Starry Nights Festival in Yucca Valley this weekend

[Morris Jones]

This weekend features an annual event that Jane and I have enjoyed, the 
Starry Nights Festival held in Yucca Valley.

The event features talks at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum on astronomy 
topics, and David Levy will be the featured speaker on Saturday afternoon.

Then they offer telescope viewing under the very dark skies of Yucca 
Valley through the Andromeda Society's member's telescopes at Machris 
Park.  The museum will offer free shuttle buses to the park from the 
museum in Yucca Valley.  On our previous visit to this event, the big 
floodlights of the park were off, there was plenty of dim red light to 
see by, and society volunteers were serving hot cocoa.

All the information, including a program and map, is here at the Town of 
Yucca Valley's web site: 
<http://yucca-valley.org/departments/museumlecture.html>

Jane and I will be there Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening at the 
star party with our big dobsonian reflectors.

Next weekend, October 21, we're also planning a dark sky night just for 
our friends and fans of the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers, in the 
beautiful remote Colorado Desert south of Joshua Tree.  I'll send 
another note with more information about that soon.

With the giant planets gone from the evening sky for the rest of the 
year, it's a great time to soak up the faint deep sky objects from our 
beautiful desert locations!

Cheers,
Mojo
-- 
Morris Jones
Monrovia, CA
http://www.whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org