Wildomar Star Party, August 28, 2010, Marna O'Brien Park

The City of Wildomar and the Temecula Valley Astronomers are sponsoring a star party at Wildomar's Marna O'Brien Park on August 28. A show will start at 8:00 and run for a half hour, followed by observing through telescopes; and last is a drawing for telescopes. The telescopes being given away are the Galileoscopes: a low-cost, yet functional 50mm telescope. This telescope is best suited as a learning activity, as it needs assembling. I put one together last year, and found the directions easy to follow. However, I do recommend reading the directions and test fitting the pieces (to ensure you're putting the correct piece in its place) before assembly.

This is the third annual star party Wildomar has sponsored in its three years since incorporation. Last year, the event was announced by the Press-Enterprise, which interviewed me, and the Press-Enterprise article was reported on by The Californian here. But best of all, the Valley News sent a reporter to the event and published a follow-up story that is no longer on their website ("Astronomy outing draws standing-room-only-crowd"). It is a shame that the Valley News article is not available, as I wanted to commend the reporter for not only being there but for not using flash photography.

As last year's event drew 300 people (a conservative estimate based on the number of raffle tickets --one per person), this year's may be equally large.

Update: Last, I should add that the person most responsible for making this event happen, this year and previous years, is Community Services Directory Paula Willette. Thank you, Paula.

Update 2: map to Marna O'Brien

Depending on the position of Saturn in the sky, viewing may start first to allow attendees to see Saturn before the show starts.  

jg