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