Starry Nights @ SFU: After the November Rains December Star Party

After enduring more than a month of rain, which stretched throughout November, we were finally able to hold a star party on this Saturday night in early December!

Despite the cold and damp, we had our very best turnout ever, with 170 guests in attendance, and at least nine telescopes on hand! This star party brought our total attendance at SFU evening astronomy events for the public in 2009 to over 1,000 guests!

As with all "Starry Nights @ SFU" events, this evening counted towards the attendance at four SFU star parties which earns a free telescope for families whose children have also attended an SFU astronomy workshop! In fact, we presented telescopes to the Byrne and Pyatt "workshop" families, who made their 4th SFU star parties this night (look to the gallery at the right for pictures of these dedicated families receiving their scopes!).

I would like to thank the volunteers who brought out telescopes and made this star night possible, staying out so long in the cold to treat our many guests to so many celestial wonders: Leigh Cummings, Ciara Morgan-Feir, Michael Levy, Ted Allen, Preet Johal, the Ohm family, Steve Freed, Corey Huber, and Michelle Murvai.

If you took some pictures at this star party, or at any of our recent events, and would like to share these on this web site, please email them to me: trottier@sfu.ca.

With so many telescopes on hand, our guests were treated to a wide variety of beautiful celestial treats, including Jupiter and several of its Galilean moons, the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31), the Pleaides (M45), the rich globular cluster M15 in Pegasus, and the gorgeus double cluster in Perseus.

We'll aim for our next star party in early January, so please stay tuned for that. In the meantime, have a great holiday season, and a New Year with clear skies!

Once again, I would like to note that many of the volunteers who gave their time to make this evening a success are members of the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC). The RASC-Vancouver Centre has been an integral part of SFU astronomy outreach events over the past year (full disclosure: for 2010 I will be serving as Vice President for the Centre). If these kinds of astronomy events are your thing, then I urge you to attend a monthly meeting at the RASC-Vancouver Centre (held on the 2nd Thursday of each month), and see what the Centre has to offer. I think you might find that membership in the Centre truly does have its privileges, including the pleasure of sharing experiences with about 300 fellow astronomy nuts, and the opportunity to borrow telescopes from the Centre's collection.

Starry Nights @ SFU: Blogs & Pics

After the November Rains Star Party, Saturday December 5 2009!

Starry-eyed
@ SFU since Nov. 2007