Now that daylight saving time is over and the nights are long, the ABQ Astronomical Society is throwing a party to connect people with the beautiful universe around them.
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Daylight saving time ends on Sunday, which means we turn our clocks back an hour and get longer nights and less sunlight.
Some look forward to it. For amateur astronomers, those long early nights are a blessing, and you don’t need a telescope to see why.
“New Mexico as a whole is one of the darkest sky areas in the country, so it’s a really nice place to come and really see the stars,” said Tom Grzybowski, a member of the Albuquerque Astronomical Society.
Still, the time has to be just right to see the stars.
“When you have a star party, you really need to be at astronomical twilight, which is about an hour or, say, an hour and a half after twilight,” Grzybowski said.
In the summer, this means that stargazing doesn’t start until around 10 p.m. When daylight savings time ends, it’s much different.
“It gets dark at 6:30. Basically, the sky is dark enough that you can actually see really nice nighttime hours,” Grzybowski said.
He and the Albuquerque Astronomical Society don’t let those stargazing hours go to waste.
“Even as amateur astronomers, I really don’t want to stay up that late,” he joked.
The society hosts free star parties throughout the winter, giving people the chance to explore the cosmos through their telescopes without missing bedtime.
“It’s a really nice place to come and actually see the stars, actually see the nebula that you kind of read about, hear about, learn more about the constellations, the planets that come into view. And then by 8 o’clock, you’ve basically seen everything there is to see that night,” Grzybowski said.
If you’re feeling the urge to stargaze right now, you can look through a group of professional-grade telescopes this Saturday at the Cosmic Carnival. It’s the Astronomical Society’s biggest event of the year, offering all kinds of science fun for kids and adults alike.
We say it’s kids of all ages because in practice we have a lot of activities from Explora and other organizations that are kind of designed for, say, elementary school kids. Then we have a lot of activities there that are designed for high school, college and really just for parents,” Grzybowski said.
Cosmic Carnival is this Saturday from 1-5pm at the Open Space Visitor Center outside Coors. Then there is the Star Party from 18:00 to 22:00. Both are completely free and open to the public.
Grzybowski told us that if you’re really into stargazing and astronomy, the club has some loaner telescopes that you can check out when you become a member.