LISTEN: Free Telescopes; Astronomy Events Tonight on National Mall

Wyn Delano
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON — (WMAL) The Northeast Grounds of the Washington monument near 15th St. and Constitution Ave. will turn into an impromptu observatory tonight, June 2nd, as the annual Astronomy Night on the Mall gets underway.

Several telescopes for public viewing will be set up from 6PM to 11PM and are completely free for public viewing. Each one is usually already trained on a celestial object, so star-gazing should be as easy as looking through a lens.

The telescopes are provided by amateur astronomers from the D.C. area.

“There can be several thousand people down there – I think at one point a couple of years ago we had something like 7500 people show up,” says Jeff Chester, spokesman with the Naval Observatory.

Chester also says that other, professional, science and astronomy organizations such as NASA will be present.

“Its a lot of fun. Its an opportunity for people who are interested in astronomy as a hobby to come down and talk to some of us who are involved in it both professionally and as hobbyists,” he says.

The Astronomy Night also has demonstrations, hand-outs, speakers from scientific groups, and a planetarium show for those who want to go beyond the telescopes.

According to Chester, there’s only one more thing left to wait for:

“Keep your fingers crossed that we have clear skies [tonight].”