Yosemite California Events

The dates are set for our 15th year of Stars Over Yellowstone Summer 2012.

Put these dates on your calendar and come join us for the fun.

• June 22 & 23
• July 20 & 21
• Aug. 17 & 18

For over 15 years the Southwest Montana Astronomical Society, along with the National Parks Service and the Museum of the Rockies, have hosted a star-party under the dark-skies of Yellowstone National Park.  Astronomy club members come down from Bozeman, as well as other  astronomers from Montana and Idaho, to descend on the Madison campground for a weekend of star-gazing.

We are always happy to have traveling astronomers to join us for the star party, so bring your scopes.

Set up scopes around 9:00, observing when it gets dark.  We'll be at the Hundred Acre Park off of Oak Street again this year.

STARS OVER YELLOWSTONE  2012 Dates:

2012 marks our 15th year of going to Yellowstone National Park for public outreach events, which include speakers and star parties on the Friday and Saturday evenings, and solar viewing and Sun presentation at Old Faithful on Saturday afternoon.

Dates set for SOY Summer 2012, our 15th year.

June 22 & 23 - Speaker: Jim Manning - Director Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

6/22:  Cosmic Update 2012 - what's up, what's new, what's hot in the big wide universe and our exploration of it.

6/23:  Did Mars Start Out like Yellowstone? - a look at our search for life elsewhere, and how Mars may have started out like Yellowstone as a possible source of life .

July 20 & 21 - Speakers: Michelle and Shane Larson - Utah State University

7/20: One Star, Two Star, Red Star, Blue Star: An exploration of how astronomers classify different stars, by Michelle B. Larson, PhD, Utah State University

The word STAR appears frequently in everyday language; in children's stories and songs, in newspaper and magazine articles, in the movies and on television, and in everyday conversation. But, what comes to mind when we think STAR?  "Balls of gas burning billions of miles away" as described by Pumbaa in Disney's The Lion King? Our own Sun? Taylor Swift? Millions of distant stars have been cataloged by astronomers, bearing names such as dwarf stars, giant stars, hot stars, cool stars, and on and on. In this presentation we will explore a variety of STARS, including a brand new type discovered just in the past year.

7/21: FROM THE BIG BANG TO OLD FAITHFUL: The Cosmic biography of atoms, by Shane L. Larson, Department of Physics, Utah State University

Everything we see around us is composed of the same fundamental building blocks - the 92 naturally occurring chemical elements.  The most abundant element in the Cosmos is hydrogen, most of which was synthesized in the Big Bang.  But where did all the atoms we see around us come from?  How did the original hydrogen in the Universe evolve and mutate into carbon and calcium and iron and gold and all the other elements that we can easily find by breaking open rocks and other common Earthly objects?  The answer is intimately tied to the lives of the stars. They are born out of loose nebular gas and dust, burn their hydrogen fuel into heavier more complex elements, and ultimately explode in one of the most devastating cosmic events known - a supernova - dispersing the elements out into the Cosmos.

In this talk, we'll consider the biography of an atom, from the Big Bang to Yellowstone National Park, and explore how the evolution and changes of a single atom can be traced and followed in the lives and deaths of stars.  We can trace the lives of the stars through what can easily be seen with small telescopes and binoculars, and will navigate our way through the night sky to visit nebulae, star clusters, binary stars, and supernova remnants to tell our tale.

Aug. 17 & 18 - Speaker: SPOT program from Montana State University

8/17:  "Sun-Earth Connection" - The Sun and the Earth are intimately linked. Discover what scientists have learned about how changes on the Sun trigger events on Earth and how this impacts human exploration of space.

8/18: "Roadside Geology of the Solar System"  - We can learn about how the Earth formed and the forces that change the face of the Earth today by studying the planets of our solar system. Compare what we see here on Earth to the volcanoes on Venus and Mars and the active moons of Jupiter and Saturn in Roadside Geology of the Solar System.

Typical weekend:

Friday Night:

• Guest speaker at the Madison Amphitheater (approximately 9:00 or 9:30 p.m., check with the park website for exact times).

• Star-party directly following speaker (approximately 10:00 p.m.).

Saturday:

• Solar-gazing at Old Faithful - 2:00 through 5:00 p.m.

Saturday Night:

• Guest speaker at the Madison Amphitheater.
• Star-party directly following speaker.