Skynights, Discovery Days, SkyCamps and

the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter

This is cool — for those of you who live in Arizona or may be vacationing there sometime soon, check out the University of Arizona’s Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter — a science learning project aimed at the general public. It’s located up at 9,157 feet atop Mt. Lemmon, near Tucson. It looks like a great place to go get some hands-on experience with stargazing, professional-grade telescopes, and much more.

Moreover, the center is hosting workshops and programs for amateur astronomers, teaching about astrophotography.

Participants and users of the SkyCenter’s 24-inch telescope are already turning out some magnificent images, like this one, of the galaxy M101.

The center’s mission statement says that they want to engage people of all ages in the process of scientific exploration in their “sky island” — and I think that’s a really great way to get people interested in the sky AND science all at once. It is very much needed now that the University has closed down Flandrau Planetarium, largely due to economics, but also because a “new” planetarium is supposed to anchor a planned development project in Tucson. Unfortunately, that won’t be opening for a while, which leaves Tucsonians without the venerable Flandrau facility.  It looks like the center will be doing some outreach with a portable planetarium, however, so the community is not without a planetarium. And, with the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter not far away, the chance to do some actual hands-on astronomy is one that shouldn’t be missed.