Spend Summer Studying Stars in the Sierras

Author: Staff

March 28, 2024

A comet streaks through the starry sky over the Sierra Nevada Field Campus

Photo Credit: Staff

Outdoor Astronomy Class at the SF State Sierra Nevada Field Campus

We offer short summer courses for academic credit at SF State's Sierra Nevada Field Campus in the Tahoe National Forest. Sign up for our Astronomy class this summer, where you can stay in a tent and study celestial objects with a space scientist under the night sky. If you are a beginning amateur astronomer who is having difficulty finding anything but the moon and brighter planets to observe, this course will help you better explore the sky. Educators may use this course to maintain their science accreditation.

ASTR 216 Practical Observational Astronomy in the Sierra Nevada

Dates: June 30, 2024 - July 5, 2024
Instructor: Martin Sirk, UC Berkeley Space Science Laboratory

This field-based laboratory course provides an opportunity for students to understand our place in the universe. Using the naked eye, binoculars, and large telescopes, we will explore celestial objects including the solar system, the stars, the Milky Way and other galaxies. Set within a beautiful national forest in the mountains far from bright city lights, the Field Campus area has the dark sky ideal for observing deep-sky objects and meteors. Throughout the course we will stress hands-on use of telescopes and their accessories. Students will learn how to use star charts and atlases and the setting circles of an equatorial mounting to locate faint celestial objects.