Schedule a Star Party for Your School or Group
Every year, ASLC conducts dozens of free star parties for local school and various groups in the Las Cruces area. We bring our telescopes, enthusiasm and knowledge, and share it with your students, scouts, church group, etcetera. The viewing sessions may be combined with educational presentations to help students attain proficiency in the respective educational benchmarks for their grade level.
In order to request a star party, please contact the club's Outreach Coordinator (Steve Wood) at Outreach@aslc-nm.org.
Some considerations:
- Star parties for schools work best during standard time (November through early-March)
- Avoid times during the month when there is a full or gibbous moon in the sky as this makes viewing of lunar craters and dimmer deep space objects difficult.
- The observing sessions seem to work the best when there are several bright planets to observe. For CY 2022-23 - crowd favorites Jupiter & Saturn will be most easily viewed in the Fall (Sept-Dec for Saturn; Oct-Feb for Jupiter).
- We are happy to do informal talks, demonstrations or powerpoint presentations to address the needs of your group. Just let us know the objectives you wish for us to address.
- Our volunteers want to support as many star parties as possible, but we have our limits. It is important that you work with the Outreach Coordinaot to find a date that we are able to support. We hate to disappoint.
- Viewing works best if outdoor lighting is reduced or eliminated. Please work with your facility and neighbors to have exterior lighting turned off for the event. Please also make sure that outdoor irrigation systems will not come on during the event (yes, this has happened!)
- Please provide an estimate of the number of attendees you expect. One telescope for 100 people makes for long lines; Ten telescopes for 25 people is a bit of overkill.
- We are happy to do parties for most any age group, but experience has taught us that kids at least 7 or 8 years old seem to benefit the most from the experience.
Also, please consider having one of our astronomers visit your classroom(s) on the day of your star party to provide instruction regarding what your kids will be looking at, how telescopes work, etcetera. The presentation(s) coupled with the star party experience really helps to facilitate the educational process. See the Visit Request Page for additional information.
Build a Simple DIY Planisphere (coming soon)
A planisphere is a simple/inexpensive yet elegant tool for finding stars and constellations in the night sky. The night sky is rendered in a spherical format then rotated in a simple holder. When the time and date are set properly, the visible night sky is displayed in the window.
The ASLC version is set for local latitude (32.5N), so it should give a pretty accurate rendering of the stars visible from Las Cruces or Leasburg Dam SP.
To build your own, just download the pdf file (click the image to the right) and print the two-page file on cardstock (on a capable printer). Instructions are included. Bring your planisphere to any ASLC function and one of our astronomer-members will give you a demonstration.
Quick Start Guide for Walter Haas Observatory
This link is provided for club members who need to refer to instructions to open and operate the club's observatory at LDSP. Keys and alarm codes (required to open the observatory) are obviously not included.
Last Update:
18 February, 2023 7:45
