This Memorial Day weekend, I hope you will be in the area of Los Angeles — more specifically, near Big Bear, California. If so, you will be in for an incredible treat. Scott Roberts of Explore Scientific, a longtime friend of the magazine, has assembled an incredible array of fun in the first ever StarLight Festival, May 24–25, 2014, in Big Bear Lake, California. The event is proudly sponsored by Pepsi and is hosted by Scott’s own AstronomyOutreach Network.
Quite an array of speakers will deliver the universe to participants, including astronaut Story Musgrave, Cassini Mission scientist Linda Spilker, Steve Edberg of JPL, comet discoverer and expert David Levy, Mike Reynolds of Florida State College, and Mike Simmons, director of Astronomers Without Borders.
Live music will also be on throughout the two days.
And a number of companies will be set up to display their goods. My colleague Michael Bakich from Astronomy magazine will be there as our representative. (I will be exploring observatories in Chile at the time.)
Check out this video that shows you how fun this two-day event will be. Amateur astronomer and director Joe Napolitano put this together — he is a great guy.
You can also see a short promo video, filmed by Joe at the Arizona Science and Astronomy Expo in Tucson last November, of me talking about the event.
For more on the festival, see www.StarLightfestival.com.