Six HAL members attended last night’s moonlight impromptu star party at Alpha Ridge Park.  The weather was fine, seeing and transparency were about average and the skies were clear except for a thin haze of high clouds.

Federico and a companion were imaging with an equatorially-mounted Seestar S30, but they left before I made my rounds to see how people were doing, so I don’t know how that went.

Alex had some software issues with his Seestar S50 and couldn’t accomplish any imaging, but he was able to view the Ring Nebula (M57) and Venus with his 10″ Dobsonian.

Welcome to new HAL members Forrest and Liam (father & son) who attended their first impromptu!  They were working with a Celestron NexStar 8 SE.  They got it aligned and under computer control and observed Bode’s Galaxy (M81) and the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51).  They also tried some imaging with a planetary camera, but that was a somewhat frustrating experience.

I observed 6 double stars in Ursa Major, Coma Berenices and Lupus with my 80mm Orion Eon refractor, followed by the open clusters IC 4756 in Serpens Cauda and NGC 6633 in Ophiuchus and the Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula.  I imaged the Eastern Veil Nebula through a dual-band SII/OIII filter with my Vaonis Vespera II EAA scope.

I locked all doors, verified that everything was nominal in HALO, locked the park gate and departed at 1:20 AM.

Ernie Morse