Harry Potter astronomy, dark sky stargazing coming up

Hi astronomy enthusiasts, in honor of the new Harry Potter movie coming out next week some of your intrepid Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers got together and compiled "The Harry Potter Objects" - a literary astronomical project connecting characters in . K. Rowling's books to their astronomical counterparts. We read the books and made a list of the astronomy names, like Sirius Black and Draco Malfoy. Then we researched both the astronomical objects and the Potter characters. Next we took our telescopes, binoculars, star charts and green laser pointers out of the city to our dark sky observing spots over many months and located the objects. It was a ton of fun and finally we wrote it up for you to enjoy! Here it is: http://tr.im/HPsky Also, we're inviting you to join us at a dark sky outing next weekend. On July 17th and 18th some of us are taking our telescopes to the Warner Springs Ranch. http://www.warnersprings.com/ Each month the ranch offers a free star party to their guests and local folks. They usually just have one or two astronomers ,and one of them is a colleague of mine at JPL. she thought we might like to try it out. It is a one third shorter drive than to our usual desert spots.You don't have to stay at the ranch to stargaze with us, but we are staying there for the Saturday night public star party (a few of us will be there Friday night also). There are camping areas neaby - Oak Knoll Campground is about 15 miles away on Palomar Mountain, I am told. http://www.warnersprings.com/ Astronomy is weather permitting, of course. The 4 of us who worked on the Harry Potter Observing Project will all be there Saturday night, and we'll be happy to point out the summer objects from the project list. :-) The Milky Way, subject of my July 2009 Whats Up podcast will be beautiful from Warner Springs. Hope to see some of you there! Email me if you have questions, but contact the ranch for logistics and/or reservations. Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA Website: www.whiteoaks.com Old Town Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org My NASA JPL What's Up podcast: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup.cfm Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones http://twitter.com/CassiniSaturn Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/