Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 9/13/2025
I’m happy to report that HAL’s September public star party last night was very successful! We had at least a dozen scopes set up and hundreds of visitors. The clouds held off until 11:00 PM so we had beautiful clear skies for the entire event. I personally showed visitors the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023), the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635), the Swan Nebula (Messier 17), the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31), Saturn, the Veil Nebula (NGC 6960), the Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101), the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16), the Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 27), the Ring Nebula (Messier 57) and the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (Messier 13). I was too busy showing the sky to visitors to be able to walk around and see what everyone else was doing but I suspect it was a lot of the same targets. As the clouds were coming in we ended the event at 11:00 PM and I locked up the park at 11:30 PM.
Past HAL Public Meeting: September 11, 2025 – Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS)
Presenter: Medhi Benna, PhD
Planetary Scientist, NASA
Lunar Environment Monitoring Station for Artemis 3 (LEMS-A3) – Principal Investigator
Artifacts: Meeting PDF YouTube Video of Meeting
Mehdi Benna, PhD
The meeting will took place on September 11, 2025 at 7 PM on Zoom and at the Robinson Nature Center.
Featured Speaker: Mehdi Benna, Planetary Scientist with NASA at GSFC will be talking about the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS), one of the first three payloads to be a part of Artemis III that will send astronauts to explore the region near the lunar South Pole. Artemis III, currently planned to launch in 2026, will be the first time humans will return to the Moon’s surface since the historic Apollo program in 1969-1972. The Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) is a compact, autonomous seismometer suite designed to carry out continuous, long-term monitoring of the seismic environment, namely ground motion from moonquakes to meteorite impacts in the lunar south polar region. The instrument will characterize the regional structure of the Moon’s crust and mantle, which will add valuable information to lunar formation and evolution models.
SeeStar Very Small Array Update: Matthew Peters will join us to give a status update on the targets for this month and how to get involved with using your SeeStar (or other EAA scope) to help create some amazing collaborative results.
Star Party Report: Rich & Millie Russin will share their recent experience attending this year’s Grand Canyon Star Party.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Benna is a planetary scientist with a research emphasis in plasma physics and planetary magnetospheres dynamics.
Dr. Benna’s main research interest is the numerical modeling of planetary magnetospheres and exospheres. Besides his scientific work, he uses his engineering experience to lead and support the development of several space-borne instruments (ROSETTA-CONSERT, CONTOUR-NGIMS, MSL-SAM, LADEE-NMS, MAVEN-NGIMS, CLPS-SEAL, GDC-MoSAIC, and Artemis III/LEMS). Dr. Benna has authored or coauthored more than 100 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, and more than 200 communications or invited presentations in international conferences related to the field of planetary science. His publications include articles on MHD modeling of planetary magnetospheres, comets and icy moons of the solar system, radiotomography techniques, and ill-posed inverse problems.
Dr. Benna received his degree in Electrical Engineering from the Engineering School of Tunis (ENIT) in 1999. After obtaining a M.Sc. in Radio-wave Telecommunication from the University of Tunis in 2000, he received in 2002 a Ph.D. in Space Science from the University of Toulouse in France. From 2002 to 2003, Dr. Benna was an associate scientist at the Planetary and Terrestrial Geophysics Laboratory (CNRS) in France, and from 2003 to 2006, he was an NRC postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 8/31/2025
Ten HAL members showed up for a very pleasant evening of observing and imaging at Alpha Ridge Park on the night of August 30th. The first-quarter moon was out until a little after 11:00. The temperature started out in the low 70s and dipped to the high 50s by 1:00 AM. Seeing and transparency seemed to be above average.
David and Dave were both imaging the North America Nebula in Cygnus with Seestar S50s in equatorial mode. Todd imaged the Western Veil Nebula with his Redcat 91mm refractor, while Mike D. imaged a 9-tile mosaic of the entire Cygnus Loop with his 122 mm refractor.
Mike P. imaged the Baby Nebula with his 8″ reflector. I’m not familiar with this object, and a Google search didn’t help. There is something called the Baby Eagle nebula, but that’s in Taurus and wasn’t visible. I might have misheard his target. He later imaged the more well-known Iris Nebula in Cepheus. Shrikant imaged the full-grown Eagle Nebula in Serpens with his 72mm Astro Tech refractor. Richard imaged some small nebulae near M8, the Lagoon Nebula, with his 130mm refractor.
Lee and Marian got in some visual observations with their Celestron Nexstar 6 SE, but the scope lost its alignment at some point. Rich was also having some issues with getting a good alignment with his Stellarvue 70 mm refractor.
