The twenty-ninth annual Grand Canyon Star Party: Saturday, June 22 through Saturday, June 29, 2019 on the South and North Rims of Grand Canyon National Park. Amateur astronomers from across the country volunteer their telescopes and expertise for the enjoyment of park visitors. Numerous telescopes offer views of planets Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, and Mars, as well as double stars, star clusters, nebulae and distant galaxies-and the Moon, earlier in the week. By day, keep an eye out for solar telescopes pointed at the sun. Weather permitting, expect spectacular views of the universe!

National parks such as Grand Canyon are protective havens for some of the last remaining dark skies in this country. Three years ago, Grand Canyon National Park announced that it received Provisional International Dark Sky Park status through the International Dark-Sky Association. Provisional status gave the park three years to retrofit two-thirds of the lights in the park to be night-sky friendly.

This year, the National Park Service celebrates Grand Canyon National Park's full designation as an International Dark Sky Park, having completed the retrofit requirements in May 2019. We also celebrate the park's 100th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Grand Canyon was a training ground for the Apollo astronauts where they learned about geological processes before making their epic journey to another world.