Starry Nights Festival in Yucca Valley this weekend

This weekend features an annual event that Jane and I have enjoyed, the Starry Nights Festival held in Yucca Valley. The event features talks at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum on astronomy topics, and David Levy will be the featured speaker on Saturday afternoon. Then they offer telescope viewing under the very dark skies of Yucca Valley through the Andromeda Society's member's telescopes at Machris Park. The museum will offer free shuttle buses to the park from the museum in Yucca Valley. On our previous visit to this event, the big floodlights of the park were off, there was plenty of dim red light to see by, and society volunteers were serving hot cocoa. All the information, including a program and map, is here at the Town of Yucca Valley's web site: <http://yucca-valley.org/departments/museumlecture.html> Jane and I will be there Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening at the star party with our big dobsonian reflectors. Next weekend, October 21, we're also planning a dark sky night just for our friends and fans of the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers, in the beautiful remote Colorado Desert south of Joshua Tree. I'll send another note with more information about that soon. With the giant planets gone from the evening sky for the rest of the year, it's a great time to soak up the faint deep sky objects from our beautiful desert locations! Cheers, Mojo -- Morris Jones Monrovia, CA http://www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org