EVENTS

Updated November 24, 2007

In addition to our monthly club outing following each meeting, the Big Sky Astronomy Club schedules a minimum of two public star parties each summer. Please contact a club officer for more information on upcoming star parties.

Upcoming Events

The BSAC is pleased to announce, its fifth annual Telescope Workshop.

"Fifth Annual Telescope Workshop"

Location: Glacier High School Library, 375 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell. A map to the school and floor plan showing the location of the library, in PDF form, can be found here.

Date & Time: Friday, December, 2007, 7 - 9 PM. Observing afterwards, weather permitting.

What's Up: The club will be hosting its annual Telescope Workshop open to the general public. Participants are encouraged to bring their own telescopes. With Christmas just around the corner, the workshop is a perfect opportunity to become an informed shopper for anyone considering the purchase of a telescope as a gift this holiday season. The workshop will begin with a PowerPoint presentation describing the various types of telescopes and how they operate. After the presentation, club members will be available to assist visitors with the setup and operation of their personal telescopes and answer any questions they may have. Club members will also have several of their own scopes set up for the participants to examine.

If the weather cooperates, we may even be able to set up outside and do some observing, so bring along warm clothes, just in case.

Winter offers some marvelous deep sky objects for viewing. The Great Nebula in Orion is situated high in the south this time of year and offers awesome vistas. The Pleiades Cluster and the planet Mars are also in a prime viewing orientation.

More Information:

For further information, contact Club President Mark Paulson via email or phone at 406-257-7261. You may also contact Club Vice President Bruce Ruby via email or phone at 406-857-3753.

Past Events - 2006

The November Transit Of Mercury

NEVER ATTEMPT TO VIEW THE SUN WITH ANY OPTICAL INSTRUMENT WITHOUT PROPER FILTERING. PERMANENT DAMAGE AND PROBABLE TOTAL BLINDNESS WILL RESULT.

On Wednesday, November 8, 2006, several club members set up their scopes in the courtyard at Flathead Valley Community College to view the transit of Mercury across the face of the Sun.

Throughout the afternoon, several dozen students and staff came and went, taking advantage of the unusually clear autumn skies to view the innermost planet's silhouette as it slowly crept across the backdrop of our Sun through the club members' scopes.

Here are a few representative pictures from November's event.

Click on a thumbnail below for a larger image and a brief description.
A KPAX news segment can be seen by clicking this link.

The 2006 Big Mountain "Stargazer"

On Friday night, July 17, 2006, we set up our scopes at the summit of The Big Mountain, located about 10 miles north of Whitefish. This year's "Stargazer" was another huge success, with a total of twelve telescopes brought to the summit by club members and an additional two scopes brought up by non-member participants. Last year's event was unusually chilly, as a brisk breeze blew from the northeast most of the evening. This year, however, we were blessed with clear, dark skies and calm winds.

This year, the event coincided with the Big Mountain's Summer Festival. With several other competing events going on in Whitefish as well as on the Mountain, our visitor numbers were down from previous years. However, with less people to shuffle past the scopes, they could actually spend a lot more time at the eyepiece, taking full advantage of the clear, dark skies to appreciate the moon, double stars, star clusters, nebulae and galaxies.

Here are a few representative pictures from the 2006 event.

Click on a thumbnail below for a larger image and a brief description.

The 2004 Montana "Starwatch"

Unfortunate circumstances prevented the Southwest Montana Astronomical Society from putting on a Montana Starwatch in 2005.

The 2004 Montana Starwatch, however, was held under beautiful dark skies the weekend of July 16 and 17. For the third year running, the event was held at Harley Park (elevation 7,400 ft.) in the Little Belt Mountains, near Neihart, Montana. Two club members, Russ Lucas and Al Ebeltoft made the trek to Starwatch this year. Below are some thumbnail links to larger images.

Astronomy Day/Space Day 2004

The Big Sky Astronomy Club was invited to participate in this year's Astronomy Day/Space Day event, which was held on May 1 at the National Guard Armory in Kalispell. Attendance at the day-long event was estimated at close to 3,000 people. The club had four scopes set up for solar viewing and, as you can see from the photos below, there was very little time all day when there wasn't someone taking a look. We enjoyed summer-like weather and everyone had a great time.