Visitor Nights at the UCI Observatory

2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union with the goal of helping the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through observations of the day- and night-time sky, engaging them in a personal sense of wonder and discovery. The theme is "The Universe, Yours to Discover". In April, observatories through out the world were asked to open their doors to the general public for "100 Hours of Astronomy" events.  The UCI Observatory held Visitor Nights on three consecutive nights with star-gazing and a lecture on a different topic each night:

Approximately 1,200 people attended our three Visitor Nights. They came from all over the Southland (Corona, Huntington Beach, Fullerton, Irvine, La Palma, Mission Viejo, Norwalk, Santa Ana, Walnut, etc.) and enjoyed the opportunity to see Saturn, the Orion Nebula, and star clusters with our telescopes. Here are some of the comments they left in our logbook:

    "Saturn - WOW!"
    " Yay! Astronomy. Thanks."
    "1st time at the observatory...oooooo!"
    "Thank you so much for such an amazing experience!"
    "You are cool"
    "I want to attend more events like these."
    "Thank you!"

Below are some photos from the event. If you want to contribute photos to our website that you took, please email them to us at uciobs@uci.edu.

Visitor Night/UCI Observatory/April 2009/Lecture on Stars
Photo 1:  Crowd listening to Michael Hood give a lecture on the "Birth, Life and Death of Stars".

Visitor Night/UCI Observatory/April 2009/Lecture on Stars
Photo 2:  Crowd listening to Michael Hood give a lecture on the "Birth, Life and Death of Stars".
  
Visitor Night/UCI Observatory/April 2009
Photo 3:  Visitor Night at the UCI Observatory on April 4, 2009, at sunset with Turtle Ridge in the background.

 

Last editted 04/08/09
 Department of Physics & Astronomy
T. Smecker-Hane (tsmecker@uci.edu) University of California, Irvine