Cosmic Kid: Gabo’s fascination with the cosmos

For a seven-year-old kid who has yet to take science classes at school, Gabriele 'Gabo' Talub was sure to stand out in a crowd of astronomy enthusiasts. And stand out he did. Barely three feet tall, Gabo was one of the youngest in the pack of viewers who trooped on Friday to the Astronomical Observatory at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, to witness the longest solar eclipse in the country since 1992. [See: Bakunawa eats the sun behind a curtain of clouds]

His grandmother Revelinda could hardly keep up with the restless Gabo, who kept on pacing the grounds of the Observatory with an optical filter in his hand, unable to bear the excitement of his third attempt to finally witness an eclipse. All the way from Bulacan Gabo came all the way from Meycauayan in Bulacan province with his grandmother, mother, aunt and his one-year-old sister, straight from his morning class as a second-grader at St. Mary's College. This is his third try to finally witness an eclipse, after failing to see the last two eclipses during the previous year. “'Yung first time, na-cover ng clouds. 'Yung second time, ok sana kasi may window sa classroom namin, pero nasa library kami (The first time, the eclipse was covered by clouds. The second time, there was a window in our classroom so it was great, but we were made to go to the library)," Gabo said with a pout. His third attempt almost went to naught too, until he rallied his mother to persuade his father and allow them to travel to Manila. His Lola Revelinda says Gabo exhibited fascination for the cosmic only last year. Previous to that, his favorite subject were dinosaurs. “Alam niya ang pangalan ng bawat isa, saka may laruan siya para sa bawat isa (He knows the name of each dinosaur, and he has a toy for each)," she said. Not yet a science student The Talub family was already at the Observatory before 2 p.m., even as the eclipse was to start only at 3:49 p.m. The precocious Gabo could barely contain his excitement, so much that he had to ask his aunt to tell him what time it was, almost on a minute-by-minute basis. To kill time, Gabo went to a corner of the Observatory's corridors, armed with a pen and paper, and told everyone, “No peeking!" After a few minutes, he approached his grandmother to show her a carefully drawn sketch of the solar and lunar eclipse, complete with labels although he misspelled the word 'eclipse,' sans the letter S. “This is the solar eclipse. 'Yung sun, nasa likod ng moon. This is the lunar eclipse, yung moon naman nasa likod ng sun (This is the solar eclipse. The sun is behind the moon. This is the lunar eclipse, now it's the moon that's behind the sun)," he explained to his Lola Revelinda with the utter confidence of a science teacher. “Hindi ito orange ha. Moon ito (This is not an orange, alright? This is the moon)," he added, as if to make doubly sure that his grandmother understood exactly what he meant. When asked if he learned all that in class, Gabo quickly replied, “Wala pa kaming science. Sa grade 3 pa (We don't have science yet. That’s for the third grade)." 'I saw it!' When the eclipse started, Gabo let out a yelp. He ran to the Observatory's rooftop, his grandmother in tow, and lined up for a view through the telescope, even as he never removed the filter from his eyes. Two minutes after, Gabo screamed, “Nakita ko na! (I saw it!)," although most other viewers around him probably could not yet see the very slight dent of the moon on the bright circular disk of the sun. At 4 p.m., when clouds started to move and block the view of the eclipse, Gabo could only say, “Nakakainis naman 'yung clouds (I hate the clouds)." “I'm not leaving until I see the eclipse," he added with resolve and sat by a stone bench as he waited for the skies to clear once more. For the rest of the two-hour event, Gabo ran from one telescope to another. A specialist had to assist him as he tried to stand atop a chair to reach the eyepiece of the telescopes, which are way taller than him. “Lumalaki na 'yung moon," he would report every time he peered into the telescopes. At a certain point, when there seemed no letup in the passing of clouds that blocked the sun's view, Gabo appeared to lose interest, and played with the garden plants. He asked his aunt to buy him a big cone of ice cream in the meantime. By then, the reporters started taking notice of him and gathered around him. “Which do you like better, the ice cream or the eclipse?" one reporter asked. Gabo, without hesitation, quipped, “Both. I'm going to watch the eclipse while eating ice cream." He then swung his free arm to place the filter before his eyes in yet another attempt to see the ever-elusive eclipse. Gabo was clearly fascinated with the cosmos. But for the seven-year-old, watching the eclipse roll into view while eating ice cream on a balmy Friday afternoon clearly spelled double the fun.– JV, GMANews.TV