Henderson Beach State Park Public Stargaze (05 Apr 2025)

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Apr 212025
 

The weather was iffy at best, but the satellite imagery showed a chance of clear skies, so we rolled the dice. Once on site, the skies were clear to the southeast and the motion of the clouds overhead was tending northwest, so Tom started setting up solar equipment to view the Sun before it got dark. That’s as far as the star gaze got. Clouds moved in with few gaps visible and then the gaps stopped showing up as well.

Thankfully, Tom Haugh was the only member who fell for the clear sky ruse. Several other members called in for local sky reports and were told to not bother coming out. Even so, we had about a dozen people stop by wondering what was going on or some just rolled the dice on their own. Once it started getting dark without any chance of viewing anything other than the bottom of clouds and with the park closing, Tom packed up and slunk back home.

 Posted by at 10:22 pm

Topsail Hill State Park Public Star Gaze (21 Mar 2025)

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Apr 212025
 

With significant construction happening next to the park’s main parking lot which is the club’s normal set up site, we had to move deeper into the park to hold our first public star gaze of 2025. The new location is temporary while the construction continues but it worked out OK. The southern horizon is higher which limits the view a little. There is a large old pine tree that will block objects for a time as they transit the sky but overall, the site is will work fine.

We estimated an attendance of 75 or so guest observers. Being much closer to the camp area we had a higher percentage of camping guests than normal. We started, as usual, with solar observing. The Sun showed a couple of good-sized sunspot groups in the white light filtered scopes, with just a hint of a prominence as well as a couple of nice dark filaments through the H-Alpha scope. Once the pines started to obscure the Sun, we transitioned to nighttime equipment. Jupiter and Mars were the planets that were up. Additional targets such as M 45 and M 42 were observed.

The club was well represented:

  • Renee & George Gollehon
  • Tom Haugh
  • Dennis & Marietta Hausch
  • Chris Mizell
  • Ken Yates
 Posted by at 10:08 pm

Yuletide of Yesteryear (14 Dec 2024)

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Apr 212025
 

Finally, a Valparaiso Yuletide event that dawned clear. Although this is an annual event, the last several year’s events have been all clouded out.

Dennis & Marietta setting up.

Dave’s ancient and honored Unitron refractor.

Dave’s solar projection view of the day’s sunspots.

The club was represented this year by:

  • Dave Halupowski
  • Marietta Hausch
  • Dennis Hausch

We would like to thank Dave for his pictures and the fact that he posted them on the club’s Facebook page during the event.

 Posted by at 10:07 pm