HOWARD

ASTRONOMICAL

LEAGUE


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		Next Public Star Party:

HAL is not planning any local events for the 8/21/2017 solar eclipse. For additional eclipse information, check out HAL's solar eclipse information page here.

The next public star party will be held at dusk at Alpha Ridge Park on Saturday, July 29th. It will be preceded by the annual Celestial Searchers Star-B-Q at 7:30PM. This cook-out / covered dish event is for the Celestial Searchers organization but HAL members are also invited. Just bring a salad, appetizer, entree' (if you don't care for the provided barbecued chicken), or a dessert. See 7/24 posting by Joel Goodman on the howardastro email group for more Star-B-Q information. Ed Crawford hosts the HAL star party. Jim Johnson and Ken Everhart will man the Watson telescope inside the observatory.

Want to find out what happened at a recent HAL outside event? Click to view all star party and outreach events for this year or any of the previous five years.

Welcome
to the Howard Astronomical League. HAL is an astronomy club located in Howard County, Maryland. We hold monthly meetings on the lower (mezzanine) level of the Robinson Nature Center in Columbia, MD, conduct public star parties at Alpha Ridge Park utilizing the "HALO" observatory, and provide community outreach events at various Howard County locations - often in public library parking lots. We invite everyone to be a part of amateur astronomy with us. You will find information about our meeting dates on the Our Meetings page. Information on membership is located on the HAL Membership page.

Join Us
for our Star Parties and Outreach events. We also provide an e-mail group for communication of timely club News and for astronomical discussions.

Information
to help plan your observing sessions is available on the calendar page or the astrolinks page -- where you can check for moonrise times, Iridium flares, International Space Station sightings, Jupiter's Great Red Spot transit and a lot more. And don't forget to check the weather before you venture out.

HAL's Observatory at Alpha Ridge Park (HALO)
is open monthly (excepting Dec through Feb). It houses HAL's 12" Newtonian telescope. Check these web pages for full details about the observatory and the Telescope. For a schedule of events at the observatory, check the HAL star parties page or the HAL calendar.

HAL is proud to have official affiliations with:

	Robinson Nature Center		Celestial Searchers Astronomy for Howard County Kids (K-8)
	Howard County Recreation & Parks Alpha Ridge Park		Astronomical League
	Howard County Conservancy		International Dark Sky Association