Impromptu Star Party report for May 4, 2026

[Ernie Morse]

Hi all,

Two HAL members attended an impromptu star party at Alpha Ridge Park on the night of May 4th.  The sky clouded over intermittently, but the clouds were moving through quickly and the sky was reasonably clear most of the evening.  Temperature was very pleasant (low 60s) and it was only moderately breezy.  Seeing was poor, but transparency seemed at least average.  I didn't get a sky quality reading, as it was cloudy when I was done observing.  

Sundar brought his Celestron 130mm Starsense Explorer Newtonian and we worked together on troubleshooting issues with the push-to app on his phone.  We weren't very successful, but I remembered that logging can be enabled and the logs can then be sent to Celestron support, so Sundar is going to try that next time.

I made visual observations with my 80mm Orion refractor and 8" Celestron Starsense Explorer Dobsonian.  I observed the Kemble's Cascade asterism in the 3-degree field of the Orion and switched to the Dob for the open cluster NGC 1502 (Golden Harp Cluster) that the cascade appears to flow into.  I observed M97, the Owl Nebula, with the Dob and an OIII filter for a good while and almost convinced myself that I could see the eyes from time to time.  A barred owl with a good sense of timing started hooting during those observations.  I tried to see the globular cluster M68 as it was transiting in the southern sky, but I couldn't make out any trace of it in the sky glow.  I observed double stars Algieba and epsilon Lyrae with the Orion.  I checked in on Jupiter with the Dob around 10:30 and noticed that one of the moons was very close to the planet's limb.  I made a note to check again later to see if it was moving towards or away from it, but didn't get back to it until an hour later.  The moon was behind Jupiter by that point.  I checked Sky & Telescope when I got home and found that it was Ganymede and that it moved behind the planet at 11:06 PM.

I finished observing around 11:45 and began packing up the telescopes.  I turned on the park lights around midnight, verified that all doors on the restroom building were locked, locked up HALO and departed at 12:20 AM, locking the park gate behind me.

Ernie