Night Sky Celebration at Mission Trails

Join us on Thursday, April 24 at the Mission Trails Regional Park (MTRP) Visitor Center for a special event in honor of International Dark Sky Week (Apr. 21-28). The event is free, but registration is requested.

The evening will include a twilight walk with the park's volunteer Trail Guides, community groups sharing information about dark sky initiatives, and a star party with the San Diego Astronomy Association. A Starry Walk, a new documentary about the night sky from the Pacific Crest Trail, will make its U.S. premiere during the event and there will be two showings.

From 6PM: Mingle and learn about nocturnal animals, nature, and the night sky

6PM: Astrophotagraphy Slideshow Presentation (ongoing)

6:30PM: A Starry Walk Film Screening

7PM: Twilight Walk with MTRP Trail Guides

7:30PM: Astrophotography Discussion

7:45PM: A Starry Walk Second Film Screening

Star party begins at dusk

Parking at the Visitor Center will be impacted. A shuttle will run from 5:30-9:30PM from and to overflow parking at Jackson Drive Parking Lot. Note: The parking lots will close after the stargazing ends. If your car is still in either parking lot, it is subject to being locked in.

This event is co-hosted by the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA), and local chapters of DarkSky International.

Information from SDAA about the night sky on April 24:

The sun sets at 7:24pm and it will be getting increasingly dark toward astronomical twilight at 8:53. The moon will have set before the star party. Two planets are visible in the sky - Mars (high in the sky near the constellation Cancer and very close to the Beehive Cluster) and mighty Jupiter with its four visible moons ( moving Westward over the building). You should be able to pick out Jupiter soon after sunset. Once you locate the Big Dipper and “follow the arc to Arcturus,” seek out a large globular cluster, M3 in the constellation Canis Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). Globular clusters are compact formations of tens of thousands to millions of gravitationally bound stars found in the halo of galaxies. M3 is bright and contains more than 500,000 stars. Near M3 is an interesting binary star. Binary stars consist of two stars gravitationally bound to each other and orbiting around a common center of mass. You can see the “split” of the two stars in amateur telescopes. Cor Caroli (Heart of Charles) is named after the beheaded King Charles I of England. The constellation Leo will he almost overhead and this should be a good night to search the for galaxies in Leo, visible at approximately 35 million light years away.

Host or Publisher Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation