Howard Astronomical League

Seven HAL members enjoyed a mix of visual observing and astrophotography on an unseasonably warm night at Alpha Ridge Park.  There was quite a diverse collection of telescopes in use.  Seeing was about average, but transparency seemed poor.  Unfortunately, I started packing up before I thought to take an SQM-L reading and didn’t realize it until after I had already turned the park lights back on.  My personal naked-eye limiting magnitude was worse than 4th magnitude, as I was unable to see Iota Virginis (mag 4.1).  However, that was at an altitude of around 45 degrees in the southern sky, which is heavily light polluted at Alpha Ridge.  Temperature was in the mid 80s to high 70s with very little wind.  Dew didn’t start accumulating until after 11:00.  Mosquitos were present but stealthy.  I didn’t realize that I was incurring bites on the backs of my hands until they started itching, and then I applied some DEET.  Better late than never!

The big news is that Sundar’s Starsense Explorer app is now working!  He reinstalled it and got a new code from Celestron support, and that resolved the issues it was having.  He was thrilled that it’s finally performing well and he enjoyed observing globular clusters M3, M5 and M92 and the fine double star Algieba with his 130mm Newtonian.

Jose continued imaging M101 (Pinwheel Galaxy) with his Carbonstar 150mm reflector and got a lot of good data on it.

Ian was imaging Markarian’s Chain of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster with a Seestar S50.  He also noticed that the transparency wasn’t great, but he was still happy with the results.

Mike was working with a new ZWO 130mm refractor and had a lot of fun imaging M101.  He said that he’s enjoying using this telescope much more than his two previous ones.

Todd started out imaging the galaxy M94 with a Celestron 9.25″ EdgeHD SCT, but switched over to M101.  He showed me stacked images on his tablet at the end of the night and they looked fantastic.  It was a good night for imaging the Pinwheel!

Rich was making visual observations with a TeleVue 60mm refractor and an 8″ Mag One Portaball truss tube Newtonian, which is an interesting and unique scope that I had never seen or heard of before.  He was pleased to have located the globular cluster M13 with just a finder scope and also viewed the moon and double stars Castor and Mizar.

I observed 4 double stars in the northwestern sky (STF 1083, 41 Aurigae, beta Cam and 11,12 Cam) with my Orion Eon 80mm refractor and also the asterism Grohusko-1 in Virgo.  I was trying out a new Svbony dew heater strap on the Orion, and it seemed to work fine (although dew was not much of an issue).  I set up my 8″ Celestron Starsense Explorer Dob later in the evening and viewed M5.  I tried to image M97 (Owl Nebula) with my Vespera and an OIII/SII filter, but it wasn’t able to track the target with the filter in place.  I switched to imaging globulars M53 and NGC 5053, which are only 1 degree apart in the sky and are apparently close together in physical space as well.  I started packing up at midnight with hopes of leaving by 12:30, but I underestimated how long it would take to break down and stow 3 telescopes!  I probably won’t try to use all 3 at once again, but I had something that I wanted to try out on eac

h of them (it was a Starsense Explorer app update for the Dob).  I wonder how many telescopes I could actually fit into my Elantra?  There is really only one way to find out.

After packing up my totally awesome array of telescopes, I locked up HALO, verified all other doors were locked, left the park and locked the gate behind me at 12:50 AM.

Ernie Morse

It was a great night for observing at Alpha Ridge Park on Saturday night.  Skies were clear and transparency was above average (SQM-L reading of 19.25 mpas).  Seeing was about average.  The temperature was down to the mid 50s by midnight with no wind to speak of.  There was some moderate dew accumulation, but it didn’t seem to be much of an issue.

Mike & Dan were both imaging the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) with 80mm and 122mm Svbony refractors.

Welcome to new HAL member Roger, who was making visual observations with a 125mm Borg refractor.

Joey was working on troubleshooting an imaging setup with an 80mm Explore Scientific refractor.  He got it working and imaged M101 for 30 minutes.

Welcome to Evan, who was also attending his first impromptu.  He observed the Leo Triplet and some globular clusters with an 8″ Dobsonian while also imaging the galaxy M82 with a Seestar.

Brandon and his son were making some visual observations with a 72mm refractor.

There were a few non-members who didn’t know about the impomptu but had intended to stay at the park after dark.  One family just wanted to stargaze without equipment while a couple wanted to set up a telescope for the first time.  I let them know that it was a members-only event and that the park would typically be closed at dusk and gave them information about joining HAL.  The family stayed until just a little after 9:00.  The couple’s telescope turned out to be nonfunctional, so they also left early.  Thanks to Brandon and the other HAL member(s) who gave them some guidance and advice.

