Need help knowing the basics of stargazing and the venues available

[k_popat]

Hi,

Im doing an asignment where i have to plan a stargazing weekend for 500 people. ive been trying to get my head around what stargazing is and have come to the conclusion that it is just looking at the stars i think . i was wondering what sort of venues in the UK are available for stargazing and if it has to be held in a field or can it be done in a planiterium? i was also wondering what a typical stargazing weekend would consist of?

Thank You

Krishna

[pvaz]

Well since there are no replies yet I'll try to give you a hand though I never organized any event like this.

I been to a couple of "observation nights". You will need a dark area with as little artificial light as possible. Artificial light really "hides" all the stars, so a field outside the city lights is a must. A few experienced amateur astronomers, or a couple of professional ones, to explain stuff and make it interesting. Hopefully some telescopes to observe Jupiter and some deep space objects. I would suggest to start the night with jupiter then the Andromeda galaxy (M31) and later on the Orion Nebula (M42/43). Maybe add a globular cluster in between for a wider "portfolio" such as M13 or M76 witch is smaller but higher in the sky at the moment. If it's a full moon night then drop the Andromeda galaxy 'cause it's too dim under moon light and point at the moon instead to see some craters.

I only suggested 4 nice and impressive targets for 2 reasons:

1) I assumed it will be the 1st astronomy experience for most people attending. So it will be nice to get some WOWs.

2) It's hard to give enough telescope time to 500 people unless you have at least 1 telescope per 10 persons. Even so 4 objects may be too much, really depends on how long this will last.

Some binos and a good explanation of what they are looking at, may help getting people busy while they wait for telescope time.

I hope this ideas can help you. Maybe you should contact the local amateur astronomy clubs for help.

[Doc]

I don't envy you at all and organising a star party for 500 is a pretty big task.

Have you thought about the weather. What if it's cloudy?

[k_popat]

Thanks for the reply. yea that is quite helpful, i didnt think of getting professional astronomers. i dont mean to sound thick or anything its just that im a little new to this, but umm what does m42/43, m31 etc stand for?

Krishna

[k_popat]

To Doc,

I don't envy you at all and organising a star party for 500 is a pretty big task.

Have you thought about the weather. What if it's cloudy?

thank you for the post. yep it definetly is a hard task but its got to be done seen as they wont change it for me. i didnt realise that the weather would be a problem to be honest. so im guessing its got to be clear skys? does stargazing have to be done with telescopes or can it be done without them? have you ever been stargazing by any chance?

Krishna

[Doc]

Being completely new to this hobby I think you are going to have to really read a few books, magazines or this forum and try and learn alot more about astronomy and star gazing before planning such a big outreach party.

Your public are going to expect you to be able to answer questions and be knowledgable about what you are planning.

So my advice would be don't run before you can walk.

Btw the M42 is a nebula in the constellation of Orion. All M objects were first seen and then catagorised by Charles Messier hence the M in the 18th century.

[Doc]

Stargazing can be done without telescopes but then you don't see much to grab a persons attention.

If someone in your party asked you....

Where's Jupiter?

What stars that?

Where's the constellation Cassiopeia?

Would you know?

And Yes I've done quite a bit of stargazing

[pvaz]

Stargazing is just a term used by amateur astronomers (and probably professional ones too). It's just observing the stars and whatever is up in the sky, hopefully with some knowledge of what you are looking at. If you have no previous experience with astronomy you will really need to gather a team of amateur astronomers to do the technical part of it, while you can focus on the logistics.

To organize something for 500 persons is a big task, from my point of view, so it will be good for you to delegate part of the work.

EDIT: As Doc pointed out you don't need telescopes to stargaze, but then again, looking at the stars with the naked eye only is something anyone can do on their backyard. Having telescopes and someone to explain things will make it an enjoyable new experience.

[wulfrunian]

Just to clarify - is this stargazing party actually supposed to happen? Or is it just an assignment where you describe how you would plan such a party?

[ronin]

Believe that this is an exercise in planning one. Went to the IoA at Cambridge a couple of weeks back for a moon watch, 260+ turned up. The following evening, owing to better luck, the astro society scopes were also available and used.

The second evening example is probably best as a basis:

If I recall 4 large scopes, maybe 5, were set up with cameras attached to supply video. The video was projected on to 2 or 3 screens.

One scope was directed at the moon and a presentation on the moon was delivered.

Another scope was directed at Jupiter and again a presentation on that was delivered. A second scope was also directed at Jupiter so that video could be switched.

People were held back by a simple rope on poles around the area of the scopes. Lots of people would otherwise have tripped over bits and knocked bits. Say 3-4 to present, 4 directing scopes, 3-4 for general people management.

2 large scopes at IoA were then opened and as I recall both aimed at Jupier, people wanted/expected to look through an eyepiece. 2 long queues of people waiting to get a look of Jupiter and the moon.

Say 2 IoA staff to each scope.

When it died down a bit the club scopes, up to 14inch, were directed at other targets and people came to look through whichever interested them, eyepieces not video. One was centred on Neptune.

People were around to answer simple questions and point out in the sky things of interest. Basic constellations and stars. Say 4-6.

Outside lasted for about 2 hours. and went smoothly. Inside tea/coffee was available

People attending there ranged from 4 upwards so plan for all ages. Add up the people setting up, running and helping and you get about 20. Helped that the venue was the IoA so they, and the club, had done similar before.

[Astro_Baby]

You would also need to think of parking areas, making sure these are away from the observing location as headlights will ruin peoples night vision.

Maybe someone handing out red masking tape for torches as people arrive. Stewards to park the cars and direct people would be a must.

