Harry Potter astronomy, dark sky stargazing coming up

[Jane Houston Jones]

Hi astronomy enthusiasts, in honor of the new Harry Potter movie coming 
out next week some of your intrepid Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers got 
together and compiled "The Harry Potter Objects" - a literary 
astronomical project connecting characters in . K. Rowling's books to 
their astronomical counterparts.

We read the books and made a list of the astronomy names, like Sirius 
Black and Draco Malfoy.  Then we researched both the astronomical 
objects and the Potter characters.  Next we took our telescopes, 
binoculars, star charts and green laser pointers out of the city to our 
dark sky observing spots over many months and located the objects. It 
was a ton of fun and finally we wrote it up for you to enjoy!  Here it 
is:  http://tr.im/HPsky

Also, we're inviting you to join us at a dark sky outing next weekend. 
On July 17th and 18th some of us are taking our telescopes to the Warner 
Springs Ranch.  http://www.warnersprings.com/  Each month the ranch 
offers a free star party to their guests and local folks.  They usually 
just have one or two astronomers ,and one of them is a colleague of mine 
at JPL.  she thought we might like to try it out.  It is a one third 
shorter drive than to our usual desert spots.You don't have to stay at 
the ranch to stargaze with us, but we are staying there for the Saturday 
night public star party (a few of us will be there Friday night also).  
There are camping areas neaby - Oak Knoll Campground is about 15 miles 
away on Palomar Mountain, I am told.  http://www.warnersprings.com/ 
Astronomy is weather permitting, of course. 

The 4 of us who worked on the Harry Potter Observing Project will all be 
there Saturday night, and we'll be happy to point out the summer objects 
from the project list.  :-)  The Milky Way, subject of my July 2009 
Whats Up podcast will be beautiful from Warner Springs.  Hope to see 
some of you there! Email me if you have questions, but contact the ranch 
for logistics and/or reservations.  Jane

-- 
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
Website: www.whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers:  http://www.otastro.org
My NASA JPL What's Up podcast: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup.cfm
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones  http://twitter.com/CassiniSaturn 
Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/