It was an unexpectedly wonderful night for the September HAL Members Star Party last night! The discouraging weather forecasts were completely wrong and we enjoyed clear skies for the duration of the event. Transparency was about the best that it gets at Alpha Ridge Park (SQM-L reading of 19.38 @ 1:00 AM) and the seeing was good too. The temperature was pleasant, it was too cool for mosquitoes and winds were calm. Dew was really the only downside.
There was a nice turnout of around a dozen HAL members. I counted 10, but a couple of people left before I counted. Welcome to new members Aaron, Sachin and Robert, who were all attending their first HAL star party!
David was trying out his new Seestar S50 Pro and was very happy with it. He imaged the Bubble Nebula (Discord group object of the month) with M52 and later the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). He joked that he was to blame for the expected cloudiness as a result of bringing a new telescope, but the few clouds that were present at sunset quickly vanished, so the new Seestar is good luck so far!
José also had a new telescope, an Askar 106mm refractor, and he was also imaging the Bubble Nebula.
HAL intern Maddie was making some visual observations with a Celestron NexStar SE 8 SCT. She performed a successful 3-star alignment and observed globular cluster M13 in Hercules, the Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia (NGC 457) and Saturn. Unfortunately, dew collected on the SCT corrector plate and nobody had a hair dryer or a heater strap that would fit an 8-inch, so she had to cut her observing short.
Sachin attended to check out the telescopes and the observations and imaging that were being performed. He just got a Seestar S50, but it wasn’t quite ready for use yet.
Robert was experimenting with computer control of a new mount.
Aaron was making some visual observations with a Celestron 9.25-inch SCT with a motorized focuser operated from buttons on the hand controller. He was looking at Saturn when I checked in and he let me take a look and operate the focuser. It was an outstanding view!
I observed double stars in Corona Borealis, Hercules and Draco with my 80mm Orion Eon refractor, and also some open clusters (NGC 457, the Double Cluster and the Muscleman Cluster (Stock 2)). I was commanding the Sky-Watcher go-to mount with Stellarium on my iPad, with my Android phone running Synscan Pro acting as a bridge. That worked pretty well, although it ran the iPad’s battery down by 60% in about 3.5 hours of use. I also continued imaging the Wizard Nebula with my Vespera II, using an SII/OIII filter this time. This didn’t go well at first, but I had much better results after I removed the cap from the dew shield.
José helped me close up HALO and the restroom building. We locked the park gate and departed around 1:15 AM.
Ernie