What is Starry Night?
Starry Night is the Florida Museum of Natural History's annual astronomy event, in conjunction with the UF Department of Astronomy, the Alachua Astronomy Club, and the Florida Space Grant Consortium. Other participating groups include Santa Fe College and the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium, the UF Small Satellite Design Club, the Gainesville Chamber Orchestra and the Star Dust theatre group.
From telescopes to frozen bananas, glittering galaxies to 3-D moonscape tours, scintillating lectures to intriguing plays this event is a great place to start the journey into the world of astronomy. As a true family event, we offer programs, lectures, demonstrations and activities for all ages, whether you're young or young at heart.
Starry Night began as a Museum Nights program in 2006, and has evolved and grown over the last few years. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, which marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo's use of the telescope to study the skies. We are fortunate to have an event such as this to add to the global celebration of the discovery of the telescope.
News about Starry Night:
Starry Night 2009, which happened on Sept. 25 from 5:00-10:00 p.m., was a fantastic event and a major success. Within the first hour we had 690 people walk through the door. By an hour and a half, we had over a thousand. Our final attendance count at the end of the night was nearly 2,700 - more than 4x last year's attendance!
Check back for updates about Starry Night 2010 - it's going to be out of this world!
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