San Antonio League of Sidewalk Astronomers

01/19/2026

12/24/2025

SALSA wants to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and wonderful New Year!

Send a message to learn more

12/24/2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vvNxhlP1jA

Produced for use at our church's Christmas Eve service, December 24th, 2013.Version without background track now available: https://youtu.be/t3LIvb1NzakOn De...

11/12/2025

NOTICE: Due to the solar activity, SALSA members are headed to the Hill Country tonight.
We will NOT be at McAllister Park tonight.
Make sure you check out the Northern horizon tonight for possible Northern Lights glow.

10/29/2025

NOTICE: we are canceling viewing at McAllister Park tonight due to high winds!

No Viewing Tonight!

10/19/2025

On Saturday SALSA participated in the Hydro Geo Workshop at Cave Without a Name, north of Boerne, TX.
SALSA member Chris Koers taught an Astronomy 101 module for workshop participants. SALSA members Steve Ferguson and Emran Ismail joined Chris setting up telescopes for solar viewing during the day and then setting up for night viewing.
Picking through some clouds, the team was able to show workshop participants many celestial objects.
Thanks to the Hydro Geo Workshop for having us out and thanks to the SALSA members for participating.

10/13/2025

There will be NO Astronomy in the Park this Wednesday at McAllister Park.
Also, because of an issue with the Facebook event tab program, we had to cancel and recreate the Astronomy in the Park events. Please check the event tabs for the correct events!
Thanks!

10/08/2025

Due to clouds and scheduling conflicts we are canceling viewing tonight at the park.

10/05/2025

SALSA turned out in force for International Observe the Moon Night at McAllister Park last night!!
Visitors were treated to all kinds of views of our lunar neighbor as well deep sky views of Saturn, Albireo, the Double Double", and others.
Great conversations and viewing!

09/17/2025

We will be at McAllister Park tonight starting at sunset at the Salgado Creek Trailhead.

Send a message to learn more

09/06/2025

Mark your calendars - International Observe the Moon Night is coming up - October 4th!
Come join SALSA at McAllister Park in San Antonio - 7:00 pm!

08/27/2025

Sketch away!

Preserve your observations!

Improve Your Deep Sky Sketches
Sketch–Cellphone connection

Bill Castro, Central Florida Astronomical Society
(received 2nd place in 2024 AL Sketching competition)

As I mentioned in my article "Improve Your Deep Sky Sketches," Reflector, June, 2023, p 25, I compare my sketch made at the eyepiece with a cell phone picture taken through the eyepiece after I have finished the sketch. From that article:
"Newer cell phones can do a good job at taking a picture through the eyepiece. The picture is similar to what you saw and sketched. You don't get overwhelmed with stars and detail like you would with a long-exposure image."

Here I sketched the large, loose open cluster Trumpler 37 and two multiple stars within it.
TR 37 has an apparent size of 89 arc minutes and lies within the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Cepheus. Triple star 5.7 magnitude Struve 2816 (HIP 106886) and double star 7.4 magnitude Struve 2819 are near its center.

My telescope of choice was a 130 mm f/7 APO refractor. For the low power sketch and iPhone image, I used a 31 mm eyepiece giving 29x. For the high power sketch, I visually split the multiple stars with a 10 mm eyepiece giving 91x. And for the high power iPhone picture, I used a 15 mm eyepiece coupled with a 1.5x Powermate Barlow yielding 152x.

It has been interesting sketching and noting the details in large open clusters at lower power and wide field. Sketching these at higher powers gives even more meaning and helps when I look at them next time.