(The One with a Clear Skies Cool Weather)

(The One with a Strawberry Moon and Suboptimal Conditions)

It was a hot day and evening, and seven HAL members and guests enjoyed the night of the Strawberry Moon for an impromptu star party at Alpha Ridge Park. The skies were mostly clear but very hazy, resulting in poor transparency; this is typical for a triple-H — hot, hazy, and humid — summer day in Maryland. Also common with triple-H days is good seeing, and the atmosphere was steady most of the night. The Full Moon was low in the southeast at sunset and added greatly to the sky brightness, so with the poor transparency it was not a night for visual observations of faint fuzzies.

Richard used his Televue TV-85 APO doublet refractor to tour the sky. Ernie viewed with a Celestron 8-inch StarSense Newtonian and concentrated on double stars and open clusters — he observed the double stars Epsilon Lyrae, Algieba (Gamma Leonis), Mizar (Zeta Ursae Majoris), the open cluster Caldwell 37 (NGC 6885) in Vulpecula, and the Coathanger asterism (Brocchi’s Cluster) in Vulpecula.

We had two Loyola students show up looking for a place to look at the stars, so they camped out in a corner of the parking lot and did their thing. I told them about HAL and gave them business cards; they sounded interested in checking us out further.

The remaining three members were imaging. Alvin used an SVBONY 80mm refractor to image M4 (globular cluster in Scorpius) plus a nearby reflection nebula, with the primary goal being the reflection nebula. However, he fell victim to the bright skies and poor transparency and went to plan B, the North America Nebula in Cygnus, with much greater success. Anil used his Stellarvue 102P refractor to image the Pelican Nebula in Cygnus using narrowband (SHO) filters, while I gathered H-alpha images of M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) in Canes Venatici with my 8-inch RC in hopes of using it for the June Discord Object of the Month, and an hour of LRGB of M13 (globular cluster) in Hercules.

Thanks to the members who came out for the somewhat disappointing conditions; I enjoyed chatting with each of you and hope see you all again on a clear night soon.

Anil and I locked the gate at 3:50am.

Wayne B.

(The One with Two Reports in One)

I am sorry I am doing a dual report but I figured since it was a back to back situation it would be better to condense it.

Starting with 06/11, we had 5 members coming, some to image and some to do visual astronomy with their dobsonians. I was very surprised to see how amazing the star sense push-to scopes works, making the star hopping process a little bit easier. We had no eventualities and closed the park around midnight.

Yesterday (6/12) we had 4 members visiting and this time it was a combination of dobsonian and Seestar scopes. I never thought of how great and “inexpensive” it can be now to get a big dobsonian with some push to device to enjoy visual astronomy and have a Seestar running in the background for doing some imaging of things that look faint on an eye piece. I closed the park around 11:40 with no eventualities.

I want to thank everyone for being so diligent at closing the gates behind them when they come to or leave the park. It make us all feel safer and enjoy the park without worrying about unknown people.

Jose U

(The One with the Black Eye Galaxy and Hungry Mosquitoes)

Four HAL members (me, Ken, Kurt, and Sundar) showed up at an impromptu star party last night.

As forecast predicted, the evening cloud gradually dissipated starting at 9 pm. The clear sky continued till 11:30 pm when a huge cluster of clouds moved in from the south. So we started to wrap up and left Alpha Ridge around 12:15 am. Ken volunteered to lock the gate behind me.

I managed to process most of the so-so photons collected from Black Eye Galaxy in a so-so night.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/191436936@N02/53776348907/in/album-721777203151 83401/

I got quite a few mosquito bites last night. For those who will join the member’s only star party tonight, be prepared to have bug spray at hand.

Richard R.

The last impromptu of the month was a fantastic one as we had 12 members enjoying the wonderfully dark and clear skies of last night. The night was a little chilly but we had no clouds almost from the very beginning.

Some members were observing through their dobsonians, while others where imaging or aligning their equipment (me included). I was also able to chat with a few new members who showed up to see how we setup and if they wanted to join next time, and it was my impression that we will see more members showing up to the impromptus.

Once everyone was done setting up their equipment, members started walking around and saying hi. It was nice hearing conversations all over the place.

There was a couple of Seestars around and I was able to test the club’s one for a more extended time. I will include some objects I imaged with it to encourage people to sign up to use it. I may not meet it for an entire month myself but that is how long you can take it with you and use it when your turn comes.

Finally, I appreciate that everyone was very responsible in closing the gate behind them when they left. This is for everyone’s safe enjoyment and I was really happy when I locked the park gates at 2 am and I found them closed. Some members even emailed me to let me know they closed the gates when they left. Wayne, who is also a key holder, stayed until 3:30 am and locked the observatory and the park as well.

Also, just a little but very important thing I want everyone to know is that the bathrooms in the park lock themselves automatically at around 10 pm and we don’t have the code to unlock them and our key doesn’t work after they get locked so we always manually move the deadbolt of the doors before that happens to avoid the door shutting down. Please leave them like that when you use the bathroom or we will not be able to open them until they unlock themselves in the morning. I also don’t know if it would become impossible to unlock them from inside if someone gets locked inside so let’s not find out.

That concludes my lengthy report. Thank you for assisting and sharing last night.

Jose Urias