Improving Outreach Events and Star Parties

Follow the tips below for a smooth and impressive observational astronomy event!

1. Safety and Logistics

A comfortable and safe event experience allows attendees to make the most of the evening.

Ensure you have the following:

  1. Clearly labeled and directions signs for parking and arrival.

  2. An easily noticeable illuminated check-in area.

  3. Clearly marked walkways between arrival and observing areas.

  4. A way to designate staff from attendees. Light-up star pins work great! Light-up pins can mess with dark adaptation and may need to be turned off while observing faint deep-sky objects.

  5. Warnings for any steep slopes or drop-offs.

Ensure you communicated the following to attendees:

  1. A labeled map for arrival instructions and emergency contact info.

  2. Wear long pants and warm clothing even during the summer.

Illuminated path lights

2. Expectations for Staff

The vast majority of the public attending star parties and astronomy outreach events will likely know very little about astronomy. Questions such as “What is the difference between a solar system and a galaxy?” are very common. Most of the public will also have unrealistic expectations for what objects look like in an eyepiece and have no idea about the tens or hundreds of hours of work that go into astronomical images. Understanding where the general public is can help mentally prepare staff for the event.

Every person attending the event is unique. Understanding an individual’s experience, ability, and knowledge can help enrich the experience for both staff and the public. Before a group is about to observe, small talk that gauges their degree of astronomy knowledge, experience, and interest will help cater your description and conversation about the object.

Logarithmic scaled diagram of the solar system

A large portion of the public has not looked at objects in a telescope. Compared to high-resolution color pictures of nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters, seeing a faint fuzzy object in a telescope can be disappointing. Planets are bright and full of color but look tiny compared to images taken of them at high focal lengths or right next to the planet itself. Setting expectations and selling the story behind an object can make a fuzzy smudge extremely exciting. Explaining how far away, how large, or how old an object is can change a “That’s it?” to “Woah.” Simply stating an object is how many ever hundreds of light years away is not very meaningful if the immensity of a light year is not put into context first. Refer to section 7 for more details on how best to do so.

Seeing through a telescope is a skill that takes years or even a lifetime to master. Someone seeing through a telescope for the first time may have trouble getting an image to appear in the eyepiece. Having an extra expendable eyepiece that people can try using will ensure that everyone is able to get their eye centered when viewing through a telescope. Make sure they can see light across the entire field of view. The eyepiece needs to be able to be pointed at a light source that will not interfere with dark adaptation and a glow-in-the-dark surface that can be charged with a blacklight works great.

3. Setting Expectations of/for the Public

Showing a representation of what the object looks like beforehand can make all the difference between seeing it and seeing nothing. All Minute of Space eyepiece view recreations are free to use for any event.

While waiting in line many people are going to be looking at their phone screens and will have zero dark adaptation when they take a look in the eyepiece. Implement rules or procedures that prevent people from looking at screens or lights for at least 3 minutes before viewing a deep sky object. Those three minutes can make a huge difference.

For public events, I like to show off a large variety of objects so someone who attends an event has the opportunity to see the variety of objects the universe has on display. The majority of events are likely to be done near cities with heavy light pollution, and start 30 minutes after sunset. This makes the majority of deep sky objects are to faint show, and there is time between when the event starts and when the sky is fully dark. Try to only show objects that look fantastic for your sky seeing and light pollution conditions.

Using a green 301/302 laser pointer to point out constellations, bright stars, how to find Polaris, etc, is a great way to start the evening while the sky continues to darken. I prefer lasers with 18650 batteries instead of USB rechargeable ones so I can have backup batteries if the laser runs out of charge.

4. Equipment and Sky Conditions

Going past naked-eye, binoculars are a fun engaging way to observe the night sky and can be passed around or mounted on a tripod. Large asterisms and clusters can only be observed with binoculars. I recommend a cheap pair such as the Celestron Upclode G2 10x50s. Refer to the binocular basics page for more information on binoculars and how to mount a binocular to a tripod.

For planets and bright deep sky objects a visual telescope is best and I believe an 8” Dobsonian is a nice balance between aperture and portability. If you have access to larger telescopes that’s great! Telescopes smaller than 5 inches will produce dim low-resolution views that may be lackluster for general public viewing. If you are using a telescope with a front corrector plate such as a Schmidt-Cassegrain, make sure you have a dew heater to prevent fogging if your location regularly is close to the dew point.

Green 301 laser pointing at Orion’s Belt

The Hyades Cluster through 10x50 binoculars (left) and the Ring nebula (M 57) through a large telescope (right)

Observing galaxies and faint nebulae from a city visually is practically impossible and having an EAA (electronically assisted astronomy) compliments a purely visual telescope well. The Dwarf II smart telescope and the Seestar S50 are both great cost-effective options. For those of you with a higher budget, Unistellar’s equinox 2 or eVscope 2 work great as well.

