Star Party Reports
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/26/2025
Members-Only Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/24/2025
About 20 HAL members, new and old, were at Alpha Ridge Park for Saturday night’s Members-Only Star Party; an accurate count was not obtained, but it was pleasantly crowded.
The weather was cool with calm winds and moderate humidity. There were some clouds around at sunset which lasted until about 11:00pm, but they were scattered and didn’t stop people from observing. The night was nice after the clouds cleared, with good transparency but below average seeing. My best Sky Quality Meter reading was 18.9 magnitudes/square-arcsec.
We had the usual mix of imaging and visual observing using scopes ranging from Seestar S50 systems to a 14-inch SCT. Visual observers viewed a variety of targets such as double stars, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, and galaxies. The imagers were mostly capturing galaxies — M101, M94, and M60 were among the galaxies targeted.
I closed the park gate at 3:45am after doing some engineering work after more clouds rolled in.
Thanks to all the members who came out; it was nice to see and converse with longtime members and newcomers. Hopefully we can get together again soon.
Wayne
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/19/2025
Seven HAL members enjoyed a very pleasant evening of observing at Alpha Ridge Park on the night of May 19/20.
Temperature was about 70 degrees at sunset and it was still 60 at midnight. It was somewhat breezy, but not too bad. Seeing and transparency both seemed to be below average to poor.
Jason used a 4-inch Meade Maksutov-Cassegrain to observe some double stars while imaging M104 (Sombrero Galaxy) with a Seestar S50. Steve started the evening with some binocular observing and also imaged M104 with his Seestar. Bill was getting first light on his new Celestron 8-inch MCT, but he left before I was able to ask him how that went. Alex observered several deep-sky objects with his 10″ Dob, including M13 (Great Hercules Globular Cluster), M57 (Ring Nebula) and M44 (Beehive open cluster). He imaged the Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565, Caldwell 38) with his Seestar S50. Rich was present for the third consecutive night and got in some testing of his mount. Ken imaged M82 (Cigar Galaxy) with his colossal Meade 14″ and also imaged M104 (a popular target) with a new Carbonstar 6-inch Newtonian. I observered several pretty double stars, globular clusters M13, M92 and M5, and M104 (everyone else was doing it, didn’t want to be left out) with my 8-inch Dob and added two hours to my continuing mosaic of Markarian’s Chain + M87 with my Vaonis Vespera II. Apologies to anyone for whom I may have gotten the details incorrect.
Everything went smoothly, except for some chaos early on arising from an accidental connection to the wrong Seestar. So many Seestars in the area, it was almost bound to happen!
Everyone finished observing by midnight. I locked the park gates at 12:30 AM.
Thanks to all who attended. I’m very happy that the weather forecasting failures of the previous two nights did not continue. Hope to see everyone out there again soon.
Ernie
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/17/2025-5/18/2025
“We went because we had hope, and we left because we got facts”
That is to me, the best way to describe the impromptu star parties from yesterday and tonight.
Unfortunately, the weather report was not very reliable these past few nights, to the point that 2 different apps showed we were under clear skies, while surrounded by thick clouds.
On the bright side, these cloudy nights are the best for conversations, geek out, show off equipment, and more importantly, learn from other members (I am starting to think that’s what they named the website “Cloudy nights” after).
The temperature was gorgeous, the breeze felt amazing, and we got to meet new members and provide them with some guidance. It was nice seeing so many known faces, and so many new ones as well.
It reminded me to my first star parties when I didn’t know anyone and I was there just to see what everyone else was doing. I never imagined I would be honored to host so many parties myself and advance to an intermediate level astrophotographer. I share this as an example that this club is full of amazing people willing to teach and learn, and that even someone who had never touched a telescope up until a few years ago, could learn and keep learning this fascinating hobby because I got the best support at HAL.
I closed the gates of the park around 10 pm both nights, and I will keep an eye for any other potential clear night this week, but we also have the members only star party coming up soon, and the new members party coming by the end of the month, so there will be plenty more opportunities to enjoy the night sky.
I want to close this by inviting anyone who is just getting started and feels shy about meeting at the park because “You don’t want to bother anyone”, to come and join us at the star parties whenever you have the chance. We have all been there and the only way to observe or capture a piece of the universe is to go outside and look up.
