HAL Star Party Reports and Other News
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2025 Star Party Reports
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 2/07/2025
(The One with the Solo Keyholder)
I was the only attendee for the impromptu star party that I hosted
last night. Skies were clear the entire time that I was there. The
metadata of the exposures from my imaging shows 47 degrees and 45%
humidity at 7:00 PM, falling to 41 degrees by 9:00 PM, but I think
these values are ~5 degrees warmer than the real air temperature. The
bright, waxing gibbous moon was was an uninvited guest, hanging out
near the zenith and generally degrading the conditions for everyone
(i.e, me).
Nontheless, I used my 8" Dob to observe the double and multiple stars
Gamma Leporis, Sigma Orionis (a breathtaking quadruple star system
with the triple star Struve 761 in the same field), Zeta Orionis
(Alnitak) and 145 Canis Majoris (aka h 3945), which some folk presume
to call "the winter Albireo." I also observed open clusters M41, M46,
M47 and NGC 23622 (Caldwell 64, the Tau Canis Majoris cluster). The
last one was my favorite, due to the namesake 4th-magnitude star
blazing alone in the center, surrounded by a ring of much fainter
stars.
I imaged the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros with my Vaonis Vespera II
smart scope, using a dual-band filter and the new 3D-printed dew
shield that I bought on Etsy. I obtained 75 minutes of data (450
ten-second sub exposures) of a 2.8- x 2.1-degree mosaic and was happy
with the results. I'm attaching the JPG processed by the telesccope,
but I'm going to work on processing the TIF file myself to see if I
can do better than the telescope software. I would like to someday
get to a place where I consider my processed images to be worthy of
being displayed at the HAL monthly meetings! Not there yet.
I had to politely ask a couple of people to leave the park at dusk so
I could lock the gate. One was a driving instructor giving lessons to
student around the roads and parking lots. These lessons have been
conducted before all three star parties that I've hosted, but I don't
recall seeing them previously. The other was a woman who showed up
right at dusk and requested a 5-minute extension to walk her dog
(which I granted). There were no other issues, and I locked up HALO
and the park and left at about 9:10 PM.
I had a very nice time, but I'm hoping to attract some guests (besides
the moon, which will not be invited back) to my next star party!
Ernie Morse
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 2/01/2025
(The One with Clear, Cold Skies and a Mystery Car)
Four HAL members showed up to enjoy the clear skies at Alpha
Ridge last night. Three were successful, but one suffered the
heartbreak of technical difficulties. Happily, there were no
incidents of equipment being blown away by high winds.
Mike imaged the Fish Head Nebula (IC 1795, adjacent to the Heart
Nebula) in Cassiopeia and the Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380) in
Cepheus. The rest of us focused our imaging on Monoceros and
Canis Major in the southern skies. Shrikant got nice results on
the Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49) in Monoceros, while I started
over on the Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) and surrounding nebulosity
and clusters on the Monoceros-Canis Major border with a redrawn
3.1 x 3.1-degree mosaic on the Vespera. Jose had planned to
image the Thor's Helmet Nebula (NGC 2359) just over the border
in Canis Major, but he wasn't able to get any data due to his
ASIAIR refusing to connect to WiFi. He thinks he may have to go
old-school and plug it in via Ethernet, but is going to
troubleshoot the problem at home. Hopefully, that issue will be
resolved before our next star party.
I made some visual observations of various open clusters in
Taurus and Perseus (NGCs 1342, 1647, 1807, 1817) with the Dob,
partially inspired by the Suburban Stargazer column in the
January issue of Sky & Telescope, and also revisited one of the
all-time greats, the Double Cluster (Caldwell 14) in Perseus.
There was an issue early on with someone who left his car parked
beside the road just inside the entrance and went off wandering
around the park. He was nowhere in sight by the time dusk fell,
so I called the ranger, who said she'd be there in about 30
minutes. Fortunately, he returned to his car and left around
6:20, so I called off the ranger visit.
It was getting colder and windier around 10:00, so Shrikant and
I decided to call it a night. I locked up HALO and the park and
we left around 10:35.
