launching and he did come, bought a book and asked me to sign it (of course, before that he joked and came over with a tissue paper asking me to sign it!). I was so happy, proud, and certainly grateful as he was a very big influence (and challenge) in all my work.

It was important that my partner got to meet him too, as I have been telling my partner about Bob for some time now. In fact, I told him that Bob looked very much like his own ex-colleague at the school in Holland where he taught for 10 years. Well, my partner’s ex-colleage is a woman but that didn’t prevent her looking like Bob (and vice-versa! ).

It was a very good lunch meeting, although the food wasn’t very good, the place and the discussion was very good. We talked on and on for nearly over 4 hours, I think … until Bob had to get back to work. I could see that he was probably quite shocked at how old my partner was. I can imagine, as he was much like a father to me when I was still teaching at university, that my having a relationship with a much much older man would shock or worry him. Before parting, Bob asked if I was happy. I shocked myself by saying “yes!” with no hesitation… I added, “so much much happier than last year.”

Indeed, last year and much of the year previous to that were horrendous and difficult. I truly hope that my partner and I have gone past all that …

I hope to see Bob again soon, perhaps when he has his exhibition of new works in September. Although I might already be based in Mindanao with my partner …

After the long lunch meeting, I aske my partner to have a walk and visit the PAGASA Observatory. It was in the campus and needed only a bit of a walk. It was a very hot summer but having lots of trees and not too many cars and jeepneys in the campus kept the air from being too polluted. So it was hot but not unpleasant.

We reached the place, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) Observatory. It was a small single-story building with a rooftop for stargazing. Right-side was a dome housing a telescope installed through a Japanese grant in 2001. Left-side was a small building housing the Rubidium/Global Positioning System Common View (Rb/GPSCV) Time Transfer System bought from Australia (for some 4 million pesos) in 2004.

Behind the building were resting places for roosters, hens and a few chicks. There was also a tree surrounded by small wire sculptures (horses, Eiffel tower, human figure) some of them already half-grown with plants to make into topiaries. The place looked completely deserted. Suddenly someone emerged from the Rb/GPSCV office. His name was Mario.

We got started by asking what the 8-shaped series of dots were on a board and what it meant. It was a tracing of the position of the sun over a 1-year period taken every four days. Mario showed us the original place where they took the trace, at the parking lot in front of the PAGASA Observatory building.

My partner especially had a very animated discussion with Mario. I was also very fascinated with the cesium and the rubidium as timing equipment. In that small office was a rubidium atomic clock and Mario was charged with looking after it. We joked if he knew what exactly went on inside the computer, and imagined him pulling out the over and the atom falling out.

The Rb/GPSCV consisted of the rubidium atomic clock, a computer, software (developed by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), a time interval counter, a GPS receiver and distribution amplifiers. The computer calculates the time difference between the rubidium clock and every GPS satellite within the field of view of the antenna (Mario said that there were 4 such satellites, each having its own rubidium clock). These processed data is transformed as a text file in the standard format, specified by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIMP) for international comparison of clock.

Then the GPS data files are downloaded daily from the PAGASA by ITDI (Industrial Technology Development Institute) staff via a telephone/modem link. ITDI staff use these data files and a corresponding data file from a similar system at ITDI to calculate the time difference between ITDI’s primary cesium clock and the PAGASA’s rubidium clock, thru the GPS Common View technique. The result of this is that PAGASA will have a local timing reference from the rubidium clock whose difference with respect to ITDI’s timing reference is maintained within a known limit as agreed between PAGASA and ITDI.

Mario explained that the computer is also especially capable of serving as a stratum 1 Network Time Protocol (NTP) server, providing Internet time dissemination (NTP is a means of synchronizing computer clock over the Internet). With this system, the Philippine Standard Time (PST) kept by the Rb standard, will be available on-line in the PAGASA website, and the NTP program will allow transfer of this time to clients accessing the site.

So Mario is also the keeped of the Philippine Standard Time.

I asked if there were any astronomers in the country. It appears that the last of them, Oscar delas Alas, is about to retire in July. Also, there is no such thing as the position of “astronomer” or “astrophysicist” in PAGASA. I was shocked.

Earlier, Bob told us about a 9-year old kid who loved looking at stars. Bob described this kid has having great intelligence and curiosity that could not be satisfied by people around him; the kid just didn’t have anybody to talk to or share his interest in “looking at the stars.” The kid asked Bob about a star and Bob told him it was venus. It astonished the kid and so each day the kid was there to get a glimpse of the planet.

