Click here to download the official guide to the SFU open house.
The location of the Stary Nights events is identified on the map on pages 4 and 5: look at the bottom of page 4 for the bubble "Blue Zone AQ East Concourse #10", which points to our location on page 5.
Also be sure to check out the special "Spotlight" on the Solar System Spurt on page 10 of the open house guide!
Complete information on the SFU open house, including directions to free parking, can be found at this web site:
Welcome to Starry Nights @ SFU!
We host free evening star parties and other events, open to the public, and
free daytime telescope & astronomy workshops for grade-school age kids!
Join our mailing list! Email starry-nights-request@sfu.ca subject: subscribe.
We've streamlined our web site & added new content!
Please have a look at the new layout and content of the Scope Club!, Astro Grads!, and Event Blogs pages! We've also got a new Testimonials page!
Recent Happenings!
The Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) celebrated International Astronomy Day! RASC Vancouver put on a two-part program on Saturday April 28, in the afternoon at the HR MacMillan Space Centre, and in the evening at SFU, where we hosted a magical visual and musical presentation by speaker John Nemy, on humanity's place in the universe, and the best of amateur astronomy today. Over 500 guests attended RASC's Astronomy Day!
The 2012 SFU astronomy season got off to a big start, with the fourth annual SFU student astronomy club "Geek Week Festival of Astronomy", which took place in the evening of Friday January 27. The club hosted over 250 guests, mostly families with young kids, and served 350 slices of pizza at $1/each! Kids got to run around all four corridors of the Academic Quadrangle following clues along the Solar System Scavenger Hunt! We also heard two great talks, by Bill Burnyeat, who runs the BCIT planetarium and is RASC Vancouver's own "Mr. Astronomy"; and Eric Dunn,a veteran astronomer, educator, writer, host and producer.
A 2011 year-end star party took place on Friday December 2 with about 75 guests in attendance, despite the clouds that rolled in at sunset, and we had a half-dozen telescopes on hand. Thankfully, some holes in the clouds allowed most of our guests to view the Moon, Jupiter and a few of its Galilean moons, and even a couple of deep sky objects! Check out my blog on the star party, which includes a movie that I shot "in the field"!
A 2011 year-end telescope workshop for young families took place on the evening of Saturday December 10, the week after our year-end star party, with more than 200 guests were in attendance, young families eager to learn how telescopes work, and how to use one! Check out my blog on the workshop, complete with a video, which will give you a pretty good sense of how much was going on that evening!
Looking for that family-friendly YouTube channel about the night sky?
It's the Miami Science Museum YouTube Channel! A new episode every week!
Copyright © 2012 Howard Trottier
Starry-eyed
@ SFU since Nov. 2007
Coming Up!
Simon Fraser University Open House
Saturday May 26 11AM-4PM
Be sure to check out two special Starry Nights @ SFU parts of the open house program!
1) At 11:30AM there will be a special community celebration as the vision for a teaching observatory is unveiled! For the location see below. If you wish to attend, please RSVP by email to tal2@sfu.ca
2) Take a voyage to the edge of the solar system by crossing a part of SFU's beautiful Burnaby campus in the Solar System Spurt! Departures are from inside the Academic Quadrangle, at the south-east corner of the concourses, every 15 minutes between 12:30pm and 3:30pm.
