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NC Statewide Star Party Events

The 2023 North Carolina Science Festival features the Statewide Star Party as a signature initiative, supported with funding from North Carolina Space Grant.

During this eleventh annual Statewide Star Party, 35 hosts will offer public skywatching events across North Carolina on Friday, April 21, and Saturday, April 22, 2023. Star Party hosts include state and local parks, colleges and universities, planetariums, science centers, nature centers, and libraries. About 3,500 visitors are expected to participate.

This year’s Star Party theme is “Celebrating the Night Sky.” Hosts are provided with a Star Party kit of hands-on activities and NASA resources on this theme.

About the events

Star Party participants provide the curiosity, and host sites provide the telescopes. Hosts lead hands-on activities from the Star Party kit that help visitors explore the question of whether there is life elsewhere in the universe, how we might find it and what it might look like.

Time-lapse image captured during a 2017 Star Party