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Best nights for a star party in 2013 for Eastern Australian States and Territories

Amateur astronomical societies are generally happy to assist schools by running a star party. This means that they will bring telescopes and volunteers to your school so that your students can look through them at the night sky. There are only a few nights in each month which are ideal for holding a star night. You want to time it so that students can look at the Moon (the craters are spectacular) but you don’t want to hold your night when the Moon is at or after its First Quarter phase. At or after First Quarter, the Moon is very bright and the light from the Moon washes out the light of other fainter objects in the sky.

Using this criteria, the best nights therefore are:

  • 15 to 18 January 2013
  • 14 to 17 February 2013
  • 16 to 19 March 2013
  • 15 to 17 April 2013
  • 15 to 17 May 2013
  • 13 to 15 June 2013
  • 13 to 15 July 2013
  • 11 to 13 August 2013
  • 9 to 11 September 2013
  • 8 to 10 October 2013
  • 7 to 9 November 2013
  • 6 to 8 December 2013

A list of astronomical societies across Australia can be found here on the World Wide Web to contact regarding assistance with a star party here: http://www.quasarastronomy.com.au/society.htm

As an aside, if you have your students out looking at the Moon you may want to have them also record the changing appearance of the Moon. Go here for a copy of a ‘Moon Phase Recording Chart‘ and the dates in 2013 for each month that they could be recording the appearance of the Moon.

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