Impromptu Star Party Report for April 22, 2026

[Ernie Morse]

Hi all,

Despite the questionable forecast, last night turned out to be a lovely night for observing, with the exception of the moonlight.  Temperature and wind were both mild and the sky was very clear.  I didn't get much of a sense of seeing and transparency, as I was just working on troubleshooting equipment woes (that were actually user error).

Charlie did some visual observing with his collapsible 12" Newtonian on a custom-built Dobsonian mount.  The mount that he built includes setting circles for locating objects.  He got great views of Jupiter and M81/M82, which he found with the setting circles.  He wasn't able to see other galaxies on his target list, but this could just be due to the Bortle 5 skies and the moonlight.

I set up my new Orion 80mm refractor on a Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a successful alignment for the mount.  I did some research when I got home and realized that I had the telescope mounted backwards.  I attempted to perform a firmware update this morning to allow the telescope to be mounted as I had it, but the update failed and the mount is now effectively bricked and no longer communicating over WiFi.  I'm getting a USB dongle tomorrow that I hope will enable me to install some version of the firmware via the wired connection.  Anyway, I regret that I squandered a nice night through my own ineptitude, as the only objects that I was able to observe were Capella, Procyon, Spica and Arcturus, the stars that I was trying to use for alignment.

I heard voices talking and laughing after Charlie left and it sounded like they were coming from the wooded area to the east, between the parking lot and Old Frederick, but they could possibly have been originating from the property adjacent to the park. Were they the voices of people watching me and laughing at my struggles with the mount?  Yeah, probably.  Otherwise, nothing unusual happened.

I locked up HALO, verified that all other doors were locked, turned on the park lights, locked the gates and departed at 11:25 PM.

Ernie

[Ernie Morse]

My backwards-mounted refractor, with Charlie in the background setting up his 12" Meade Lightbridge Dob.  The shockingly red diagonal is from Svbony.  I own a really nice 2" TeleVue diagonal, but it's at my parents' house in Michigan and I won't be back there to get it until July.