Seven HAL members met at Alpha Ridge Park last night to enjoy views of the mid-summer sky. Although clouds were fairly widespread early in the night, by about 1am they had dissipated completely. The seeing was better than average, and not surprisingly the transparency was below average — a typical hazy, hot, and humid summer night, just without the excessive humidity. Dew was not an issue during the night with just a light layer on the grass and car tops at the end of the night.

Several members were observing visually with scopes ranging from 7×50 binoculars to a 10-inch Newtonian. Gordon was reacquainting himself with the sky and looking for a variety of interesting targets with his 7x50mm binoculars. Steve and Alex were observing with 8-inch and 10-inch Newtonians on Dob mounts, respectively.

Benjamin and John were both imaging with DSLRs on tracking mounts, John working on the North America Nebula and Benjamin was undecided early in the night and I never got back to see what he chose.

Garry and I were doing mostly engineering stuff, with Garry testing a Meade mount he had repaired and I was working out the bugs with a new computer among other things. At the end of the night, I decided I wanted something to show for the effort so I hung around for an extra hour and collected data for a quick image of the globular cluster M56 in Lyra, attached.

Overall everyone had a successful night in spite of the clouds and low transparency. It was great being out under the night sky again with so many HAL members. Thanks to everyone who came out, and I hope to see you again soon.

I locked the gate at 4:10am — barely beat the dawn!

Wayne B.