National Astronomy Day 2008 is May 10th
It's time again to celebrate the cosmos!
National Astronomy Day 2008, held this year Saturday, May 10th, gives astronomy-lovers a chance to share their passion with the astronomy-curious. Clubs, planetaria, observatories, and museums will host public viewing events, telescope workshops, hands-on activities, and presentations to increase awareness about the profession and hobby.
Enter to win a free telescope from Meade Instruments!
Once again for 2008, Meade Instruments and Astronomy magazine unite with astronomy organizations throughout the country for the year's biggest star party.
Visitors to this program's events can pick up material from Astronomy magazine and enter drawings to win a Meade telescope and prizes from Astronomy. Meade 4M will donate an ETX-80AT telescope for each venue to give away and also provide a 8-inch LX90-ACF telescope valued at about $1,999 for the grand prize — Astronomy will pick the grand-prize winner from names collected at each venue.
This marks the fourth year that Meade 4M and Astronomy magazine have teamed up with planetaria throughout the country to celebrate National Astronomy Day. Each of the 27 venues in 06' gave away a Meade ETX telescope and free Astronomy magazine publications. More than 3,700 people entered the drawing for the grand prize in 2006.
About Astronomy Day
Astronomy Day is a grass roots movement to share the joy of astronomy
with the general population - "Bringing Astronomy to the People." On Astronomy Day, thousands of people who have never looked through a telescope will have an opportunity to see first hand what has so many amateur and professional astronomers all excited. Astronomy clubs, science museums, observatories, universities, planetariums, laboratories, libraries, and nature centers host special events and activities to acquaint their population with local astronomical resources and facilities. It is an astronomical PR event that helps highlight ways the general public can get involved with astronomy - or at least get some of their questions about astronomy answered. Astronomy Week is the same concept as Astronomy Day except seven times longer.
When
Astronomy Day occurs sometime between mid April and mid May on a Saturday near or before the 1st quarter Moon. Astronomy Week starts the Monday preceding Astronomy Day and ends the following Sunday. Astronomy Week was created to give sponsoring organizations a longer period of time to host special events. Some local Astronomy Week celebrations have actually been longer than just one week.
History of Astronomy Day
Astronomy Day was born in California in 1973. Doug Berger, then president of the Astronomical Association of Northern California, decided that rather than try to entice people to travel long distances to visit observatory open houses, they would set up telescopes closer to where the people were - busy locations - urban locations like street corners, shopping malls, parks, etc.
His strategy paid off. Not only did Astronomy Day go over with a bang, not only did the public find out about the astronomy club, they found out about future observatory open houses. Since the public got a chance to look through a portable telescope, they were hooked. Then wanted to see what went on at the bigger telescopes, so they turned out in droves at the next observatory open house.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or need more information please contact Meade Instruments at 1-800-626-3233 ext.6254