Ernie Morse
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 1/29/2025
(The One with High Winds and a New Impromptu Keyholder)
The high winds made for a frustrating star party experience last
night. Mike had planned to image the Heart Nebula (IC 1805) in
Cassiopeia with his 8" SCT and Shrikant was going to observe the
Orion Nebula with his 72mm refractor. Unfortunately, the gusty winds
made guiding impossible. One particularly strong gust, which I think
must've been over 20 mph, even moved Mike's laptop across his table!
My Vespera was able to collect an hour's worth of data on a mosaic of
the Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) in Monoceros and adjacent open clusters
NGC 2335 and NGC 2343, although the wind caused a high rejection rate
(50%) of the 10s sub exposures. Unfortunately, the mosaic framing
was off a bit, so I'm missing half of one of the seagull's wings.
The problem is that IC 2177 technically refers to just the head of
the seagull, and the surrounding nebulosity is not shown in the
Vespera app interface. I'll probably just discard the data and
restart with a better framing next time.
Both Shrikant and Mike decided to leave around 8:00, but Mike
discovered that someone (hopefully a park ranger) had locked the
gate. I went out to unlock it for them. When I returned, I found
that the top foam layer of my eyepiece case had blown away! I looked
around the immediate area, but didn't find it. I was planning on
just closing up the park at that point, but my 8" Dob was all set up,
and I hadn't actually observed anything with it yet, so I decided to
take a quick look at a few targets. I observed the triple star Beta
Monocerotis (aka Herschel's Wonder Star), double stars Iota Orionis
and Struve 747 and then the Orion Nebula, which was absolutely
magnifcent and gorgeous at 85X with a UHC filter. It was a real
shame that it was so windy, as the skies were very clear,
transparency was good and it wasn't very cold. Seeing wasn't great,
and I had a difficult time splitting the BC pair (3" separation) of
Beta Monocerotis at 170X.
I then turned on the park lights, searched all over the parking lot
for my foam layer (no luck), and then closed up HALO and the park by
around 9:45. Thanks to Shrikant and Mike for coming out and making a
valiant effort. Hope we all have better luck next time!
Ernie Morse
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 1/27/2025
(The One with Over a Dozen Members)
We had a successful impromptu star party Monday night, January 27, in
the cold but calm conditions. More than a dozen HAL members attended,
and there was a mix of visual observing, imaging, and engineering
activities among the attendees. Transparency was pretty good, but
seeing was below average and the sky was rather bright -- my Sky Quality
Meter (SQM) reported a brightness of about 19.4 mag/arcsec^2. This is
happening frequently, and I am unsure of the cause. It could be the
solar activity level causing an increase in sky glow, maybe there was a
sufficient amount of remaining snow on the ground that more was
reflected into the sky to be scattered, or maybe the light pollution has
simply become worse.
Greg and Joanna stopped by for their first impromptu to check things
out. Ernie observed the Jupiter shadow transit by Ganymede, followed by
some deep-sky observing with his 8-inch Newtonian. He also tried to
image with his EAA scope but had some technical difficulties and didn't
collect much data. Jeffrey made some visual observations, as did
Sundar. Denise and Mike used binoculars to observe the Pleaides (M45).
James was imaging with a refractor, and Bianca gathered data in H-alpha
and OIII on the Jellyfish Nebula using a small refractor and a color
camera with a dual-band filter.
Chris did some work in HALO to re-familiarize himself with the
equipment. John stopped by to compare the output of his DIY sky
brightness meter with Ernie's and my SQMs. The three devices differed
by a couple of mag/arcsec^2, so one or more of us will need to calibrate
our device to get an idea of what the actual sky brightness is. I spent
the night trying to optimize the collimation and mirror separation on my
8-inch RC; I'm not sure if I succeeded.
Thanks to everyone who came out. It was nice seeing you, and I hope we
can do it again soon.
Wayne Baggett
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 1/01/2025
(The One that Kicked Off the New Year)
We had our first impromptu Star party of the year on the first night of 2025.
I got at alpha ridge park at 4:30 pm and closed it around 7:30 pm.
Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate as clouds came in and out
repeatedly due to the fast winds, giving us only a few patches of clear sky
every now and then.
We had 5 members showing up, and 2 of them were first time attendees. Welcome
to both and I hope to see you around often.
Despite the clouds, we had some nice conversations about equipment so I think
it was a good time after all.
We have a snow storm coming but I’ll be looking out for the next good night to
have another star party.
Jose Urias
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