It was a frustrating observational night for me.  I had intended to view some brighter galaxies with my 8″ Dob, but only M81 and M82 were really worth the effort, despite the good transparency.  I attempted to find the asterism Grohusko-1 in Virgo mentioned in the June issue of Sky & Telescope, but couldn’t locate it with my 8×50 finder.  I made a finder chart for it with Cartes du Ciel today and I’ll use that next time.  I also found the brightest star in the asterism in the Celestron Starsense Explorer app database, so I could just resort to technology and find it with the app, but I like to go old school from time to time.  I did get a nice image of the asterism with my Vespera II, but that scope then disappointed me by failing to track the Owl Nebula (M97) with a 3rd-party OIII/SII filter.  I salvaged the evening with some nice views of globular cluster M53 and a handful of double stars.

I verified that all park doors were locked, turned on the lights, locked up HALO, locked the gates and departed at 12:15 AM.

Ernie Morse

Two HAL members attended an impromptu star party at Alpha Ridge Park on the night of May 4th.  The sky clouded over intermittently, but the clouds were moving through quickly and the sky was reasonably clear most of the evening.  Temperature was very pleasant (low 60s) and it was only moderately breezy.  Seeing was poor, but transparency seemed at least average.  I didn’t get a sky quality reading, as it was cloudy when I was done observing.

Sundar brought his Celestron 130mm Starsense Explorer Newtonian and we worked together on troubleshooting issues with the push-to app on his phone.  We weren’t very successful, but I remembered that logging can be enabled and the logs can then be sent to Celestron support, so Sundar is going to try that next time.

I made visual observations with my 80mm Orion refractor and 8″ Celestron Starsense Explorer Dobsonian.  I observed the Kemble’s Cascade asterism in the 3-degree field of the Orion and switched to the Dob for the open cluster NGC 1502 (Golden Harp Cluster) that the cascade appears to flow into.  I observed M97, the Owl Nebula, with the Dob and an OIII filter for a good while and almost convinced myself that I could see the eyes from time to time.  A barred owl with a good sense of timing started hooting during those observations.  I tried to see the globular cluster M68 as it was transiting in the southern sky, but I couldn’t make out any trace of it in the sky glow.  I observed double stars Algieba and epsilon Lyrae with the Orion.  I checked in on Jupiter with the Dob around 10:30 and noticed that one of the moons was very close to the planet’s limb.  I made a note to check again later to see if it was moving towards or away from it, but didn’t get back to it until an hour later.  The moon was behind Jupiter by that point.  I checked Sky & Telescope when I got home and found that it was Ganymede and that it moved behind the planet at 11:06 PM.

I finished observing around 11:45 and began packing up the telescopes.  I turned on the park lights around midnight, verified that all doors on the restroom building were locked, locked up HALO and departed at 12:20 AM, locking the park gate behind me.

Ernie Morse

We had a nice night this past Thursday.

There were only 4 members at the star party but the sky was pretty clear and we all took advantage of the bright moon to either troubleshoot things in our telescopes or do some lunar observations.

I closed the park by 11:40 pm.

Jose Urias

Sky conditions were not great for last night’s impromptu star party, with a persistent layer of thin clouds and bright moonlight.  It was a nice night for double star observing and troubleshooting equipment, though.

Ian stopped by to pick up the camera that he won in the HAL auction a few months ago.  He stayed for a while to keep me company while I was setting up and we had a nice conversation about remote astrophotography and general visual observing.

Richard was working on controlling an Orion EQ-26 mount via an ASIAIR controller, with a 4.5-inch Orion Starblast Newtonain reflector as the payload.  Unfortunately,  it didn’t go very well and he left around 10:00.  His previous attempt was partially successful, so hopefully this was just a temporary setback.

I was working with my Orion Eon 80mm ED refractor and was very pleased with the result of the firmware update that I performed on the Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount over the weekend.  I did a 3-star alignment with Capella, Procyon and Spica and then pointed to the double star Cor Caroli as my first target.  Go-to performance and tracking were both great.  I hibernated the pointing model and parked the scope in home position when I went out to put the chain around the gate, and it still worked well when I returned.  I was able to split Izar at 112X (10mm EP with 2X Powermate) and was able to achieve a well-focused image at 153X (18.2mm EP with 5X Powermate).  I also observed doubles Castor and Porrima and saw the two stages of the Atlas rocket launched from Florida moving northward between my telescopic observations.

It started to get windy and cloudier around 10:45, so I started packing up.  I locked up HALO and verified that all of the other doors were locked.  I found the door for the utility room with the switches for the parking lot lights and bollards unlocked, so I locked it.  I locked up the park gate and departed at 11:20 PM.

Ernie