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Special Events

Public Star Night – Friday, February 21, 2025

   Little Thompson Observatory

                    Doors Open:  5:30PM | Guest Speaker N/A  | Observing at LTO: 6:00-10:00PM

While we don’t have a speaker this month, our volunteers will be available for you to come out and look through our large 18 inch Cassegrain and 6 inch Astro-Physics telescopes. 

Special Event: Planetary Alignment!!

We will be opening earlier than normal to try and get a somewhat rare look at 7 planets in the same night sky. This event is being referred to as a planetary alignment and while that’s not technically true, it still fairly rare to be able to see 7 planets (5 of which are naked eye visible) as they span across the sky during the evening. Mercury (6:10PM) and Saturn (6:30PM) will be the first to set not long after the sun drops behind the mountains to our west.

So if you want to see Mercury and Saturn, get there when we open at 5:30.  We will be attempting to view them shortly after when sunset occurs at 5:45PM.

The remaining 5 planets Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars will be visible into the evening.

Please come on out and have some fun looking at the wonders of the universe. 

Note that reservations are not required for our Public Star Nights.

The observatory will be open for public viewing through our large telescopes, weather permitting.
Celebrating 25 Years of serving the public.