Hello fellow astronomers!
We have an invitation from Ted Blank regarding the Town of Fountain Hills
celebration for being rewarded “Dark Sky Community” to come celebrate the
occasion, and participate in the star party on April 21, 2018.
I will paste Ted’s message below, along with his email address. Please respond
directly to Ted if you plan on attending and/or bringing your scope to the star
party.
Ted Blank’s email: tedblank@xxxxxxxxx
Sincerely,
Eric Hoag
SAC Public Outreach
From Ted Blank:
As you may have heard, after several years of hard work by local residents and
the Town Council, the Town of Fountain Hills was recently awarded "Dark Sky
Community" status by the International Dark Sky Association. In celebration of
this achievement, we are planning a "Dark Sky Celebration" to be held in the
afternoon and evening of Saturday, April 21st, 2018, at the Fountain Hills
Community Center.
The indoor event will begin at 3:00 PM. Our afternoon events will include
several well-known speakers, including Dr. Jeffrey Hall, Director of the Lowell
Observatory, and Ken Zoll, acclaimed researcher on archeo-astronomy of the
Verde Valley, and BBC filmmaker Harun Mehmedinovic. We will also have a
portable indoor planetarium in the lobby of the Community Center, and food
trucks and craft beer distributors to keep people fed and happy.
In addition to coming to enjoy the festivities, we would like to invite SAC
members to bring their telescopes on that date to Centennial Circle next to the
Fountain Hills Community Center for a giant, multi-club public Star Party.
This could include solar observing during the afternoon as well as evening
observing, as people desire and their own personal schedules permit. This is
close to first quarter moon so we would encourage sharing views of your
favorite lunar formation.
The day's events are all free, but I would appreciate an RSVP for those who
wish to bring telescopes to the star party ( tedblank@xxxxxxxxx ) so I can get
a handle on how many scopes to plan for.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could place this event on the club
calendar so members can plan their participation.
Thanks very much,
Ted Blank
