In lieu of the StarFest event held at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, the ChesMont Astronomical Society (CAS) will instead present StarFest 2021 virtually on Saturday, Aug. 14, from 8 to 9:45 p.m. The program will be livestreamed on YouTube.
The evening will begin with a talk by special guest presenter Mike Menzel, mission system engineer for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Menzel was also the keynote speaker at StarFest 2016.
"It's a live talk," explained CAS member Rob Cordivari. "People will use YouTube chat for comments and questions. When (Menzel) is done, he will answer the questions."
From 9 to 9:45 p.m., following the talk, ChesMont members will provide information about their observing techniques and share some of the interesting deep sky objects they have encountered. "We will talk about the same things we would share in person in a PowerPoint presentation," Cordivari noted.
Like the in-person event, participants will learn about the hobby from astronomy enthusiasts. "We have not held the event (in person) for two years, and we don't want people to think we have gone away or disbanded," said Cordivari. "The main (focuses) of our club are visual observing, public outreach and light pollution awareness education or dark sky preservation. We can't do visual observing right now, but we are still committed to the public outreach."
More information and a link to the YouTube channel will be available at http://www.chesmontastro.org or by searching for "ChesMont Astronomical Society observing+" on Facebook. Individuals may also receive the link by emailing Cordivari at rcordivari@gmail.com.
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