I leave you with my very first picture of Orion that I took at a star party 3 or 4 years ago. It was only 5 seconds, single shot exposure I took with a DSLR and an ALT/AZ mount, and it took me approximately one hour to setup and align everything well enough to get it. I have captured way better images of Orion now like the one that follows and yet, none has caused me as much happiness and excitement as the first astro picture I ever took.
Jose Urias
Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 5/03/2025
The foul weather this evening did not deter about 60 astronomy enthusiasts who enjoyed HALO tours by Chris T and Chris M, astro coloring with Krystal, and solar system modeling with Arjun. Eight members of the new astronomy club at Miller’s Grant retirement community in Ellicott City visited and are interested in returning on a clearer night.
We packed up and locked the park gates around 9:30 under fully cloudy and drizzly skies. Better luck next month. Mark your calendars for Saturday 7 June. Phil Whitebloom and David Stein will be hosting, and Ken Everhart will be driving the Illig scope.
Joel Goodman
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 4/23/2025
Good evening HAL,
I hosted an impromptu Star party on Wednesday since the weather report showed we would have clear skies. I arrived at Alpha Ridge Park at 7:30 pm and 12 other members showed up.
Unfortunately the skies were a little cloudy during the first few hours but the weather was nice and most of us just wanted to be out and build our equipment.
The clouds dissipated around 9:30pm so we could enjoy some nice observations and imaging time.
I left the park by 2 am when I was too tired, but Wayne, who is also a key holder, stayed with James until 3:30pm.
I worked on 2 common targets for Galaxy season and even though I only collected around 2 hours and a half of data from each, I obtained great results.
I am leaving my final images of M51 and M81 & M82.
I also wanted to recommend to anyone who is new to pixinsight the book Pixinsight Workflows. A step by step guide to astrophotography image processing. It is available on Amazon.
It helped me understand some of the processes a little better and it was nice to have a book helping me through the process. I did both targets on my regular workflow and with the workflow in the book to compare and the results were much better with the workflow in the book. Highly recommend if you’re new to Pixinsight.
Jose Urias
Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 4/05/2025
(The first cloudy one of 2025!) Hello HAL members, Well, as predicted, the clouds were not very cooperative for yesterday’s Public Star party. It was mostly cloudy at the start, becoming totally cloudy by 8:30 PM with a light rain starting a little after 9. No members had set up their personal telescopes. The good news is that the temps were mild and we had approximately 40 people (some scouts, families, etc.) come out to visit and we had two people sign up to be new members on the spot.
Attached is a picture taken during the event, showing that the HALO observatory was indeed open for business. Richard Ren was at the helm – looking mostly at the moon through patchy clouds but also slewing over at Jupiter and Mars when periodic clearings appeared. A little after 9, we closed up HALO and locked up the park at 9:30 PM. Here’s hoping for better weather for our Members-only event on the 26th and next month’s Public event on May 3rd.
Clear skies,
Victor HAL President and April Public Star Party Co-Host
Members-Only Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 3/29/2025
(Dark parking lot, but not the best sky)
Because of the clouds, most of us didn’t bring any equipment, but we enjoyed a tour through the observatory and a history lesson about HAL’s equipment by David.
We also talked about astrophotography gear, some plans for future star parties, and the best topic of the night was discussing how ugly the Tesla cyber truck is after one drove by.
I want to thank all the members who showed up tonight and encourage other new members to join our star parties. Even when there are no observations or imaging, there are definitely great conversations.
Jose Urias
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 3/12/2025
(Clear but not the best seeing)
Hello, Everyone!
March 18’s Member’s Impromptu Starparty was a success with six members attending beneath a cloud-free sky.
Unfortunately, the predicted “Above Average” transparency and “Average” seeing opted not to attend the event. The general consensus has transparency as “Below Average” and seeing as “Poor.”
Temperature ranged from the upper fifties to mid-forties with no due present.
Two members concentrated on visual observing including open clusters in Puppis and Galaxies in Ursa Major. New equipment seems to be a theme for the evening with one member working our kinks in a new auto-focusing system while another worked on an entirely new rig.
It seemed one member left each hour ending with me locking the front gate at 1:48am.
The only issue we noticed was the lack of lighting on the parking lot. Once the park lights were re-illuminated, only five brightened. The majority remaining dark.
Thanks to everyone who attended.
Respectfully Submitted,
Ken Everhart,
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 3/12/2025
(Lunar Eclipse)
Last night we had a total of 5 HAL members including myself.
