The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada is celebrating Canada’s 150th Birthday with a nation wide star party. RASC Vancouver is holding our event at Maple Ridge’s Selvey Park on Saturday, July 29th, 2017 starting at 08:30 pm.
Our members will have lots of telescopes and binoculars for you to look through, and do not hesitate to bring your own. This is a family friendly event and is free to everyone. Even in July it can get quite chilly at night so please bring clothing layers. Please apply any bug repellent while you are in the parking lot.
This is a weather dependant event and will be cancelled if overcast or raining.
Maple Ridge’s Selvey Park has a relatively dark sky and is less than an hour’s drive from downtown Vancouver.
The light pollution is minimal due to it being surrounded by farm land and people who value the rural life. This allows viewing of magnitude 5 stars on a moonless night; for example, the dimmest stars in the “Little Dipper” are magnitude 5. If the conditions are good we should get to see a hint of the Milky Way.
The Moon will be 46% illuminated in the evening sky. It will be setting just after midnight so we should have some good deep sky viewing afterwards.
The planets Jupiter and Saturn will also be visible.