Courtesy/PEEC
Courtesy/PEECPEEC News:
Join Steve Becker to review highlights of the evening sky at 7 p.m., today, Aug. 10 at the Los Alamos Nature Center’s planetarium.
Becker will focus on the location of planets and constellations and his talk will act as a preview of the Pajarito Astronomer’s Dark Night program happening the following day.
Audience members will learn about what will be visible in the night sky throughout August. This is truly a summer of planets, as Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible with the naked eye and Neptune and Uranus will be visible through a telescope. In addition to looking at the planets, Becker will point out the brighter constellations and show some of the interesting deep sky objects like star clusters, galaxies and nebula that may be observed with telescopes during the Dark Night event.
The audience will also explore what is in the sky from midnight to dawn and travel to the southern hemisphere to see some of the celestial sights of the southern night sky that aren’t visible from here. The Pajarito Astronomers’ County-Sponsored Dark Night will start at 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 11 at Spirio Soccer Field at Overlook Park in White Rock. Observation will end by 1 a.m.
Saturday, Aug. 11 the nature center will also show the full-dome film “National Parks Adventure” at 2 p.m. This MacGillivray Freeman film was brought to Los Alamos by CB FOX, Metzger’s Hardware and the Delle Foundation, with additional funding from the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The film is narrated by Robert Redford and offers a sweeping overview of the national parks’ history and incredible views of our public lands.
Seating is limited for this program and movie, so call the nature center at 505.662.0460 or stop by to reserve your tickets. Admission for both events is $6 for adults and $4 for kids. Events in the planetarium are not recommended for kids under age 4.
For more information about this and other PEEC programs, visit www.peecnature.org, email programs@peecnature.org or call 505.662.0460.
