Invite

Dark Skies Expansion Project StarWatch Party

At Pendleton Co. Middle and High School

(FES Families are welcome to attend as well!)

7:30 pm to 9:30 pm on October 7th, 2024

Join Libby and Robert Strong of Wheeling’s SMART-Center for a telescopic tour of the dark skies over Franklin, WV on the evening of October 7, 2024.  The fun will start at 7:30 pm.

Bring your family, bring your friends, and invite your neighbors to this Dark Sky Party.

The planet Venus and will set early in the program in the western sky.  The waxing crescent Moon (22.6%) will set shortly after 9:00 pm.  Bring your cell-phone cameras to take Lunar image souvenirs.  The planet Saturn, her ring system, and planetary-sized moon Titan will be rising throughout the program in the eastern sky.

If the night is clear, we hope to see the Milky Way rising out of the south-south-western sky – passing overhead and appearing to merge with the north-eastern horizon.  The Milky Way, our home-galaxy, is packed full of deep-space wonders.  We hope to see several kinds of Star Clusters, Double Stars, Nebula, and other distant Galaxies.

If you have a telescope and / or binoculars, bring them for even more astronomy fun.

The Dark Skies Expansion Project StarWatch Party at Pendleton Co. Middle and High School is sponsored by the West Virginia NASA Space Grant Consortium.

The middle/high school would also like to invite any FES students and families to attend the Watch Party as well!