East Campus Star Party
This event has passed!
Saturday February 21st, 2026
2-9 pm
All students, faculty, staff, and public are welcome!
Start the day off with solar observing, activities, and demos. Take a tour of our Planet Walk, a scale model of the Solar System where you’ll learn about each planet and get a sense of their relative sizes and the distances between them. And check out one of our planetarium shows. At 5:00 Cat Wolner from the OSIRIS-REx mission will talk about the logistics and difficulties of getting a sample of an asteroid and returning it to Earth. A little after sunset we’ll take a close look at our nearest celestial neighbor, the Moon. And once darkness fully sets in we’ll look at Jupiter, some galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, and more. We will have telescopes set up to look through and a few scopes with built-in cameras that can give truly amazing views.
This event is hosted in cooperation with the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association. And snacks will be available from the Kettleicious Kettle Corn truck.
Schedule of Events
| 2:00 | Solar Observing, activities, and demos Tours of the East Campus planet walk Planetarium shows |
| 5:00 | Talk – The OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission |
| 6:30 | Telescope viewing of the moon, Jupiter, nebulae, galaxies, and more! Planetarium shows |
Location
The Observatory is the AB building in the map below. You can park in the lot with the green star. Please switch to parking lights once you’re in the lot to avoid bright headlights shining towards the observatory!
Exact Location of the Observatory:
https://maps.google.com/maps?z=16&q=32.165097,-110.818124
In case of bad weather
If it looks like there’s a chance of rain, clouds, or other bad weather, please check back here before coming to the Observatory. We will post a notice on this page if the event is canceled or if changes are made to the schedule. You can check the weather forecast at the National Weather Service.