Your own guided tour:
- Visit the observatory on a dark clear night.
- 26+ years of guiding visitors through the night sky.
- Start off viewing the night sky with your eyes through the telescope.
- Learn about different deep sky objects during the action packed tour.
- See galaxies, nebula, supernova explosion remnants, star clusters, the moon, planets, and more.
- Mix in a digital telescope and camera that you get to control throughout your tour.
- Compare what you saw with your eyes to what you can see with the camera.
- See much fainter details in your pictures, and we text the pictures for you to take home as lasting mementos.
- The Start:
Your tour starts upstairs on the third floor of the observatory. We will open up the observatory dome and spend more than an hour using the telescope and your eyes to peer up at the night sky. Constellations, planets, the moon, star clusters, supernova remnants from stars that exploded, nebula where new stars are forming, galaxies, and a host of other objects will be seen. Your eyes will gradually adjust to the dark during this time and you will be able to see fainter and fainter objects.
- See and Learn:
Our tour includes examples of all the major "building blocks" of our galaxy and beyond. We explain everything you are seeing in an action packed astronomy lesson that is customized based on your questions and previous experience with astronomy. You are encouraged to ask questions and we do our best to cover a wide range of different topics for you to learn about.
- Mixing in the Camera:
During the visual observing, we’ll start weaving in using the digital telescope alongside the big one. You will get to control both telescopes, including youngsters if present, and capture images, for as long or short a time as needed, to compare what your eye alone sees through the big telescope with the digital images. Faint details of delicate spiral galaxy arms become readily visible! The intertwined bright and dim bands of swirled nebulas come to life! Objects too faint or small to see with your eyes through the telescope are easily captured using the camera.
- Lasting mementos:
At the end of your visit, we text all the pictures you’ve taken to you, to keep at home as mementos from your visit.
Young and old alike will have fun, see amazing sights, and learn something new!
- Scheduling:
We suggest scheduling your visit a week or so in advance, but same day appointments are possible. The day of your appointment, call the observatory in the early evening to check on the weather. If the weather is clear enough, we go ahead with your visit. If it’s too cloudy that day, we switch you to a different night.
Prices for tours and other services at BPO:
Guided 2-hour tours and gift certificates
$240 for the first adult, $30 per additional adult.
Action packed tour with extensive visual observing of galaxies, nebulas, supernovas, star clusters, moon, planets, and more for the first hour, then learn how to take your own advanced digital astronomy pictures, and we text the pictures for you to take home!
The most leisurely paced, perfect for experts and new astronomy buffs alike. A fun mix of viewing the sky with your eyes to learn the constellations, where things are in the sky. Then use the big telescope to see these faint deep sky objects in great detail. Take your own pictures with the digital telescope to compare what your eye saw to what you see with the help of the camera. Customized by your questions and goals.
Children 12 and under are included with an adult's place.
Guided 90-minute tours
$180 for the first adult, $23 per additional adult.
Still a good pace, less time for extra things at the end.
Guided 1-hour tours
$120 for the first adult, $15 per additional adult.
Half the cost of the 2-hour tours, much less time for digital astronomy or picture taking.
Brisk, but still fun. Good for tight budgets or restless youngsters.
Advanced Astrophotography courses and Robotic Astronomy Projects:
Start off with a 2-hour astronomy tour and then come back for several more visits to conduct your own advanced astronomy studies and digital photographic astronomy projects. This includes a wide range of packaged astronomy projects such as asteroid rotation photometry, variable star studies, HR diagrams and many other subjects.
Click here to learn more about the advanced courses
Availability and pricing are worked out per project.