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Northern Star Party – April 17th to April 19th 2026
Dark Sky Weekend
We are excited to announce the dates for the Northern Star Party for 2026 to held at Waharau Regional Park and hosted by the Auckland Astronomical Society. We are holding the event over the nights of Friday 17th and Saturday 18th of April. Packing up on the morning of Sunday the 19th.
It will be a weekend of practical astronomy and dark sky observing. It is great opportunity to spend a weekend viewing the sky from a dark site, on Moonless nights, though a range of different telescopes. Bring your telescope or binoculars, but if you don’t have any there will be plenty there for you to look through. Also the society has telescopes available for hire though the hire will have to be set up prior to the camp. For rental enquiries, please email [email protected]
During the day on Saturday, there will be a full program of practical astronomy – how to use equipment and various types of telescopes, new equipment demonstrations and an astrophotography workshop.
Films will be shown in the early evening on Friday and if appropriate on Saturday.
| Prices | Members | Non-members |
| Early Bird paid by 12th April | $30 | $40 |
| Late bookings | $50 | $60 |
No one night price.
To book, please log into Hello Club……….Click here for link.
From the Hello Club page, you will need to log in.
Program:
Friday: Viewing, movie (TBC)
Saturday:
Workshops: 1:00pm to 2:30 pm.
Solar Viewing during the day on Saturday.
| Time | Activity | Details |
| 13:00 | Dwarf Mini and Dwarf 3 compact Smart Telescopes by Dwarf Lab | This presentation outlines their design, operation, and real-world performance in imaging deep-sky objects. Also covered is tracking, image capture, stacking, processing and using their Stellar Studio processing suite. |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Easy Image Stacking for Beginners |
Why stack?
Stacking demonstration
Stacking tips
Survey of stacking software
|
| 16:30 – 18:00 | Telescope trail | Telescope trail |
For the full information pack, click here.
Some possible visual observations on the nights
Some visible with the naked eye, some through small telescope
