These are tried and proven blueprints for guiding your companions through the mysterious depths of the night sky. Each tour follows a plan that mixes astronomy, legends, and the immediate beauty of the stars to create a lively and interesting stargazing experience. Whether you are educating your campers or impressing your date, these sky tours offer a broad selection of celestial gems that you can use. While there are several mirror sites (copies, which I take as a compliment), this is the original, continually kept up to date and improved. |
Click on the symbol for the season to go to that tour. Click on the symbol while you're in the tour to come back to this page.
Note that each tour stands by itself. They all cover the same fundamental astronomy principles, each in its own way according to what's up for the season.
Spring Sky TourMarch, April, & May.
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Summer Sky TourJune, July, & August.
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Autumn Sky TourSeptember, October, & November.
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Winter Sky TourDecember, January, & February.
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Index to the Constellations A Summary of the Constellations and the Features of Each
Judging the Sky by Eye How to Gauge the Clarity of Your Night Sky Using the Constellations
Star Hopping A method to find celestial objects. Page developed jointly by Milwaukee Astronomical Society and me.
The single best book to have is the Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky. I have over 40 books on astronomy and I find I keep going back to this one. Plus it fits in your back pocket.
Also handy is Orion DeepMap 600 which can be found at www.telescope.com. A nice view of the entire night sky in a single shot.
Note that you want these for preparation in advance. If you plan on referencing them while you're stargazing, bring along a red LED flashlight, which will prevent you from destroying your night vision once your eyes are dark-adapted.
You don't want this for seeing so much as you want it for pointing out stars and tracing out constellations. You therefore want one with a highly focused beam that will give you a searchlight shaft into the night sky. (If you can afford a green laser pointer - these are much cooler and more high-tech than a flashlight - just be careful where you point it. Obviously not at buildings, cars, or aircraft, but also make sure a nearby astronomer is not trying to get an image while you're waving your laser, or flashlight, around.)
The single most versatile instrument for astronomy is a pair of 10x50 binoculars. They're small and light so they can go on any outing, and they're powerful. In fact, a little too powerful -- at 10x magnification you need to control the shaking from your hands to get the full resolving power of the image. (Some people prefer 7x50 or 8x50 for this reason.) Laying on your back, bracing the binoculars with your hands against your face, works really well for steadying out the shaking. You can also get a tripod mount for most binoculars.
Decent ones (Meade, Celestron, Orion, Bushnell) will go for around $50, excellent ones will go for as much as ten times that (or more of course). Avoid the cheap ones (think of how much you can see through those magnifying glasses from cereal boxes).
Only if you really think you need it. For stargazing purposes you won't use it extensively, although it can add a nice touch. Decent ones start at around $150, and the prices for good ones quickly skyrocket from there -- from $400 to $1000 for a nice and reasonably mobile instrument. The diameter of the objective lens, which is the most important dimension of a telescope, needs to be greater than 3 inches for the telescope to do much good.
The telescope I use is a Meade ETX (the original, with a 3.5" objective). I have it on every campout because it's compact and travels well. For more challenging targets (and more impressive telescope images) we rely on one of the dads who occasionally brings along a 10-inch scope.
The tours are just fine without a telescope at all. I include the telescope objects in case you have access to one and you really want to use it. If you don't use it, no one will miss it. In fact, even though I usually have binoculars handy for stargazing (and personally I really like them), I have found that the tours are just fine with no optical aids at all. We're stargazing, here, after all.
If you are really interested in understanding the physics of a telescope, assessing, predicting, and comparing telescope performance, you can go to my web site on telescope equations:
You can also find a very comprehensive treatment of telescope physics here.
Hence if you expect to have Jupiter or Saturn in the sky it is also worthwhile to do a little homework (see links below) and determine where the moons will be positioned. This varies hour by hour so you need to be precise about when you will be showing it. We once had a moon pop out of nowhere -- Io was emerging from behind Jupiter as we were observing (very cool).
Mars -- My presentation on Mars, recorded during the October Membership Meeting of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society held on 10-19-2020 via Zoom.
The luminous beauty of the night sky has a presence that is overwhelming, and commands the attention of your tour group. This spectacular display does all the work -- our added value to the tour group is when we reveal to their eyes the things they otherwise would not have seen, noticed or appreciated. So stargazing is show and tell, with emphasis on the "show" and less on the "tell". These tours are designed to support that approach. Some pointers:
If you are going to direct stargazing and point the telescope too, practice finding those objects until you can do it quickly & easily. Practice on your own, well beforehand. Optimally you will practice on several nights under different conditions. If you're used to your light-polluted back yard and you get out under a dark sky full of stars you hadn't been seeing before, that can present a time-consuming challenge that will test the patience of your tour group (not a good tour feature).
Note: I'm a member of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society
Your questions and comments regarding this page are welcome.
You can e-mail Randy Culp for inquiries,
suggestions, new ideas or just to chat.
Updated 26 January 2023