Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/03/2025
The foul weather this evening did not deter about 60 astronomy enthusiasts who enjoyed HALO tours by Chris T and Chris M, astro coloring with Krystal, and solar system modeling with Arjun. Eight members of the new astronomy club at Miller’s Grant retirement community in Ellicott City visited and are interested in returning on a clearer night.
We packed up and locked the park gates around 9:30 under fully cloudy and drizzly skies. Better luck next month. Mark your calendars for Saturday 7 June. Phil Whitebloom and David Stein will be hosting, and Ken Everhart will be driving the Illig scope.
Joel Goodman
Etiquette and Guidelines for Public Star Parties
HAL Public Star Party Etiquette
Great fun and often great views across the universe.
HAL hosted star parties can be a lot of fun, and we encourage you to attend! Like most social gatherings there are some guidelines for acceptable behavior to help ensure everyone has a good time. Please review the material below before arriving at the star party so that you are aware of our procedures. If you have any questions, please ask the HAL Events Coordinator at events@howardastro.org.
HAL usually hosts a public star party once each month during the spring, summer and fall at Alpha Ridge Park. Everyone is welcome at a public star party, but we ask that everyone observe the following guidelines:
✔ Visitors are always welcome to look through any of the telescopes set up at a public star party!
However, you should not touch the telescope when looking through it (A good rule for small children is to have them put their hands behind their backs).
✔ Children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times. A star party is not a safe place to allow them to run around as there is a lot of delicate equipment and there can be dangling cords and other obstacles.
✔ When driving in the park after dusk, it is mandatory to use your headlights for safety! Visitors should park in the lighted parking area on the south side of the lot (away from the observatory area) and then walk over to the darkened area near the observatory where telescopes will be set up.
✔ Pets are not generally appropriate at a star party. If a pet must be brought along it should be kept leashed at all times and kept away from the observing area.
✔ No food or drink should be taken into the observing area or into the observatory. Smoking is not allowed by Howard County anywhere within Alpha Ridge Park.
✔ Dress appropriately – it can get chilly after the sun goes down and the stars come out, especially in the spring and fall.
✔ Feel free to use a flashlight as needed so that you are safe when walking about in the dark, but please keep it pointed at the ground and not at other people. A “red” flashlight is ideal for use at a star party and can be purchased online or at many stores.
✔ Public star parties run from dusk (which varies by season) until 11:00 PM.
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 4/27/2025
The weather was very nice for last night’s impromptu star party at Alpha Ridge Park. The wind was calm and temperatures were cool, welcome additions to the clear skies. The transparency was about average — mySky Quality meter reported sky brightness as low as 19.8 mag/square arcsec — and the seeing was about average at 2.5 – 3 arcsec.
Eight HAL members and guests participated in the event, doing a mix of visual observing and imaging. Rich and Millie set up a small refractor and a Celestron C6 SCT to do some prep work for this weekend’s Public Star Party. They observed several deep-sky objects but failed to see the Leo Triplet of galaxies. Alex used his 10-inch Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount to observe M3 (globular cluster in Bootes) and other object; he also failed to visually observe the Leo Triplet. He also used a Seestar S50 EAA scope to image the globular cluster M5 in Serpens. Ernie and Misty used his 8-inch Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount
to observe a variety of objects including several galaxies, clusters, and double stars. He used his Vespera EAA scope to image Markarian’s Chain in Virgo.
Luis imaged several objects with his Vespera EAA scope, including M84, a galaxy in Virgo. Jose used his 6-inch F/4 Newtonian to image the Leo Triplet, with very nice detail in the livestacking. Shrikant imaged Markarian’s chain with his AstroTech 72mm refractor. Finally, I imaged the compact group of galaxies Hickson 44 (in Leo) to add to my image from last week.
It was a very nice night of observing, and everyone enjoyed themselves. It was good to see everyone and chat with them about their observing; I hope we can all do it again soon.
Wayne
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 4/23/2025
Good evening HAL,
I hosted an impromptu Star party on Wednesday since the weather report showed we would have clear skies. I arrived at Alpha Ridge Park at 7:30 pm and 12 other members showed up.
Unfortunately the skies were a little cloudy during the first few hours but the weather was nice and most of us just wanted to be out and build our equipment.
The clouds dissipated around 9:30pm so we could enjoy some nice observations and imaging time.
I left the park by 2 am when I was too tired, but Wayne, who is also a key holder, stayed with James until 3:30pm.
I worked on 2 common targets for Galaxy season and even though I only collected around 2 hours and a half of data from each, I obtained great results.
I am leaving my final images of M51 and M81 & M82.
I also wanted to recommend to anyone who is new to pixinsight the book Pixinsight Workflows. A step by step guide to astrophotography image processing. It is available on Amazon.
It helped me understand some of the processes a little better and it was nice to have a book helping me through the process. I did both targets on my regular workflow and with the workflow in the book to compare and the results were much better with the workflow in the book. Highly recommend if you’re new to Pixinsight.
Jose Urias
April 2025 Image of The Month, “Our Sun, March 25th, 2025”
Phil Whitebloom
Past Meeting: April 17th, 2025 – STELLA (Science and Technology Education for Land / Life Assessment): A low-cost open-source remote sensing instruments for education and research
Presenter: Mike Taylor, Outreach Scientist, SSAI, NASA Goddard on the Landsat Communications and Public Engagement team
Artifacts: Meeting PDF YouTube Video of Meeting Chat Log
The meeting took place on April 17, 2025 at 7 PM on Zoom and at the Robinson Nature Center
STELLA combines inexpensive sensors with user-friendly software and 3D-printable housings to produce lightweight, handheld instruments whose components retail for approximately $200, and whose weight, depending on configuration, ranges from 33 to 450g. Some of the STELLA instruments can be built without any tools at all, by simply connecting components with inexpensive, commercially available cables. Each version of STELLA is supported with illustrated, step-by-step instructions, and programmed by drag-and-drop copying. STELLA instruments’ small size, low-cost, and ease of assembly make them ideal for scientific and educational applications where deployment across many users is important, and STELLA’s multi-platform software allows users with a wide range of scientific and technical knowledge to collect, download, and interpret data from any STELLA instrument.
Bio: Mike Taylor has been working at NASA Goddard on the Landsat Communications and Public Engagement team as a contractor with SSAI for 17 years. He holds an undergraduate and graduate degree from the University of Maryland College Park is co-lead of the Climate Change Research Initiative Education Ambassadors and board member of Clean Air Partners. For the past 3 years he has been working to help develop and inform others about the STELLA project.
Our Meetings
HAL General Meetings (Open to the Public) are held from 7:00PM to approximately 9:00 on the 3rd Thursday of every month via Zoom (until further notice).
HAL Planning Meetings (Open to all Members) to discuss future club direction, events, meeting topics, outreach, etc. are open to all members. They are usually held from 7:00 to 8:00PM on the 1st Monday of every month via Zoom (until further notice).
Star Parties
HAL’s public star parties at Alpha Ridge Park (normally held from March through October or early November) feature a relaxed, casual atmosphere where club members, other amateur astronomers from the area, and the public are all welcome to come and enjoy the wonders of the night sky.
Astroschool
Astroschool is usually held on the 2nd Thursday of most months at the Robinson Nature Center. Start and end times vary, but are approximately 6:30 to 8:30pm.