This activity is weather-dependent. Please dress for cool to chilly weather. 

Enjoy a free public stargazing event at the Montgomery Hill Observatory from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. View the skies with images collected with our main observatory telescope, our enhanced vision (EV) telescope, which will be projecting images being collected on site in real time, and several telescopes set out for the public. Kids and grownups alike learn how to use telescopes and identify objects in the sky! 

An Eternal Battle in the Sky  

Orion the Hunter is in a cosmic battle with Taurus the Bull, who is protecting the Pleiades from the Hunter. Orion is said to be looking for the "the 7 sisters", who make run away while the hunter fights the bull.  Three bright stars that make up the "Belt of Orion" hold the "Sword of Orion" where the Orion Nebula M42 is located. In M42, the Orion Nebula is one of the winter season's most beautiful deep sky objects; within M42, the Trapezium (Theta-1 Orionis) was discovered by Galileo. There are ten main stars within the Trapezium; this is one of the youngest known star clusters and is 1350 light-years away from Earth. Many of the stars in the Trapezium are binary star systems; within this stellar nursery, there are about 1,000 young, hot stars, mostly hidden in the dust or light of the nebula. Alpha Tauri, a red giant star, aka Aldebaran, is the bright star in Taurus, often referred to as the eye of the bull.  

Winter is here! 

While ancient Greeks witnessed an epic battle in the sky, the same area of the sky was making way to the Winter Maker for the Ojibwe people, the arrival of the winter maker means all the cold and snow will begin to fall. It is said that once Nanaboujou, a hero and trickster spirit, invited the Winter Maker to a feast. The Winter Maker eats too much to the point of sweating, making the snow melt. Realizing that it was a trick, the angry Winter Maker vowed to return, and ever since returning every year, thereby bringing winter. The winter maker is makeup of much of the same stars as Orion, with arms extending to Aldebaran on one side and Procyon on the other side.  

Also, visible this night  

We also expect some of our solar system neighborhood to accompany us in the sky. Saturn, Uranus, and Jupiter should accompany us throughout the night.  Beyond our solar system: The Andromeda galaxy will be high in the sky. At 2.5 million light-years from Earth, it's our nearest neighboring galaxy. Andromeda is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye, with dark skies. Between the constellations of Cassiopeia and Perseus, we can see the Perseus Double Cluster. Each cluster is made of a few hundred stars, and these stars are young, hot, supergiant suns that are 7,500 light years from Earth. They're thousands of times more luminous than our Sun.  

Many stories have been inspired by these celestial objects over centuries, and as we study the night sky, we continue to get inspired today. I hope you can join us so we can get inspired together as a community and investigate the beauty of the night sky.