Apollo 11 Anniversary - Public Moon Watch Party

Talks - Snoqualmie Point Park Amphitheater

8:45pm “Apollo 11 Through the Eyes of an 11 Year old” - Lonnie Wege, Celestron Telescopes 

• A simple, fun discussion of the space program milestones and technical accomplishments that led up to the moon landing

9:10pm “Understanding Apollo’s Moon” - Robert Reeves, Lunar Photographer, Author, and Speaker

• On this eve of the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing, much has been said about how the Apollo project was engineered and developed, and how Apollo took humans to the Moon. The space community also reveres the personalities who made Apollo work and those who landed on the Moon. But how much does the modern “space buff” know about the Moon itself? Surprisingly little! In his presentation, Robert Reeves introduces the audience to the amazing and diverse landforms and geology on the Moon, with an emphasis on understanding what we see on the Moon through a modest telescope.

Stargazing and Moon Watch

10:00pm - Midnight 

• Volunteer astronomers and sponsors will provide telescopes for the public to view planets, constellations, and other interesting astronomical objects while waiting for the moon to rise around 11:15pm. Once the moon has risen, astronomers will point out and identify the sites of the Apollo moon landings.

About the speaker:

Robert Reeves has been exploring the Moon since 1958 and took his first lunar photograph in 1959. He began telescopic astronomy with a four-inch Criterion Dynascope, his Christmas present in 1960. In 1975 he acquired a Celestron 8 telescope, which he still uses today. Today, Reeves also uses a Celestron 11 Edge HD, a Sky-Watcher 180mm Maksutov, and a Sky-Watcher 20-inch Stargate Dobsonian for lunar photography from his Perspective Observatory located in central Texas.

In 1984 Reeves began publishing articles about astrophotography in Astronomy magazine. Since then Robert has published over 250 magazine articles and 200 newspaper columns about astronomy. His articles have appeared in Sky and Telescope, Astronomy, Deep Sky, Deep Sky Journal, Amateur Astronomy, and The Astrograph. In 1994 Reeves published his first book, The Superpower Space Race, followed by The Conquest of Space, co-authored with Fritz Bronner. In 2000, Robert published Wide-Field Astrophotography, followed by Introduction to Digital Astrophotography in 2005 and Introduction to Webcam Astrophotography in 2006. All three are still in print from Willmann-Bell.

Reeves’ current passion is re-popularizing the Moon with the public and the amateur astronomy community. Robert Reeves enjoys speaking to astronomy conventions and spreading his passion for the Moon. He recently completed a five-city speaking tour in China where he was the first westerner to address the Chinese astronomy community about the Moon. Asteroid 26591 Robertreeves is named in his honor and asteroid 26592 Maryrenfro bears his wife’s name.

Thank you to our event sponsors:

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