Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 7/23/2026
There was a great turnout of HAL members for last night’s impromptu star party. Thirteen of us gathered to enjoy the pleasant weather and above-average sky conditions. A diverse collection of telescopes with apertures ranging from 24mm to 350mm were deployed for both imaging and visual observing. Bianca imaged the Eagle Nebula (M16) with the […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 7/13/2026
It was another nearly-perfect night of observing at Alpha Ridge Park Monday night. There were no clouds visible at sunset, although there was some high-altitude wildfire smoke that put some structure into the sky. The temperature was actually a little cool, dipping into the low 60s by 2:30am, with no dew and calm winds. Transparency […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 6/24/2026
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 […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 6/15/2026
It was a nearly-perfect night of observing at Alpha Ridge Park Monday night. The clouds dissipated completely before sunset and the sky remained clear all night. The temperature was actually a little cool, dipping into the upper 50s by 1:00am, with no dew and some occasional light wind. Transparency was good and seeing was about […]
Members-Only Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 06/14/2026
Despite the uncertain weather forecast, about 12 members showed up last night. The patchy thin cloud after sunset allowed us to watch Jupitor and Venus (the mercury is behind a wall of horizontal cloud). I could see Arcturus and Vega as well. However, Polaris was only visible through telescopic view. The condition continuously deteriorated till the sky […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/18/2026
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 […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/09/2026
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 […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/04/2026
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, […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 4/30/2026
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
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 4/27/2026
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 […]