Impromptu Star Party Report for May 9, 2026

[Ernie Morse]

Hi all,

It was a great night for observing at Alpha Ridge Park on Saturday night.  Skies were clear and transparency was above average (SQM-L reading of 19.25 mpas).  Seeing was about average.  The temperature was down to the mid 50s by midnight with no wind to speak of.  There was some moderate dew accumulation, but it didn't seem to be much of an issue.

Mike & Dan were both imaging the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) with 80mm and 122mm Svbony refractors.

Welcome to new HAL member Roger, who was making visual observations with a 125mm Borg refractor.

Joey was working on troubleshooting an imaging setup with an 80mm Explore Scientific refractor.  He got it working and imaged M101 for 30 minutes.

Welcome to Evan, who was also attending his first impromptu.  He observed the Leo Triplet and some globular clusters with an 8" Dobsonian while also imaging the galaxy M82 with a Seestar.

Brandon and his son were making some visual observations with a 72mm refractor.

There were a few non-members who didn't know about the impomptu but had intended to stay at the park after dark.  One family just wanted to stargaze without equipment while a couple wanted to set up a telescope for the first time.  I let them know that it was a members-only event and that the park would typically be closed at dusk and gave them information about joining HAL.  The family stayed until just a little after 9:00.  The couple's telescope turned out to be nonfunctional, so they also left early.  Thanks to Brandon and the other HAL member(s) who gave them some guidance and advice.

It was a frustrating observational night for me.  I had intended to view some brighter galaxies with my 8" Dob, but only M81 and M82 were really worth the effort, despite the good transparency.  I attempted to find the asterism Grohusko-1 in Virgo mentioned in the June issue of Sky & Telescope, but couldn't locate it with my 8x50 finder.  I made a finder chart for it with Cartes du Ciel today and I'll use that next time.  I also found the brightest star in the asterism in the Celestron Starsense Explorer app database, so I could just resort to technology and find it with the app, but I like to go old school from time to time.  I did get a nice image of the asterism with my Vespera II, but that scope then disappointed me by failing to track the Owl Nebula (M97) with a 3rd-party OIII/SII filter.  I salvaged the evening with some nice views of globular cluster M53 and a handful of double stars.

I verified that all park doors were locked, turned on the lights, locked up HALO, locked the gates and departed at 12:15 AM.

Ernie