I got at Alpha ridge park at 8:30 pm to start getting ready, and the rest of the attendees arrived at 11 pm.
We enjoyed a beautiful night with some light clouds every now and then but nothing that affected our imaging or viewing of the moon.
The temperatures dropped to the 38 F while we were there, but it was not windy so it didn’t impact us significantly.
As for the event, all 5 of us imaged the moon and the eclipse, mostly closeups but Danielle was also shooting a panoramic composition.
I believe it was a first time for most of us imaging the moon with our rigs so we learned a lot about the obstacles and work arounds for our specific rigs on such a bright object.
Cheryl used her Seestar S30, Luis used his Vespera, I do not remember what was Shrikant’s rig, and the same for Danielle but I think they were using either telephoto lenses or small refractors combined with DSLRs. I also enjoyed viewing the eclipse with a new pair of Nikon 10×50 binoculars I grabbed at Dick’s Sporting Goods before heading there. They worked so well for me that I would actually recommend them as they are affordable and well made.
We decided to wrap it up by 3:45 am because it started to get cloudy once the totality started to pass, and I closed the gate by 4 am.
Thankfully we ran into no issues, but the park rangers also checked and made sure the park was empty before I arrived.
This was a good experience to me on how to handle impromptu events when there are special and highly advertised events like this one.
I am leaving you with two of my images I quick saved last night, but I will be working on the other ones this weekend and I’ll share the results with you when that is done.
I used my Apertura Carbonstar 150 with ZWO ASI533mc pro, a neutral density filter before the eclipse with 0.01 second exposure, and gain 10. For the eclipsed state I actually used my dual narrow band filter as it helped me keep the red hue of the moon, and I shot at 50 gain and 1 second exposure.
My telescope has 6” aperture with 590mm focal length so I had to use those settings to se anything other than an overexposed light bulb. I hope to get more detail after stacking or working on better frames.
I look forward to see everyone’s images.
Jose Urias
Public Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 3/08/2025
(The first one of 2025!)
Thank you everyone who came out to join us for HAL’s first public star party of the year. We were blessed with clears skies all night long, but the wind never did seem to go away. I counted approximately 15 -17 telescopes setup. We had everything from small hand tracked scopes, to larger Schmidt Cassegrains, to several imaging only rigs with views setup on laptops or tablets. There were some folks with binoculars and I saw one gentleman walking around with a sky map just talking about the night sky. Bob and Arjun setup their display table. Even with the brisk wind, I believe a good time was had by all. There was a steady stream of visitors and I estimate between 200 and 300 people showed up over the course of the evening. As usual, the observatory was quite popular, and people were shoulder-to-shoulder listening to the team explain the setup and what was being displayed on the screen.
Thank you again to everyone who helped make tonight’s event a success.
Mike “warming up” Man
Thank you to all our visitors. We look forward to seeing you at future outings. If you want to learn more about HAL and how to become a member, go to our website, https://howardastro.org.
Impromptu Star Party (Alpha Ridge) 3/02/2025
We had a successful impromptu star party Sunday night, March 2, in the
cold but mostly clear weather. There were some high clouds around at
sunset, but they had moved out by about 7:45pm and it stayed clear until
it wasn’t. Temperatures were below freezing all night, starting at
31degF as I started observing and dropping to about 20degF by the time I
finished. Transparency was about average but the seeing was below average.
Four HAL members came to enjoy the evening, although three didn’t stay
very long. Relatively new members Lee and Maryanne stopped by briefly
to check out the location as they had never been to one of our star
parties before. Although they own an 11-inch Celestron SCT, they didn’t
bring it this time. They stayed for a while and chatted about astronomy
and our remarkably similar work experiences, and left before it got
truly dark. Gary brought his Celestron Origin 6-inch EAA scope and
started imaging NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis. Unfortunately, he had
trouble maintaining a WiFi connection with the scope, so he left by
8:45pm, leaving me alone. I continued imaging NGC 3718, a spiral galaxy
in Ursa Major, with my 8-inch RC scope.
I finished imaging at about 1:00am because a large bank of clouds moved
in. I locked the gate at 2:35am, after collecting flats and giving the
clouds a chance to clear up.
Thanks to everyone who came out. It was nice seeing you, and I hope we
can do it again soon.
Wayne