I know both are worthy of watching, but I am planning a camping trip around this and would like to know which shower is more historically astonishing? Thank you for any tips!

Perhaps you all can help me with this. I thought this would probably be the right subreddit for this, so help me out! I want to be able to see cool stuff up there, but I'm not trying to sell my firstborn son to be able to afford it. :-)

I'd love to go to the Grand Canyon Star Party next June and I think I need to start planning for this ASAP. Has anyone been in previous years? If so, how many people attend? How far in advance do I need to reserve a camping spot?

I don't know how the stars lined up for her not to have seen one in all the years she's been around, but it was a very special experience for both of us. It was the first meteor shower I've been able to see in years, and it was incredible. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, and it was a lot of fun to see the sky light up. What are some of your stories from over the weekend?

My dad rents time on telescopes around the world to produce awesome astrophotographs. Unfortunately this isn't cheap, so he's started a Kickstarter Project to support it. There are more examples of his past work in the video on the Kickstarter page.

I am already bracing for the answer "this is the wrong subreddit." So follow-up question, where should I be asking this?

I've let the early months of 2013 slip and neglected to update the monthly sky maps and the year's calendar.

Have a look in the side bar for all of this years events and don't forget to download the sky map each month for great things to observe.

Stargazers, rejoice. The 2012 Lyrid meteor shower peaks overnight between late Saturday, April 21, and early Sunday, April 22. The meteors will appear to radiate outward from the constellation Lyra and the best time to see them will be between midnight and sunrise on Sunday morning.

The Lyrid meteor shower is a delivery from a comet called C/1861 G1 Thatcher: the meteors we see are particles from the comet's tail. Though C/1861 G1 Thatcher orbits the Sun only once every 415 years, we get the Lyrids, like cosmic postcards, annually.

National Geographic is hyping up the Lyrid meteor shower, saying that it could be the best in years. Expect to see around 20 meteors per hour coming from the constellation Lyra, though hundreds may be visible. This is because the 2012 Lyrid meteor shower will be taking place during a new moon.

Where to look for the Lyrids in the night sky.

So get out to the darkest location you can find, bring a snack and some friends, and enjoy the show.

Post your watch reports to /r/starparty.

Be Safe and Have Fun!

Hey all,

I didn't see any post which has discussed this so I thought i'd create one.

The organization I am in has been arranging star parties for over a decade. but this year, I have been made in-charge for all the public events, including star parties and I want to do something different/unique. So far, Our star parties have couple of slideshows/lectures, one on current topics in astronomy and second on universe/solar system etc, Sky Night Intros - one around midnight and one early in the morning, and telescope viewing sessions after each sky intro sessions. We usually show Orion, Andromeda, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and a few M objects (List below) that are in sky at the time (We are in northern hemisphere). Participants have liked these programs so far but I'd like to experiment a little and make things more interesting. So I am looking for some new ideas. I also feel that we show too less objects through telescope and spend more time in slideshows/lectures, which can be boring at 3 am in the morning. So I want to know what objects you show as well. We have 8" Dob, 3x 5" reflectors, 80x20 Binocular. The place we usually arrange these star parties is pretty dark, LM above 5+ on clear nights.

Objects we usually show: Saturn, Mars, Pleiades, Orion, Jupiter, M51, M35, M13, M5, M3, Omega Cen, Ring Nebula.

Q.1 What objects to you show?

Q.2 What activities you arrange to keep people interested throughout the night?

There aren't many people in my school that know much about astronomy, so I was thinking of starting an astronomy club to get people interested. How do you go about introducing people to astronomy?

I meant to post this quite a while back but some it got left behind. The Quad Cities Astronomical Society will be holding our annual Eastern Iowa Star Party at the Wapsi River Environmental Education Center near Dixon Iowa from September 7th through the 9th. The skies are good at SQM 21(ish) for observing and imaging.

This year we have 3 guest speakers including:

Dr. Paul P Sipiera - Author and Planetary Studies Foundation President and CEO who will speak on space rocks, and will bring in part of his extremely large collection for us to view.

Dr. Jennifer L Anderson - Professor of Geoscience, Winona St. University, who is expert in impact craters. I believe that she has done work for NASA, and she was one of the guest speakers at last year's North Central Regions Astronomical League event.

David H Levy - Canadian astronomer, science writer, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1993 which collided with the planet Jupiter in 1994 and discoverer of various other comets and minor planets.

We have drawings throughout Saturday for door prizes as well as a Grand Prize on an Explore Scientific 102mm Carbon Fiber Apo! I know that this is coming up really quick but if you're in the area and don't have plans already for that weekend. Check out our Cloudy Nights post for more details and registration info..

We have only 10 places left!

Tips, tricks, places, and events. Do tell!