Busy Stargazing Days at Blaauw Observatory

On Friday and Saturday, March 3rd and 4th, the Blaauw Observatory of the University of Groningen opened for the 41st National Stargazing Days. Despite the weather, a record number of more than 700 visitors attended the event.

There was an extensive program, with guided tours at the observatory, an inflatable planetarium, lectures, workshops, and a children's program on both days. Both evenings were mostly cloudy, but on Friday the Moon and Jupiter appeared occasionally, and on Saturday Venus and Mars were visible in the beginning of the evening. Visitors were also shown images made with the Gratama Telescope, projected on the inside of the dome of the observatory. Young and old were enthusiastic about the event. They were excited to look through a telescope and found it inspiring to learn more about our solar system and the origin of stars and planets.

A photo report of the event is available here. On Friday NPO Radio 1 (national radio station) visited the observatory for the event (Dutch), and on Saturday Dagblad van het Noorden (regional newspaper) made a report (Dutch). For information about coming events of the Blaauw Observatory, see www.rug.nl/sterrenwacht.

Organization
This event was organized by the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen) and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, in cooperation with the Royal Netherlands Association for Meteorology and Astronomy (KNVWS), the Dutch Youth Association for Astronomy (JWG) and Science LinX.