Location: Alpes – Col de la Bonette, France

Session duration: 2 nights

Sky conditions: Very dark sky (Bortle 2–3), light wind

Instruments:

• 80mm refractor
• 200mm Newtonian reflector
• 100mm apochromatic refractor

Targets:

• M13 (Hercules Cluster)
• M45 (Pleiades)
• Perseus star field
• Polaris

Observation notes:

The observation session felt unusually focused, with repeated returns to the same fields and repeated instrument checks despite stable conditions.

Several members remarked that familiar regions of the sky appeared difficult to describe in ordinary observational terms.

At least two observers independently reported that a star appeared to dim and brighten once, almost like a blink, too quickly for ordinary variable-star behaviour.

The group returned several times to the same region because the first impression could not be dismissed, yet no conventional explanation was agreed upon.

Members present: Adama Traoré, Ayoub Berrabeh, Claire Dumont, Antoine Delorme

Location: Pic du Midi foothills, France

Session duration: 2 nights

Sky conditions: Very dark sky (Bortle 2–3), light wind

Instruments:

• 80mm refractor
• 300mm Dobsonian reflector
• 7×50 binoculars

Targets:

• Betelgeuse
• The Moon
• Albireo
• Saturn

Observation notes:

The observation session felt unusually focused, with repeated returns to the same fields and repeated instrument checks despite stable conditions.

Several members remarked that familiar regions of the sky appeared difficult to describe in ordinary observational terms.

Lucille remarked that familiar stars seemed to possess abnormal depth, as if the field opened behind them rather than beyond them.

Members present: Adama Traoré, Lucille Godefert, Ayoub Berrabeh, Marc Lefèvre, Sophie Martin