Public Observing Sessions

From March through October, the TCAA holds monthly observing sessions that are open to the public. These "star parties" are held at our observatory at the Sugar Grove Nature Center, a dark sky site southwest of Bloomington.

In 2012, we will hold the following observing sessions Additional prominent sky objects such as planets, nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies will be viewed when visible.

Date	Featured Topic	Time
March 24	Reasons for the Seasons	7:30pm - 9:30pm
	At this time of quickly changing weather, we will look at how the Earth's orbit affects the days and the seasons.
April 21	Mars, the Red Planet	8:00pm - 10:00pm
	With Mars visible in the early evening, we will review the planet and view it through telescopes.
May 19	Saturn, the Ring World	8:30pm - 10:30pm
	The ringed planet provides one of the most compelling sights you can view through a telescope. We highlight Saturn near its annual opposition.
June 5	Venus Transit	5:00pm - 9:00pm
	We will host an event to observe the last Venus Transit of our lifetimes. Join us as we safely view our sister planet as it crosses the face of the Sun!
June 16	Arc to Arcturus and Speed to Spica	9:00pm - 11:00pm
	We look at the constellations and point out how some of the brightest stars are used as guideposts to help you find other constellations. We will also point out many of the bright deep-space objects that are visible in the sky at this time.
July 21	Asteroids, Meteors, and Meteorites	8:30pm - 10:30pm
	Some of the smallest bodies in our solar system have had the biggest impact on our understanding of how the solar system formed. Join our exploration of these curious members of our solar system and experience their impact on our understanding and on the planets.
August 18	Clusters and Nebulas of the Milky Way	8:00pm - 10:00pm
	The Milky Way contains a wide variety of celestial objects and we will look at some of these.
September 15	Stories of the Constellations	7:30pm - 9:30pm
	The constellations have been recognized since ancient times. We will recount some of the familiar stories from those mythical times.
October 13	Uranus and Neptune	7:00pm - 9:00pm
	Among the gas giants in our Solar System, Uranus and Neptune orbit far from the Sun.

A Typical Public Observing Session includes:

Lecture about the featured object.
This 20-30 min. presentation, held in the SGNC picnic shelter, includes images of and details about the featured sky object as well as information on other interesting celestial objects that might be viewed that evening.
Sky tour using a laser pointer.
We step out under the stars to point out the major constellations and planets, and to designate the location of the featured celestial object for the evening.
Telescope observing session.
We use members' telescope at ground level to observe the featured object and other wonders of the heavens.

You can download our 2012 Public Observing Session brochure.

If you would like to arrange a special event for your group, please follow this link to Request a Special Event.