Updated July 27 2026
A few items as you prepare for observing adventures at AHSP this year. Please read through, as these may help you with your enjoyment of the sky this weekend. Print out what you might want at your telescope.
| SKMC Entrance | N 38° 40′ 25” | W 079° 34′ 11” |
| Center of Main Observing Field | N 38° 40′ 36” | W 079° 34′ 02” |
| Center of CCD Imaging Area | N 38° 41′ 10” | W 079° 33′ 45” |
| RV Area / Yurts | N 38° 41′ 00” | W 079° 33′ 26” |
| Planetrise/Planetset, Wed, Aug 12, 2026 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planet | Rise | Set | Meridian | Comment |
| Mercury | Thu 5:17 am | Thu 7:36 pm | Thu 12:27 pm | Slightly difficult to see |
| Venus | Thu 10:21 am | Thu 10:02 pm | Thu 4:12 pm | Great visibility |
| Mars | Thu 2:31 am | Thu 5:23 pm | Thu 9:57 am | Average visibility |
| Jupiter | Thu 5:35 am | Thu 7:43 pm | Thu 12:39 pm | Slightly difficult to see |
| Saturn | Thu 10:32 pm | Fri 10:57 am | Fri 4:44 am | Perfect visibility |
| Uranus | Thu 12:50 am | Thu 3:19 pm | Thu 8:04 am | Difficult to see |
| Neptune | Thu 10:01 pm | Fri 10:07 am | Fri 4:04 am | Difficult to see |
For reference on Saturday night-Sunday morning, darkness times (EDT) are as follows:
Orientation charts for the night sky at AHSP can be created at https://in-the-sky.org/
The observing workshop is being held in conjunction with the weight sky tour. During the daytime portion (Saturday 1:00 in the main yurt) Skip Bird and some other experienced observers will go over the equipment and techniques for finding relatively easy binocular and small, wide field telescopes. In the evening, we’ll help you actually find some of these objects. You should bring your star atlas and binoculars, the binocular challenge finder charts, as well as the extra charts, to the day session.