Tickets on sale for Night Sky Festival 2019

The 5th annual Night Sky Festival will be held Saturday, Sept. 21, at Sky’s The Limit Observatory & Nature Center, next to the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park in Twentynine Palms, CA. The cosmic event includes a Saturday night star party with astronomers and telescopes, live music, and storytelling; family-friendly daytime activities and youth crafts; Saturday afternoon astronomy lectures with notable speakers; and a special night sky photography workshop on Friday, Sept. 20.

Tickets for the Saturday night star party and the photography workshop are available for purchase on the event’s website, NightSkyFestival.org. Admission is by pre-paid tickets only; no tickets will be sold at the door. Night Sky Festival tickets include shuttle service from the Community Services Building in Luckie Park, Twentynine Palms, to the Sky’s The Limit site. A limited number of VIP parking passes can be purchased for on-site parking, and handicap-accessible transportation to the site will be available. 

Some activities, like the morning events and afternoon lectures, are free for attendees. Daytime activities at Sky’s The Limit include a tour of the Orrery, a scale model of the solar system; a close-up look at the sun through a solar telescope; plus guided walks to learn about desert plants, animals, and geology; and astronomy-themed youth crafts.

Featured speakers for the afternoon astronomy lectures this year include Keri Bean, Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who will present “The Exploration of Mars—Past, Present, and Future.” NPS Biologist Ashley Pipkin will deal with “Night Skies and the National Park Service,” and Dean Regas, Astronomer for the Cincinnati Observatory, with give a “Tour of the Universe: You Are Here.”

The Night Sky Festival is an annual event celebrating Joshua Tree National Park’s night sky. The event is a major fundraiser for Sky’s The Limit Observatory and Nature Center and Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts, both non-profit organizations based in Twentynine Palms, and a limited number of tickets are available for this event.

For tickets and more information, go to: www.NightSkyFestival.org.