I observed 7 double stars in Hercules and one in Corona Borealis with my 8″ Celestron Starsense Explorer Dob while waiting for the moon to set. I then observed globular clusters M13 and M92 in Hercules and planetary nebulae NGC 6572 in Ophiuchus and M27 in Vulpecula. I was pleased to share the view of M13 with Marian and double star Delta Herculis with Rich when they stopped by at different points in the night. I added two hours of data to an ongoing mosaic of the Heart and Fish Head nebulae in Cassiopeia with my Vespera II.
I started packing up around midnight and everyone else left over the next half hour. I locked up HALO and the park gate and left at 1:00.
Ernie Morse
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 8/23/2025
At least 17 HAL members enjoyed a wonderful night under the stars at the HAL members start party at Alpha Ridge Park on the night of August 23/24. Skies were clear all night, with comfortable temperatures in the low 70s and a 5-10 mph breeze.
Several people were making visual observations. New member Colin was scanning the skies with his arm-mounted 10 x 70 binoculars. Phil was using a 5-inch refractor and an image intensifier and also did some imaging with the same scope. He showed me an impressive view of the Eagle Nebula (M16) with the scope + intensifier. and wowed people with nebula views through the intensifier just on its own, without a telescope. I used my trusty 8″ Dob to view M6 (Butterfly Cluster), M11 (Wild Duck Cluster), Caldwell 22 (Blue Snowball Nebula) and several double stars. Jeff observed the globular cluster M10 with his gargantuan 16″ Dob. Lee and Marian worked with their Nexstar 6 SE but had some difficulty getting it aligned.
EAA scopes were also deployed. Gary was imaging the Crescent Nebula with his Celestron Origin. Rich was imaging the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) with his Seestar S50 in equatorial mode for the first time. Dave was also imaging M101 and the Wizard Nebula with an S50. There was one other person imaging M31 with an S50, but I have to apologize for not getting his name. I imaged M27 (Dumbbell Nebula) and the Heart Nebula (NGC 896 and IC 1805) with my Vespera II.
Another group of people were collecting data with traditional imaging setups. Richard was imaging the Swan Nebula (M17). Jose was working on the Wizard Nebula with his 8″ Apertura Carbonstar Newtonian. Mike started out with the Lagoon Nebula (M8) and then was going to try for the most obscure target of the night, HIP 99377, a nebula in Cygnus. Mike and Brian were imaging the Veil Nebula with a Svbony 122m refractor.
I started packing up around 11:30, but a few people wanted to stay later, so I transferred keyholder responsibility over to Jose and left at 12:30.
Ernie Morse
August Object of The Month, “Cygnus Wall region of NGC 7000”
James Vaughan
This image was captured over two partly-cloudy nights in August, 2025 and submitted as an Object of the Month entry to the HAL Discord Group. Capture Details:
5h 23m
SII – 36m (6x360s)
Ha – 2h 4m (31x240s)
OIII – 1h 16m (12x360s,1x240s)
UV/IR – 47m (47x60s)
Camera – ASI533 MC Pro
Scope – William Optics Z61 with flattener for f5.9 @ 360mm
Mount – EQM35
Guiding – Askar OAG with ToupTek IMX290 mono planetary camera
Filters – Svbony 5nm S,H,O, & UV/IR
Acquisition – N.I.N.A.
Stacking and Processing – Pixinsight, GraXpert
I was initially not pleased with the results, and didn’t even show it to anyone. But when I saw it was the OOTM I decided to try (for the first time) deconvolution. I need to work on using it more skillfully, but I learned that with enough TLC after the fact can bring a lot out of sub-par data. I was pretty pleased with it in the end, I just needed the push that came from the social aspect added by HAL, so thank you!
Past HAL Public Meeting: August 21, 2025 – NASA Balloon Program Operations
Presenter: Andrew Hamilton
Deputy Chief, NASA Balloon Program Office
Artifacts: Meeting PDF YouTube Video of Meeting
The meeting took place on August 21, 2025 at 7 PM on Zoom and at the Robinson Nature Center .
Andrew Hamilton is currently serving as the Deputy Chief for the NASA Balloon Program having previously served as the Acting Chief of the program. Mr. Hamilton started his career with NASA at Johnson Space Center serving as an Astronaut Instructor for the Space Shuttle program as well as a Space Shuttle Flight Controller. Transferring to Wallops Flight Facility in 2012, he served as a Range Safety Officer before joining the balloon program in 2021.
Mr. Hamilton will discuss the mission, platforms, and operations involved with stratospheric scientific balloons.
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.