Members Star Party Report for March 14, 2026

[Ernie Morse]

Hi all,

The forecast wasn't very promising for Saturday night's star party, so I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout of 12 HAL members.  The party got off to a bad start, as it was almost completely overcast around dusk.  Jupiter was frequently visible through gaps in the clouds high overhead, but that was about it.  After waiting it out for over an hour, three people decided to leave around 9:00.  I was about to start packing up myself, when I looked up and noticed that the clouds had cleared out around Orion and Gemini.  The whole sky was clear within a few minutes.  There was still a persistent layer of thin clouds and an occasional denser cloud bank passing through, but the conditions were overall favorable until 11:00.

I didn't gather as much information about the various setups and observations as I usually do, as I expected that we'd be clouded out.  A few people were imaging with refractors in the 80 - 100mm range, including Juan, Hugo and Nathan.  Pat had a refractor and a Seestar S50 and Wes was using a Seestar S30 Pro on an equatorial mount.  Peter was using a refractor and a Sky-Watcher tabletop Dob. Jeff was planning on observing clusters and double stars with an 8" Celestron SCT.  Jaime and Sundar were making visual observations with a 10" Dob and a light amplification monocular.  I attempted to sketch the double star Almach, but it didn't turn out very well.  I also observed galaxies M81 and M82 in Ursa Major and open cluster M35 in Gemini with my 8" Dob.  Jaime and Wes joined me in observing the two galaxies.

I locked up HALO and the park gates and departed at 11:20 PM.

Ernie