It was glorious to see astronomers and their gear on the fields of Experience Learning Center in August 2022 for the Almost Heave Star Party. The sold out event was last held in 2019. Experience Learning Center debuted their new outdoor Yurt which served the group wonderfully for meals and camaraderie. The demands of my new job limited the amount of video and fellowship I had at the event. I still had a wonderful time catching up with old friends and getting acquainted with new ones. The event brings together the best folks who are all passionate about astronomy and nature. For a view of the star party and Experience Learning Center, please see the YouTube video.

Each night at the party had windows for observing/imaging, but we never had a totally clear night. The weather was very nice, if not a bit on the hot side for Spruce Knob. I captured 2 solid hours of data for the Andromeda Galaxy and combined that data with Hydrogen Alpha data for the image below. I only managed 45 minutes on the Pleiades, but combined that with 2 year old data from Spruce Knob and updated my image with a deeper presentation. I, also, gathered 4 hours of narrow band data for an upcoming project that will take a while to complete.

Work obligations and spending time simply visiting new and old friends limited my video and photo capture of the event. It was a joy simply sitting around catching up with other astronomers and talking/looking at gear and sharing experience.

My neighbor Skip had a 7” Astro-Physics refractor sharing wonderful views of the Sun and deep sky objects.

Another happy crowd at Skip’s telescope.

We never had a “clear” night, but had plenty of windows to view and image.

Spectacular sunset on the evening of Thursday August 25 for the AHSP staff.

Sunspot group 3088 and prominent — Sunspot group 3088 and prominence on August 28, 2022

Almost Heaven Star Party 2022

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