What will happen to kids like these, I thought after the visit to PAGASA? How can the Philippines not have astronomy when the interest, curiousity, fascination with the stars and with the concept of time be so crucial to our most basic survival? Didn’t we have an ancient tradition of astronomy? Didn’t the stars mean much especially for us as seafaring people, and as economies and societies based on agriculture?

Later, I read about the Observatorio Meteorologico de Manila (OMM, started by Father Federico Faura, later called the Manila Observatory by the Americans in 1901) and learned that as early as 1865 there started through the OMM in the Philippines a serious scientific study on weather, and on time service in 1885, seismology in 1887, and astronomy in 1889. According to the history of the Observatory (from http://www.observatory.ph/ written by Bamm Gabriana):

“For the next 50 years it would pursue numerous studies, win many awards, and even get featured in a 1940 National Geographic article on world-famous observatories!The 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia described the MO as a leading research organization with some of the region’s finest scientific instruments:

The observatory, besides a rich equipment of the latest meteorological instruments and seismographs, possesses a 19-inch refracting telescope, by far the largest in the Orient. The staff of the observatory includes five Jesuit fathers and twenty-five well-trained native assistants.

The 19-inch refracting telescope and dome was built in 1897, and after Fr. Faura, there was Fr. Miguel Selga, the “first professional astronomer to work in the Philippines, Father Selga studied the speed, color and rotation of variable stars, gave the first precise latitude and longitude of Manila, studied lunar and solar eclipses, and improved the time service.” And there was German-American astronomer Reverend Francis J. Heyden (also from Georgetown University Observatory as was Fr. Selga, and the Georgetown University Observatory was later renamed Heyden Observatory in his honor), who was orignally intended to be assigned as chief astronomer in Manila after his doctorate in Georgetown University but couldn’t come back to the Philippines because of the Japanese-American War. During the War, the observatory and the19-inch telescope were completely destroyed!

Fr. Heyden did, however, come back to the Philippines after he retired from Georgetown University in 1972:

Father Heyden initiated the construction of the 12-inch Heliostat, which included a spectroheliograph, and constructed a 10-inch Solar Telescope, so mounted so that it could not look at any object except the sun! He used these instruments to study sunspots, H-alpha flares, and 1-angstrom band center Calcium images.During this time, a Solar Radio Telescope was also constructed. Father Victor Badillo also of the MO was assigned to the Solar Radio Telescope while Father Heyden worked on the Heliostat. Father Badillo was later reassigned to the Ionosphere Studies Division and the solar radio program was terminated.

At this point, Father Heyden had become recognized as the only professional astronomer in the Philippines, but somehow being an amateur never left him. He would bring out his 3.5-inch Questar telescope and show celestial objects to guests at the MO during stargazing sessions. He would also publish the yearly Planetary Chart and compute the Philippine ephemeris for celestial objects. His penchant for astronomical computations he passed on to his student Elmor Escosia who is now with PAGASA.

After Fr. Heyden’s death in 1991, astronomy no longer became a priority in the country nor the observatory. The observatory and PAGASA, although continuing to serve local amateur astronomers, are mostly involved now with popularization of astronomy.

I told my partner we should go back to the PAGASA Observatory and look through the telescope. I had been there with Alwin and his parents some 3 years ago to look at the rings of Saturn. The second time I went there we were lucky that Oscar was there too. So we should have a visit again before Oscar, a pioneer at PAGASA and the only professional astronomer left in the country, perhaps, retires in 3 months …

Like many Filipinos who leave the country for economic reasons, many Filipinos leave the country for intellectual reasons too. That’s what Bob’s 9-year old neighbor might need to do too if he was to realize his dream of becoming an astronomer. Unless of course, the country takes a radical turn for the better.

Some useful info:

Manila Observatory
Ateneo de Manila University Campus
Loyola Heights, Q.C. 1108 PH

Trunk Lines: +632.4265921 / 22 / 23 / 39
Fax Line: +632.4266141 and 4260837

Email: manila@observatory.ph
Website: www.observatory.ph

PAGASA
http://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/
For Philippine Standard Time:
Call tel. no. (632) 929-1237

The PAGASA Astronomical Observatory is located inside the campus of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, conducts stargazing and telescoping sessions to interested astronomy enthusiasts, upon request.

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