Free Public Stargazing at the Montgomery Hill Observatory AUGUST 8, 2025 8:45 pm

AUGUST 8, 2025 8:45 pm - 11:15 pm

August 8, 2025, Free Public Stargazing @ MHO

This activity is weather-dependent.

Hi All,

Enjoy a free public stargazing event at the Montgomery Hill Observatory from 8:45-11:15 pm. View the skies with our two observatories and several telescopes set out for the public. Kids learn how to use telescopes and identify objects in the sky!

Tonight the Earths natural satellite the Moon will be one day short of being a full Moon, the full moon in August is commonly called the Sturgeon Moon. This name comes from the fact that the large sturgeon fish of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain were traditionally caught during this time.

Brocchi's cluster also known as the Coathanger cluster - Cr 399, this asterism is made of 10 stars that look like an upside-down coathanger, it's located in the constellation Vulpecula.

The Double star cluster in Perseus (NGC 869 & 844) is visible to the naked eye but will look like a field of diamonds in the night sky in a telescope. Both clusters are 7500 light years away from Earth, they are also very young at 12.8 million years old.

NGC 457 the Dragonfly cluster is in the constellation Cassiopeia, it was discovered by William Herschel in 1787. It is 7900 light years away and is 21 million years old, it is also known as the E.T. cluster.

In the constellation Hercules, M13, the Great Cluster in Hercules is considered one of the finest globular clusters. Globular clusters are densely packed collections of ancient stars. Roughly spherical, they contain hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of stars.
Look for the Constellation Lyra where you can find the Ring Nebula (M 57) a planetary nebula that looks like a ring of smoke.

The original star that created the Ring Nebula is thought to have been several times more massive than our sun, but not large enough to explode as a supernova. This will happen to our star the Sun in 5 billion years, so we have plenty of time to find a new home.

Let's see if we can find M31, the Andromeda Galaxy; it is the nearest galaxy to us at 2.5 million light years away. It is slightly larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxy will collide together in 4 billion years; we are traveling at 110 kilometers per second toward each other.

Keep looking up; you’re bound to find something new.
Rick

Parking: Free Parking after 6:00 PM in parking lot #9A for this event.

EVC map:https://www.evc.edu/sites/default/files/2022-03/evc_campus_map.pdf

For questions, contact Rick Francisco at ricardo.francisco@evc.edu