Astronomy Night - Saturday, July 21st - Mars

[Jeffrey Alexander (Arlington Astronomy Nights)]

Hi folks, I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be having another series of Astronomy Nights this summer in Robbins Farm Park. The first night will be this coming Saturday, July 21st starting at around 8:30pm. If you haven’t been to an Astronomy Night before, here’s the deal (also, the same deal if you have):

I, and possibly a few other folks, will set up telescopes in Robbins Farm Park by the benches that overlook Boston.  Each scheduled evening we’ll have a different particular target in mind, though we always look around at what else is up too.  Anybody who would like is welcome to come by, look through a telescope, and maybe learn a thing or two.

The planets are often highlights of the evening, but to be honest, we don’t have a lot of planet visibility this summer.  If you think about how the solar system works, sometimes the planets are going to be on the opposite side of the Sun from us, meaning they’d be in our daytime sky, not the night time.  Saturn and Jupiter are more on the daytime side these days, but this coming weekend the plan is to catch a glimpse of Mars before it circles too far around the Sun for us to see it. It is getting far away from us, but we’ll still be able to see it is not just a star!

Please note - it will be getting dark in the park and will be fully dark as the evening progresses.  If you use a flashlight, please to try to keep it pointed firmly down at the ground.  It can take your eyes a long time to fully adapt to the dark which will let you see the most in the sky and in the telescope, but you can lose that with just seconds of bright light.  If you have young children, please monitor their flashlight use closely.

Astronomy Nights are free and fun for all ages. Kids under 5 might have a hard time looking through the eyepiece of a telescope.

You can learn more at https://www.arlingtonastronomy.org/

Hope to see you in the park under clear skies,

Jeff Alexander

[Jeffrey Alexander (Arlington Astronomy Nights)]

Sorry folks- that should of course say June 21 (next weekend), not July!

Jeff

On Jun 15, 2025, at 10:59 PM, Jeffrey Alexander (Arlington Astronomy Nights) <je...@arlingtonastronomy.org> wrote:

Hi folks, I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be having another series of Astronomy Nights this summer in Robbins Farm Park. The first night will be this coming Saturday, June 21st starting at around 8:30pm. If you haven’t been to an Astronomy Night before, here’s the deal (also, the same deal if you have):