Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 9/19/2026
Clear Skies!
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 9/16/2026
Four HAL members attended an impromptu star party last night at Alpha Ridge Park. The northern half of the sky was cloudy between 10:00 and 11:00, but the skies were otherwise clear. Transparency was below average (19.14 mpas on the SQM-L meter at 11:30 PM) but seeing seemed to be about average. There was a […]
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 9/14/2026
It was a very nice night for both visual observing and imaging. I measured 19.36 on my SQM-L meter at midnight, which is well above my average reading at AR. I’ll have to track Rich down the next time we’re out on the same night to compare SQM-L measrements made from our devices at the […]
Member’s Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 9/5/2026
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 […]
Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 8/22/2026
Clear Skies!
Public Sun Party (Alpha Ridge) 8/12/2026
Clear Skies!
Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 7/25/2026
Clear Skies!
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 […]