Bring your Sweet Heart out on Valentine’s Day

Astronomy magazine, along with volunteer amateur astronomers from the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association (TAAA) and Pima Community College, will host the third annual all-day observing Solar and Dark Skies Star Parties.

In addition to the TAAA scopes for solar and night observing, the Pima Community College Observatory will be open with daytime solar observing, and night use of its 14″ telescope.

Also featured will be Hands-On Activities for all ages, presented by TAAA volunteers trained in Night Sky Network activities and NOAO Project ASTRO activities. Come and try out the different activities and see pictures of the Heart Shaped Nebula. Stop at Gramma’s Table out with the telescopes for your Valentine’s Card.

Feature Speaker: Astronomy Editor David J. Eicher. His talk, Does the Universe Really Care About Itself? Communicating Astronomy in the 21st Century, surveys the media world we now live in. With pseudoscience and inaccuracy dominating TV, blogs, and the Internet, Eicher asks whether we will ever get back to a realistic view of astronomy and science as they really are.

Special Presentation: Dolores Hill, co-lead of the OSIRIS-Rex “Target Asteroids!” program, will present OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission to Bennu: Approaching New Frontiers. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is a NASA New Frontiers spacecraft mission to be launched in 2016. Its prime objective is to return and analyze a pristine sample from the surface of the carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2023.

Presentation: Scott Kardel, president of the International Dark-Sky Association, will give a talk titled “Going Dark”, the growing interest in astro tourism. He’ll explain the ins and outs of Dark Sky Places and how they can help us all solve the problems of light pollution.

Presentation: Jim O’Connor: presenting What’s Up There? a basic exposure to the fundamentals of the night sky, (how constellations came to be, the nature of our solar system, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, and comets, and an overview of stellar evolution).

Where: Pima Community College East Campus Observatory, 8181 East Irvington Road, Tucson, AZ, 85730.
When: Saturday, February 14, 2015