The Terry Fox statue in the outdoor
AQ courtyard.
Starry Nights @ SFU holds star parties which usually meet next to the Terry Fox statue in the outdoor AQ courtyard.
About Starry Nights @ SFU
Starry Nights @ SFU hosts free evening star parties and other events, open to the public. Please email starry-nights-request@sfu.ca to join our mailing list, so you can keep up to date on our latest events (email traffic to our list is low, generally only a few messages per month).
We also host free, daytime telescope and astronomy workshops for grade-school kids. To register your grade-school class, community group, or individual family for a workshop, please email Dr. Sophie Lavieri at slavieri@sfu.ca. Dr. Lavieri is Director of SFU's Science in Action outreach program. For more information on the content of our workshop program, please check out our IYA@SFU! web page - the same workshop program that was such a successful part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy (IYA) at SFU continues into 2010!
Our public "star parties" are free and are open to everyone, whether from SFU or the greater community. To get a flavour of our public astronomy events checkout our Event Blogs feature! No equipment or knowledge of astronomy is needed to attend our events!
Please be sure to sign our guest book when you attend one of our events! Please Note: Families with grade-school age children can qualify for a free telescope (while our supplies last!). To qualify, attendance at a minimum of five (5) SFU public astronomy functions is required; this must be 4 evening "star parties" (including special public SFU astronomy theme events such as presentations and movie nights), and attendance at a daytime telescope workshop for grade-school age children (which provides basic training in the use of a telescope and awareness of the night sky).
Copyright © 2012 Howard Trottier
Starry-eyed
@ SFU since Nov. 2007
At our evening star parties, we will show you the many wondrous celestial objects that can seen using nothing more than your naked eye, including our cratered Moon, distant stars of beautiful colours, constellations that tell of ancient lore, and planets in our solar system that hold important lessons for life on Earth, and elsewhere in the cosmos. We will use our telescopes to treat you to superb views of the Moon, planets, distant star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. We also occasionally host special "theme" nights, including public lectures on the latest developments in astronomy and space science, movie nights, an annual Hallowe'en party, and more!
Do you have your own binoculars or a telescope? Then bring your gear with you! If you need help learning how to use your equipment we'll show you how to use it! Know your way around the night sky? Then join us and share your knowledge and passion for astronomy with others!
Our public star parties are usually held about once a month, but we can't usually schedule these gatherings in advance, since we have to wait for good weather. Instead, a tentative starry-night gathering is generally announced only early on a day in which the weather forecast for that night looks promising (and when Howard's schedule permits!). We generally avoid the two weeks each month when the Moon is between first- and third-quarter phases (that is, we avoid going out from about a week before full Moon, until about a week after), since it is then so bright that its light overwhelms the stars.
We usually meet near the Terry Fox statue in the outdoor AQ courtyard (see the panel to the right). We also sometimes schedule special events off the SFU Burnaby campus; details on the location of an event is provided when the event is announced.
A tentatively-scheduled gathering is generally subject to cancellation late that day, depending on how the weather develops. Final confirmation that we are "good to go", or not, will generally come by email around 4-5PM the day of the tentative event. We usually meet about one hour after sunset.
We are also looking for volunteers with a passion for astronomy to join us in sharing their enthusiasm for the night sky with members of the public. No prior knowledge of astronomy is necessary, just passion and commitment! We can help you to get up to speed on astronomy basics, so you can join us in bringing the mysteries and beauty of the cosmos to our many guests! Please contact Dr. Howard Trottier (trottier@sfu.ca) if you wish to volunteer!
Starry Nights @ SFU: About Us!
Join our mailing list! Email starry-nights-request@sfu.ca subject: subscribe.
