Impromptu Star Party Report for June 29, 2026

[Ernie Morse]

Hi all,

Four HAL members enjoyed Monday night's impromptu star party under the full Strawberry Moon, after some concerns about ash falling from the sky(!) around 9:00 PM.  It lent a post-apocalyptic feel to the evening, but it only lasted for about 30 minutes.  It was mostly in the form of small specks, but a thread of ash more than an inch long landed on my eyepiece case.  Don't know if it was from fireworks, a local bonfire, or some distant wildfire, but we were all thankful that it didn't last long.  My optics looked pretty clean at the end of the night, but I used a squeezy air bulb to blow off any small flecks of ash before packing up.

Krystal had intended to do some work with the Illig telescope in HALO, but canceled that plan due to the ash.  She instead set up her Dwarf 2 EAA scope and imaged M101 (Pinwheel Galaxy) and the open cluster NGC 6633 in Ophiuchus.

Bill made visual observations with a Celestron Nexstar 8 SE, including Venus and the Double Cluster in Perseus.

Jose set up his Askar V 80mm refractor on a new ZWO AM3 mount and imaged M16 (Eagle Nebula).  He also set up his CarbonStar 150 imaging Newtonian and performed some calibrations with it.

I had intended to try two combinations of alignment stars for my Sky-Watcher AZ-GTI mount and Orion 80mm refractor.  Unfortunately, I got a late start due to the ash and only did one alignment, with Altair, Spica and Alioth, a trio that satisfied the requirements described in the manual for optimal 3-star alignment. Go-to performance did seem to be somewhat better than what I've experienced with less optimal alignments.   I observed a handful of double stars in Ursa Major, Coma Berenices and Virgo.  After that, I spent some time mapping the height of the treeline over 60 degrees of azimuth to the W-NW.  I put those data points into a horizon file that I imported into my observatory settings in the Cartes du Ciel planetarium software.  I also continued dual-band imaging of NGC 6992 (Eastern Veil Nebula) with my Vespera II EAA scope.

I locked all doors, verified that everything was nominal in HALO, locked the park gate and departed at 1:10 AM.  Thanks to Jose for hanging around for a little while after he was packed up until I was ready to leave.

Ernie

[Dietmar Tietz]

This is what Google AI stated about the ash-falling event:

The falling ash reported during the June 29, 2026, star party at Alpha Ridge Park was caused by a surface flare-up and localized burn at the adjacent Alpha Ridge Landfill.

A minor surface fire broke out on the property that evening. Because Alpha Ridge Park directly borders the landfill facilities, a sudden shift in the evening wind pushed a localized smoke plume and light, flaky ash directly over the Howard Astronomical League's telescope viewing fields.

The ash shower stopped after roughly 30 minutes once onsite equipment operators and local crews safely contained the burn area.

---

From: "Ernie Morse" <ernie...@gmail.com>
To: "HAL Group" <howar...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2026 12:06:13 PM
Subject: [howardastro] Impromptu Star Party Report for June 29, 2026

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone posting topics not related to astronomy or the Howard Astronomical League will be moderated immediately and without notice. Obvious spammers will be banned.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Howard Astronomical League" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to howardastro...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/howardastro/DM4PR84MB1445E40BBF114269F6BC85E7A7F62%40DM4PR84MB1445.NAMPRD84.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.