public observing at Princeton University

The department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University holds monthly informal open houses for the purpose of observing the night sky. Weather permitting, we can usually look at planets, nebulae, open clusters, globular clusters, and galaxies through a 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. We (being the students and postdoctoral fellows in the department) are also quite happy to answer any astronomy-related questions you might have.


M51 (credit: Hubble Heritage Project)
calendar of upcoming public observing

Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

It is an open house, so come anytime during the above interval and stay as long as you like until closing. We will update the above calendar at about 3:00 PM the day of scheduled public observing to indicate whether it is on or canceled due to weather. PLEASE CHECK THIS WEBSITE before you set off.

For a last-minute check please look outside before leaving your house;
If you can't see any stars, neither can we!

details

WHERE: Peyton Hall, Ivy Lane, Princeton University. From the street entrance, come in, find the stairs to your right and go upstairs to the telescope room. WHEN: Open houses are usually on the second Wednesday of each month (in the event of cloudy skies, bumped to a week later), at 8:00 PM (9:00 PM when daylight savings time is effective). Sometimes these days/times are moved because of competing campus events or the availability of people to run the open houses, so watch this website. We will try to give as much advance notice of changes as possible.

For more information, contact Prof. Jim Gunn or K.G. Lee .

Note: We decide whether the weather will be good enough to hold our observing session by about 3:00 PM on the day in question. Please check this site after that time to make sure that we're going ahead, and please check it again immediately before you come! Sometimes we make mistakes, and we cancel when the weather is clear, or are forced to cancel at the last moment because of unexpectedly bad weather. Apologies in advance for all such mistakes. If you're really interested, check the same astronomy weather website we do to make such determinations: cleardarksky.

interesting links

Here is the Peyton Hall public observing reference page, including the observing list, some pictures we've taken, and some interesting external links.

For information on other open houses in the Princeton area, go to the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton.

For local weather, sun- and moon-rise/set times for Princeton, a customizable sky map, a weekly list of interesting astronomical objects visible from Peyton Hall, etc., check out Eye on the Sky's Peyton Hall Observatory page.

A good place to visit for pretty pictures: astronomy picture of the day.