February 10-12, 2023

Death Valley Dark Sky Festival

We will be assisting with the Death Valley National Park Dark Sky Festival to take place Friday-Sunday Feb 10-12.
Our primary responsibilities will be to staff a booth with live demos and educational information at their Science Expo
and run a star party on Saturday night with our own telescopes. There may even be Astro on Tap at the local saloon.

DVNP will provide us with gas money to cover our transportation and a campsite for each of us in the educator
section of the Texas Springs campsite, adjacent to where all program activities will occur at Furnace Creek.

Drive time from Caltech to Furnace Creek is about 4.5-5h depending on the route and time of day. I would plan to leave
sometime on the morning of Friday, Feb 10 to avoid traffic and provide ample time for preparing for the weekend and exploring
DVNP. Google maps link to Furnace Creek

Ideally we would have 8+ people participate, which would allow for everyone to only work one "day shift" of 3h at the
Science Expo and then Star Party (~2 volunteers needed at any time). The rest of the time would be open for
hiking and exploring the park.

The science demos that I thought we could operate would be (1) "Build a Comet" using dry ice to show what composes a comet; and (2) parabolic marshmallow igniter where we show how telescopes work to collect light from the Sun and focus it.
We would also probably bring the good solar telescope (Coronado half-angstrom H-alpha) to show views of the Sun.

For the star party, we would bring the Dobsonians (6", 8", 10") as well as our own private telescopes. Cameron will bring his
Unistellar eVscope2, and others are encouraged to bring theirs if they want. DVNP rangers will also have a few telescopes
on hand, including a 14" Orion Dobsonian. We can also bring some laser pointers to help point things out.