You'd probably need a food/tea/coffee stand thats out of the way of the scopes. Ideally someone with a green laser pointer to point out interesting stuff in the sky

For an event of this size you'd need a dedicated bit of land which means finding somewhere out of the way, with parking nearby. To be on the safe side you'd need to clear it with the local council and the police and you would need insurance as well.

You'd need advertsing for the event. So you'd have to be out and about at least 3 months before the event to put up posters, get local shop keepers to advertise, place ads in the local paper etc. Ahead of that you'd need to design the posters and get them printed. That means a lot of legwork to get the word out. A website might be a useful thing but dont rely on it - without search engine ranking you;d not be getting enough traffic to the site to generate people. To get 500 people to part with money or even to turn up if its free you'd need to generate a ratio of about 500:1 ( and thats a good ratio - you might need to generate as many as 1200 visits to the site to get one bum on the seat on the night. - So to get 500 people attending you;d need a website capable of generating 250,000 - 600,000 uniques. thats not hits - thats real visitors. If you were planning say 3 months ahead that means the site would have to take 2,777 - 6,666 visitors a day. A good commercial site with decent search engine ranking would be pushed to acheive that.

I run a few commerce sites which are mainstream and they seldom generate more than 1,500 uniques a day.

Generally visits to sales ratios are VERY low. (sorry - search engine optimisation is my business - I'll move on).

You'd need probably 10-20 people as a minimum who can talk about the sky and bring scopes suitable for outreach events. Youd probably need to think about insurance and CRB checks for these. At that ration wyou would have 25 people in a line for each scope - that means if everyone in the line gets 10 minutes for a view the person at the back of the queue will wait too long and get bored. Seen it happen quite recently.

Bear in mind someone tried organising something like this for the International Year of Astronomy which (as far as I recall) fell flat on its face through bad logistics and a total lack of understanding about astronomy.

If you were to organise something like this you might be best organising it at a site that has some astronomical association. Greenwich maybe or Herstmonceaux - obviously you'd be looking at getting the site owners onboard early on.

In short for 500 people you'd probably be having to plan overall at least 12 months ahead of the actual event and pray your heart out for good weather. Not too cold, nor wet and with clear skies.

It would be a serious logistical management exercise and some concert venues struggle to get 500 people in for an event.

I'd hope you are only doing this as an exercise and not for real because doing it for real would be a SERIOUS challenge.

[vegas]

Im fascinated to know what subject this project is for? It sounds a mammoth task/exercise.

[k_popat]

its for events management...

im very confused and i am struggling like a donkey

[buzzc150]

Someone else already asked but no answer yet :

Is this just a hypothetical exercise or are you actually going to get 500 people in a field ?

[k_popat]

Someone else already asked but no answer yet :

Is this just a hypothetical exercise or are you actually going to get 500 people in a field ?

heyy, its a hypothetical exercise im not actully going to be doing it.

Thank YOu

[pvaz]

Breaking it to points this is what you need:

Location:

* A dark field without much trees or obstructions, outside the city but close enough to have enough people coming:

- it needs parking space

- an area for mobile bathrooms, food and drinks and maybe one of those big tents for indoors presentations about astronomy in case the weather goes bad.

- all paths, food stands, bathroom, tents need to use red lights so it won't ruin night vision. All astronomers use red lights. Bright lights make the pupil dilate and ruin night vision.

- plan it pretty much as a small rock festival, without the rock bands but with as much drinks.

Human resources:

- Amateur Astronomers to help the observing groups.

- 1 or 2 known professional astronomers to give some prestige and do the indoors presentations.

- All the other personal usual in events, such as the people on the food stands, clean up crew, etc.

If it was me, I would try to get a rock festival plan (maybe one some fellow student did in previous years), take ideas from all the logistics and make the changes I stated above.

[buzzc150]

OK, a hypothetical exercise is much more managable because you can 'hypothetically' give yourself a nice clear night. In reality it would be a total gamble, with the odds against you, that you would get clear skies. You would also ideally want to plan it on a night without a large bright moon as it would 'drown out' many stars (unless of course you specifically wanted to do lunar observing). You would also need to bear in mind the time of year remembering that in June/July it doesn't get dark until 11pm. Also, some of the more interesting objects (Saturn for instance) will only be visible at certain times of the year.

[k_popat]

Breaking it to points this is what you need:

Location:

* A dark field without much trees or obstructions, outside the city but close enough to have enough people coming:

- it needs parking space

- an area for mobile bathrooms, food and drinks and maybe one of those big tents for indoors presentations about astronomy in case the weather goes bad.

- all paths, food stands, bathroom, tents need to use red lights so it won't ruin night vision. All astronomers use red lights. Bright lights make the pupil dilate and ruin night vision.

- plan it pretty much as a small rock festival, without the rock bands but with as much drinks.

Human resources:

- Amateur Astronomers to help the observing groups.

- 1 or 2 known professional astronomers to give some prestige and do the indoors presentations.

- All the other personal usual in events, such as the people on the food stands, clean up crew, etc.

If it was me, I would try to get a rock festival plan (maybe one some fellow student did in previous years), take ideas from all the logistics and make the changes I stated above.

Thank you for that, that was really helpfull, i will be definetly using some of those ideas for my assignment.

Thank You

Krishna

[Capricorn]

Krishna, Where are you?

[dark knight]

Can't believe no ones mentioned using binoculars.:headbang:

[Wurzil]

And if you want to get some nice screenshots for your report download the program STELLARIUM - this is a virtual night sky which you can speed up, zoom in and out, show constellations etc.

This would also be used to have a look at what will be in the sky on the night you plan to do this hypothetical star party.

This is a free progam which is amazing (it sparked my intrest in anstronomy).

Stellarium

good luck

Warren