South Harrison Observatory

Can you visit South Harrison Observatory? Yes

One or two public sessions a month: evening sky tour near first-quarter moon and daytime solar open house near third quarter.

A public night at an observatory usually starts at dusk with a short talk, then a line at the eyepiece of the main telescope for the Moon, a planet or a bright cluster, with volunteers' smaller telescopes set up outside. Dress for the night air even in summer: domes are not heated, so the telescope stays at outside temperature. Many nights sell out or cancel for clouds, so check the observatory's site on the day.

What South Harrison Observatory observes

The list does not describe the instruments at South Harrison Observatory yet; the official site has them.

How dark the sky is at South Harrison Observatory

South Harrison Observatory has no Bortle rating in the list yet. The scale below shows what each class looks like.

Sky brightness and class come from the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness (Falchi et al. 2016, CC BY-NC 4.0), with natural skyglow added, at the coordinates below. Research telescopes are often sited on mountains above the haze, so the real sky can be darker than the map suggests.

South Harrison Observatory among the observatories of Indiana

Green dots are observatories open to the public, blue dots research or private sites, squares dark sky places; select one for its page. See Indiana observatories for the full list.

The coordinates on this page point to city Elizabeth (approximate): 38.124°N, 85.959°W.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Open the larger map · Directions. Mountain observatory roads are often gated after dark; go only on a scheduled public night.

Dark sky places, observatories and clubs near South Harrison Observatory

Nearest dark sky places

Other observatories open to the public within 150 km

• Kirkwood ObservatoryBloomington, Indiana, 123 km (76 mi). Free open houses Wednesday evenings from spring break to Thanksgiving, weather permitting; no reservation
• Wahnsiedler ObservatoryLynnville, Indiana, 142 km (88 mi). Evansville Astronomical Society free Star Watches and open houses monthly in warm months; club meets there 3rd Friday 7:30 pm

Astronomy clubs within 150 km

• Louisville Astronomical SocietyLouisville, Kentucky, 22 km (13 mi). Meets General meetings Friday, 8 pm
• Evansville Astronomical SocietyLynnville, Indiana, 117 km (73 mi). Meets 3rd Friday monthly (except Jun)
• Bluegrass Amateur Astronomy ClubLexington, Kentucky, 124 km (77 mi)

Star parties near South Harrison Observatory

Planning a trip? Astrotourism in Indiana puts the dark sky places, observatories, clubs, star parties, planetariums and science centers of the state on one map, with the best night out worked out.

South Harrison Observatory record

From the site's observatories dataset (observatories_q426). Distances are computed from the coordinates.