Astronomy Welcome Night

LOCATION Peninsular Firearm Academy

Come with your own telescope or binoculars, or just your eyes. Got a scope you've never quite worked out? Bring it along and one of our members will help you set it up and show you what it can do. Don't have one yet? Come anyway: there's always someone happy to show you what they're looking at and talk through what to consider before you buy your own gear.

It's a relaxed night. There's enough moon around that we're not fussy about torches or phone screens, so don't worry about getting the site etiquette perfect on your first visit, that can wait until you're a regular. A few of our members use the night to test or tune up their own equipment too, so there's plenty of scopes around and plenty of people to ask.

When to arrive
We start an hour before sunset so there's still daylight to set up, and wrap up around 9:30pm. When you get there, we'll point you to a place to park, with the rear of your car facing the car park.

What to bring
  - Warm clothes. It gets cold fast once the sun's down, even on a mild evening: gloves, a beanie, and a jacket you can layer under. Warm socks and closed shoes make more difference than people expect, since you're mostly standing still for hours. A thermos of something hot is a good idea too.
  - Dinner: bring your own. There's a restroom & kettle for tea/coffee/etc. on site but no food.
  - If your telescope runs on power, make sure it's freshly charged, has new batteries, or you've got a 12V adapter or portable power pack. Rechargeable AAs run at a lower voltage (1.2V instead of 1.5V), which can cause problems in astro trackers, so fresh alkaline batteries are a safer bet for those.
  - Spare batteries for your finderscope too, often a small CR2032 or similar.
  - Got a Celestron StarSense Explorer? Install the StarSense Explorer app before you arrive; you'll need the unlock code from the card that shipped with the telescope.

If the weather turns
We'll email you by midday if the night's cancelled for cloud or bad weather.

Equipment

For Astronomy Welcome Night, come with your scope/binoculars or just you eyes and look learn about the cosmos from our dark site.