Invite Us

Cape Fear Astro will be happy to come to your event. Whether it is a civic event, club meeting, library, school or church event, Scout meeting, or even a party, we're looking forward to working with you to share our love of astronomy, the night sky, and space.

To invite us to your event, please vist our Contact Us page. For more information about what we can do and where we can do it, please look below.

All Ages, No Charge

All services we provide are free. We can do programs and activities for all ages, or aimed at specific age ranges. We bring step-stools so younger people can reach the eyepieces, and know what to expect when children interact with telescopes. We don't get mad, and we don't yell.

Children under 4 probably won't get much out of looking through telescopes. If this is your group, let us know, and we can work with you to find age-appropriate activities.

We also respect adults. We try to explain what we're showing you. All questions are welcome, whether about equipment, objects we're observing, or just general astronomy and space questions. We don't know everything, but we'll do the best we can to answer.

What We Can Do

We're best known for public observing sessions (especially at Carolina Beach State Park and the State-Wide Star Party). But, we can do lots of other things as well.

Some of the activities we can provide, depending on the times of the events and the sky conditions, are:

Scale Model Solar System (day or night, any conditions)
Laser guided constellation tour (night, good conditions)
Moon observing (dusk or night, most conditions when the moon is up)
Solar Observing (afternoon, mostly clear or better)
Public Observing (night, good conditions)
Talks about constellations, stars and other things in our galaxy, other galaxies, the solar system, paleoastronomy, space exploration, and many, many more topics. If it's astronomy related, someone in Cape Fear Astro can probably make it interesting and understandable to the target audience.

The scale model uses everyday objects to represent the sun and planets, and helps people understand the relative sizes of and distances between solar system objects. The whole model is 1000 yards long, and takes about 1/2 hour. We usually only go to about 300 yards, which takes much less time and space, and can squeeze it down further if space is really limited.

Moon observing can be done unaided eye whenever the moon is out, even during daylight. One can also use binoculars or telescopes.

For solar observing we'd have to provide special equipment for safety reasons. The sun is currently in a sunspot minimum, so most likely it wouldn't be terribly exciting now, although in a year or so numbers are expected to increase.

Constellation tours (unaided eye with a green laser pointer) and public observing both require decent sky conditions: relatively free of clouds and as little light pollution as is practical. I won't say they can't be done from downtown, but if we could do it closer to one of the darker areas on the Light Pollution map, it would help a lot.

Where We Go

Pretty much everywhere in the Lower Cape Fear area. Specifically, the counties of Brunswick, Duplin, New Hanover, Onslow, Pender, and Sampson.

Where Is It Dark?

Some of our activities are best under darker skies. That doesn't necessarily mean we can't do them at your chosen location, but you'll see more (and better) under a darker sky. If you get to choose your location, you can use this Light Pollution Map to help choose the best location possible. You can drag and zoom the map to look closely at different locations, such as parks and schools. You can also contact us for help selecting a site.

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