We had to reschedule the public open house and star party from May to June 2017 because of bad weather last month. You are all invited, and it’s free. The directions and many other details can be found at a previous post on this blog. 

(Just ignore the date, because it’s no longer 2016! The directions are long, and I didn’t feel like copying and pasting them here.)

Looking at a planetarium app set for 6/24/2017, I see that Jupiter and Saturn will be well-placed for viewing at sunset, and the entire Summer Milky Way will be overhead, allowing you to look at lots of deep-sky objects like globular clusters, planetary and gaseous nebulae, open clusters, as well as distant galaxies. If you stick around until 4 AM, extremely bright Venus will rise in the east. The Moon will be too close to the Sun to be visible.

Caveat: we do not have running water, so no modern lavatory. We do have bottled water, an outhouse, electricity, and hand sanitizer. This place is really in the middle of the woods, which is where lots of insects and other arthropods live, so keep that in mind. We do have some bug juice you can use, but keep any spray far away from the telescopes!

If you have a telescope of your own, or binoculars, feel free to bring them. A flashlght or headlamp will be useful. We prefer red light at night, since white light makes you night-blind for about 10-20 minutes. If your flashlight(s) put(s) out white light, we have red plastic, tape, scissors, and rubber bands that you can use to shield your light.