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Stargazers get ready to gather Astronomical society plans next month's Dark Sky Festival
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 29, 2013
THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
Stargazers will be gathering in the Fort Smith area late next month.
The second annual Thebacha and Wood Buffalo Dark Sky Festival is set for Aug. 23 to 25 in Fort Smith and at Pine Lake, about 60 kilometres to the south.
"The goal of this event is to introduce people to the wonders of the night sky and the fascinating world of science," said Tim Gauthier, the public outreach co-ordinator with the Thebacha and Wood Buffalo Astronomical Society, which is presenting the festival.
Last year, about 40 people attended the event, which was held only at Pine Lake in the Alberta section of Wood Buffalo National Park.
Gauthier said the society is expecting more people this year, including some from Hay River.
"This is an event that will interest people no matter where they live, people of all ages," he said. "It's something that we hope to build into a major event each year."
Gauthier, who is also a communications officer with Wood Buffalo National Park, said, as a representative of Parks Canada, he is interested in seeing the festival grow and attract people from communities all around the park.
The Thebacha and Wood Buffalo Astronomical Society was formed as part of an ongoing initiative to have the national park designated a dark-sky preserve - an area which limits the amount of artificial light to maintain optimal stargazing conditions.
Highlights of the festival include a mobile planetarium show at the Fort Smith rec centre on Aug. 23, a space and science fair at Pine Lake on Aug. 24, and sky observation and various activities at Pine Lake on Aug. 24 and 25.
"It's just going to be a weekend filled with absolutely wonderful, fascinating activities," said Gauthier.
Along with stargazing at Pine Lake, there will be activities such as a presentation on meteor impacts, educational programming on topics like night sky photography, and a gravity relay in which team members will carry a heavier weight each time to simulate being on different planets.
"We have a full slate of family-friendly activities," Gauthier said.
Bruce Buckley, an amateur astronomer in Fort Smith, is looking forward to the festival and is bringing his telescopes to Pine Lake, which he describes as an excellent place to stargaze.
Last year's festival was a great experience, he said.
"I really enjoyed it. It had been a while since I had gotten to go stargazing with some other people that were like-minded and were interested in the sky. Actually, it was a very enjoyable experience."
Buckley, who is secretary of the astronomical society, predicts the festival is going to get bigger and better.
The mobile planetarium show on Aug. 23 will feature a 4.8-metre-diameter, 3.2-metre-high dome from the Telus World of Science in Edmonton.
"It's a large inflatable dome with a special projector inside it and you can put different film cylinders inside the projector. It projects at a 360-degree view around you and over you on the dome," Gauthier said. "So people sit around the edges of the dome and a storyteller sits in the middle, and you can get cylinders on the Northern night sky."
The mobile planetarium will show what the Northern night sky looks like on Dec. 21 each year, including the moon, constellations and various comets.
"It will certainly be very, very enjoyable and a new experience for people," said Gauthier.
As for him personally, he is looking forward to the dark sky observations at Pine Lake.
"We had a spectacular sky last year, absolutely spectacular, with wonderful views of Mars, constellations like Perseus just huge in the sky above us, and we were treated to a spectacular aurora," he said. "It couldn't have gone any better."
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