Mojave National Preserve Conservancy Star Party next week, May 11, 2013.
A heads up for those of you making plans for Mother's Day weekend that may not involve actually visiting your mother. Saturday night, May 11 is the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy's spring star party. They've been having one in the spring and one in the fall for about five years, now. I've been to all but two.
The stars in the Preserve are exceptionally dark, and the Black Canyon Equestrian/Group Campground has a fortuitously-placed concrete pad, perfect for setting up telescopes. Dark skies and big telescopes mean galaxies galore. We'll also have Jupiter after sunset and Saturn an hour or two later. We'll also have lots of star clusters and nebula to look at, so if you've always wanted to look through some very fine astronomical instruments (not professional-grade, mind you, but very nice), well, here's your chance.
I'll also be bringing my solar observing set up (the same one I brought to Utah to see the Annular Eclipse, and set up in La Canada for the Venus Transit).
As a bonus, it's in the Mojave Preserve, so you can do hiking on your own the day before or day after the star party. I've got blogs of several Mojave Preserve and area hikes elsewhere on the blog, so feel free to search them out.
Dude, I believe my coworker goes to this. I'm gonna find out. If he does, I'll tell him to look for you. I want your autograph :)
ReplyDeleteWell, no one asked for my autograph, so I'm assuming he didn't make it. :D Or, he didn't manage to track me down. Anyway, the skies cleared, and we had a blast. Great hiking, too.
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