UPDATE: Due to the weather forecasts for CNY this weekend, this event has been changed to Sunday, November 3 at 6:30 p.m. Keep track of the announcement bar at right for more updates!

Greetings fellow astrophiles!

Amateur astronomers and the general public alike will have an opportunity this weekend to take in the celestial sights through one of the largest scopes of its kind in New York. New Moon Telescopes (NMT), a builder of custom Dobsonian-style telescopes, will be holding a session this weekend at the North Sportsman’s Club in West Monroe, NY. NMT has rapidly made a name for itself within the amateur astronomy community for its novel scope designs and high-end workmanship, having most recently been featured as the cover story in the trade magazine Astronomy Technology Today. The official NMT press release for this first public outing of their flagship 27″ telescope is reprinted below.

NOTE: We’ll be forwarding along Ryan Goodson’s official weather call on Friday (then Saturday or Sunday as necessary) here at cnyo.org.

New Moon Telescopes, newmoontelescopes.com

28 October 2013 – For immediate release:

Central New York is home to a small business dedicated to building some of the largest telescopes available to amateur astronomers anywhere in the world. New Moon Telescopes (NMT, newmoontelescopes.com), located in West Monroe, NY, builds portable Newtonian-style Dobsonian reflector telescopes, many of which are far larger than those used at local universities! NMT cordially invites the public to come out and enjoy the views of the Night Sky through a recently completed behemoth 27″ Dobsonian scope – the largest portable optical telescope in NY – as well as several smaller NMTs operated by CNY customers.

Dobsonian telescopes are commonly referred to as “light buckets,” using their large primary mirrors to collect as much light from distant objects as possible. The bigger the primary mirror, the more starlight gathered and the brighter and more distant you can see. The difference in the brightness of distant objects between Dobsonians and familiar retail store telescopes is literally night-and-day. Those who have attended public viewing sessions with the Syracuse Astronomical Society or CNY Observers have, until now, had their views maxed-out at 16″ primary mirrors. The new NMT 27″ telescope gathers over two and a half times the amount of light! With a scope this size, we can take in unprecedented views of nearby nebulae and galaxies. Of great excitement to local amateur astronomers, this massive telescope will allow us to see galaxies over a billion light years away from CNY skies! And if you have any interest in “nearby” newborn baby stars, the Great Orion Nebula will be nicely placed in our late autumn sky. The view of this nebula through a scope of this size is nothing short of spectacular!

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We invite you to come out and see the celestial sights through a New Moon Telescope Friday, November 1st at the North Sportsman’s Club (northsportsmansclub.net, 1708 County Route 37N, West Monroe, NY 13167). This event is FREE and open to the public. Since we all know how fickle CNY weather can be, we will use November 2nd and 3rd as alternates. Keep track of newmoontelescopes.com (and our twitter feed (@NMTelescopes) and Facebook Page) for weather updates and future observing events. Let us hope that one of these nights is clear for our unique opportunity to look “back in time” a couple billion years!

Click the image for a larger version.