6-10 PM
Tonight I went to a dark parking lot filled with telescopes and astronomers to gaze at the stars in great detail for a few hours. I saw Orion, Auriga, Gemini, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Taurus, Cassiopeia, Pegasus, Andromeda, Rigel, Betelgeuse, "the bright star in Taurus whose name escapes me", M31, M42, "the Andromeda galaxy, whose M# escapes me", Sirius, the Summer Triangle, the Winter Circle, Deneb, Altair, Vega, Jupiter (twice, once with 4 moons and once with 3), and a crescent Moon. I viewed many of these with varying telescopes and binoculars before heading into the new planetarium.
On that note, let me just say the planetarium there is absolutely brilliant. During the day, they use the "theater" as a classroom, but on certain nights, they drop down a dome from the ceiling high above, place a projector in the center of the room, and start showing amazing semi-3D movies that don't need glasses for free, although they do ask for donations. Granted, most of their current "movies" are 20-30 minute long educational films designed for little kids, but they are still very interesting. The two "movies" I watched were one about the legend of "Orion the Hunter", one of the more famous constellations, and a film about "winter stargazing", which basically just gives you a few tips on looking around the night sky, and lets you know that the night sky is brightest away from the city lights. However, the planetarium, which is in its first year, is currently trying to use the donations to buy more movies, so that it can eventually get enough of a collection going that they can buy an hour-long film and charge people $5 a seat. I was given a little demo of this potential just before I left, when some amazing trailers played, including one about astronauts that had the song "Rocket Man" playing in the background, and another one showing off different telescopes around the world, including a view from one in Hawaii that I recognized from one of my vacation there last summer.
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