The Topsail Hill Preserve state park public star gaze event started with quite a bit of clouds but, as forecast, the clouds passed by and the skies cleared. As usual for Topsail we started off with solar observing. There were several sunspot groups, a couple of prominences and one large area of plage.
Overall. we had about 45 guest observers for the event. The solar system’s geometry was arranged with the planets all in the immediate vicinity of the Sun, so there were few bright targets other than a crescent Moon.
However, as we were wrapping up, aurora became visible including some obvious streamers. A very slight pink tint was naked eye visible and although faint, the patterns were changing fairly rapidly.
The club had several members supporting the event:
- Dave Halupowski
- Tom Haugh
- Dennis & Marietta Hausch
- David Marshall