AOAS and the Ft Smith Parks Dept have teamed up to give the public an opportunity to view stars and planets from here within the city of Ft Smith. We call our program, “Stars in the Park”, and these outings will utilize the materials from the Night Sky Network, a joint collaboration between NASA, JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. These events are FREE and open to the public.
The dates and locations for these public nights are as follows:
MARCH 26 OR 27 (CAC) (I say OR because if Friday's are clouded out, we'll do Saturday)
APRIL 17 (CAC)
MAY 21 OR 22 (CAC OR MLK) CAROL ANN CROSS PARK
JUNE 19 (CAC)
AUGUST 21 (CAC OR MLK) MARTIN LUTHER KING PARK
SEPTEMBER 17 or 18 (CAC)
OCTOBER 16 (CAC)
When you come to one of our public nights, why not participate in a “Telescope Treasure Hunt”, where you’ll ask one of the telescope operators to help you find and record one of the objects on your “Telescope Treasure Hunt” object list. You’ll see one of two Supernova Remnants, one or more of several Planetary Nebulae, Star Clusters big and small from as few a dozen stars to as many as 500,000 stars in a single cluster with a telescope. You’ll also see many of the planets in our solar system, as well as the cratered face of the moon on occasion.
Or you might want to actually “see” the brighter stars in our galactic neighborhood around which extra-solar planets have been found. This activity is called “Where Are the Other Worlds?” and gives the visitor a view of one or more of the stars in question both with and without a telescope’s assistance. They’ll see the parameters of the star’s known planets, how the orbits of that planet compares and contrasts with our own Solar System, it’s orbital period (days, months or years) and the relative sizes of these otherworldly bodies.
Come on out to one of our AOAS / NSN Public Nights. There’s never a fee for looking through any of our equipment, but we always like to encourage everyone to “Buy an AOAS t-shirt” while you’re with us. It’s our biggest way of raising money for our many projects and every penny to AOAS for merchandise or donations is 100% deductible on your taxes. Why not donate to AOAS and get a break on your taxes?
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