For casual visitors, Observatory Park is open daily 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. at 10610 Clay Street in Montville Township. For those wanting a more guided experience, however, Naturalist (“Astro-Nat”) Chris Mentrek is eager to show you around this International Dark Sky Park.
Park buildings are open the second and fourth weekends of each month: Friday and Saturday for self-guided night sky viewing with Park District telescopes from 6 to 11 p.m., as well as Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m., including The Sky Tonight Planetarium Show at 2 p.m. to tell you “what’s up” in the night sky.
Planetarium shows this month fall on January 11 and 25, February 15, and March 1, 15 and 29.
More structured programming is also available for visitors of all ages and interest groups.
Biweekly Friday programs include “What Causes Ice Ages?” (where you’ll explore the astronomical causes of ice ages and how we know what we know) on January 9 and 23 from 7 to 8 p.m.; “Tour the Nassau Astronomical Observing Station” (where you’ll get a “sneak peak” of the soon-to-be-renovated facility) on February 13 and 27 from 7 to 9 p.m.; and “The ’Dawn’ Space Probe” (where you’ll find out what scientists hope to learn this spring from the space probe “Dawn” about the little-understood world of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt) on March 13 and 27 from 7 to 8 p.m.
Special programs to study the season’s full moons are scheduled for Tuesday, February 3, from 7 to 8 p.m. (Ancient Ohio Moons); and Thursday, March 5, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. (The Worm Moon).
Do you have a telescope that’s just gathering dust somewhere? Bring in your telescope on Saturday, February 28, from 5 to 6 p.m.! Park staff and volunteers from the Chagrin Valley Astronomical Society will be delighted to help you get the most enjoyable astronomy experience out of your equipment and offer a few maintenance tips. Don’t own a telescope? No problem. We’ll gladly help you “try before you buy” and get answers for all those hard-to-Google questions.
And finally, while it’s not at Observatory Park, the new Research in Our Parks series will focus on discoveries made there in 2014 on Sunday, March 1, from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. at The West Woods Nature Center.
All Observatory Park programs this season are free to attend without registration and are wheelchair/stroller accessible. Learn more about Observatory Park at . For details on these and other parks’ programming this winter, visit http://geaugaparkdistrict.org and click “Find a Program”.
For more information on the Geauga Park District, check them out online on their website, Facebook page, Twitter, and YouTube.