For those of you in the USA with very large budgets, look into night vision astronomy. For a couple thousand dollars, hundreds of objects are easily visible from a city center.

Images taken with an eVscope 2 during an outreach event

As mentioned earlier, starting with a naked-eye tour is a great way to begin the evening. Use a green 301/302 laser pointer to effectively point out objects in the sky. I am not sure if it is the novelty of the laser but almost everyone attending these events is amazed by the laser despite it being one of the cheapest and most common pieces of hardware being used.

Start by pointing out the brightest stars and naked eye planets in the sky. Showing off how planets do not twinkle is best done earlier in the evening when seeing conditions are worse. When seeing conditions improve later into the evening the bright stars may appear to no longer twinkle and cause confusion.

After the bright stars point out how to find Polaris using the Big Dipper (Same as the Plough or Ursa Major). Showing how to find North is a great way to get everyone oriented with the night sky for later in the evening.

5. Start with a Naked Eye Tour

Finding Polaris with the Big Dipper

Next, popular and notable constellations such as Orion, the Big Dipper, Cygnus, or Scorpio are great as their shapes can be recognized even in light polluted skies. If your sky conditions allow, try pointing to and tracing out zodiacal constellations. In my experience asking a group, “Is anyone a Sagittarius or Scorpio?” and proceeding to show them the constellation is always well received.

Satellites are also great naked-eye objects since they are bright and move across the sky. The ISS (International Space Station), Tiangong (Chinese Space Station), or a train or Starlink satellites are all great options. Point out the fact there are people on the ISS and Tiangong space station flying over you at thousands of mph/kph.

6. Choosing Bright and Unique Objects

The best objects are either bright and striking or have unique and interesting shapes. This applies to EAA as well. Examples of bright and striking objects are planets like Jupiter or nebulas such as the Orion Nebula. Examples of unique and interesting objects are the 37 cluster which looks like a 37, and the Swan Nebula which has a bright central region that looks like a swan sitting on a lake. The orientation of unique objects may affect one’s ability to notice the shape. Describing the relative orientation beforehand helps. An app like Sky Guide or Sky Safari shows the best and brightest objects for the naked eye, binoculars, and telescopes for any given night.

All the objects under observing guides labeled as best and bright are great targets. Globular clusters may be visually uninteresting depending on the level of local light pollution and the size of the telescope used.

For visual observing planets and star clusters are best. A few bright nebulae such as M57, M27, M42, M17 look great with a UHC or O-III filter.

The brighter galaxies and large nebulae are great for EAA. After a few minutes of integration time, features such as spiral arms in galaxies can be pointed out. The Eagle Nebula (M 16) requires a dark sky to see visually but with EAA the iconic Pillars of Creation are visible within minutes. Other nebulas such as the Flame and Horsehead nebula in Orion are recognizable after 5 minutes of integration time.

37 Cluster in a medium to large telescope

7. Selling the Story

M 13, a globular cluster 22,000 light-years away and 11.7 billion years old.

If you are showing objects that are not visually striking (this is highly likely in spring when the plane of the galaxy is not overhead) selling the object beforehand can make a big difference. These types of objects are typically referred to as concept objects. They are interesting conceptually but not visually.

A great example is the quasar 3C 273. It appears as a 12-13th magnitude star but is an astounding 2.4 billion light-year away active galactic nucleus. Globular clusters may appear as uninteresting partially resolved fuzzy blobs, however, when put into context as collections of tens of thousands of stars on the outskirts of the Milky Way, they become very intriguing objects.

As mentioned above, explaining an object is a couple of thousand light years away or is 10 billion years old alone without context is meaningless for most. By using comparisons with the size of the Earth, solar system, galaxy, or the age of the universe, these massive numbers tend to be better appreciated.

Improve subsequent events by looking for what the disinterested do and do not respond to. Almost everyone enjoys looking at the rings of Saturn through a telescope and if someone seems more disinterested than normal it may be due to them seeing nothing but being to embarrassed to say it.

Verify the object is still centered in the field of view, that the person looking in the eyepiece is able to align their eye and see an image, and if they use high-power glasses or have very poor vision, allow them to adjust the focus to best suit their eyes. Allowing everyone to adjust the focus for their eyes is not a recommended option and using long eye relief eyepieces that enable the use of glasses can help. For those who need a large focus adjustment, if time allows, have them adjust the focus for their eyes once the rest of the group has already had a chance to view the object.

An attendee may not see an object because they are not dark-adapted or have not looked long enough. Promoting prolonged observing and ensuring that the person looking in the eyepiece can take their time will allow for more details to be seen.

8. Learn from the Disinterested

The Western Veil Nebula is not visible without a few minutes of dark adaptation. Once dark-adapted and focused, many thin wisps of gas can be seen across the entire field of view.