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Ritchie Observatory

Battle Point Observatory Grand Re-Opening!

Save the Date! Summer Solstice, June 21, 2025 Battle Point Observatory Grand Re-Opening! Battle Point Park, Bainbridge Island Ribbon cutting at 10:00 am Tours from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm See the amazing new lobby murals painted by artist in residence Deborah Milton! Watch a planetarium show on our new Digitalis projector for our new Park District summer programs! Scheduled tours available of the completely rebuilt observatory dome and new state-of-the-art telescope, thanks to Rotary grants and donations! AND, meet our new staff! Thanks to your donations and support last year, we are on track to align observatory and planetarium programs with Kitsap schools’ STEAM curriculum. Refreshments, space-themed fun and games, and telescopes galore to check out. See you then!

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Telescope Update – from Peter Moseley

We are very pleased to announce that the construction work on the dome is essentially completed, and we have been able to mount our new Telescope, the Planewave 14” CDK. We are testing the systems and the telescope and so far, are very pleased. Presently the telescope has its imaging camera mounted and this is being tested. We will then mount our visual system for testing and then be ready to start putting it all to work for our members, schools, astrophotographers and the general public. We aren’t ready to reveal them yet, but…. Well, here’s a teaser: So many thanks to all of you who made it happen. As noted in the top blog post, we are planning a ribbon cutting ceremony on June 21 (summer solstice) and have some things to do that include more of our facility beyond the dome. We want the place to look really spiffy. For the most part we will do this work on our Telescope Tuesdays but if other days will make it easier for you to participate let me know.

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Telescope Tuesdays

Every Tuesday, 10:00am – 3:00pm There’s always a lot to do at the Ritchie observatory! As you can see from the progress report above, we’re working on getting our new CDK telescope and its supporting infrastructure ready. Come on out every Tuesday, 10am to 3pm, and get involved. Learn how stuff works. Help make improvements. An enormous amount of progress has been made, but there’s always more to do. And we might even have pizza! Come on out and support Telescope Tuesdays!

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