Have you ever gazed up at the sky at night and wondered which stars or planets you were looking at? Now you have the unique opportunity to have all of your questions answered by the experts from The Crete Planetarium, and to learn much more besides, all in the privacy of the pool terrace and garden at your villa.
Villas Crete Holidays have teamed up with The Crete Planetarium to bring a new activity to guests who are staying in our villas. Starry Nights is a complete presentation that combines Astronomy with some Greek Mythology.
Away from the city lights two to three thousand stars are visible under dark, clear skies with our naked eyes, and telescopes reveal tens of thousands more. These stars form 88 constellations and the majority in the Northern Hemisphere were named by the ancient Greeks who invented stories to go along with them, which became the basis for many Greek Mythology legends.
You don’t need to know anything about Astronomy because this activity has been cleverly designed so that complete beginners or even experts in astrophysics can learn something new about the vastness of the universe. The staff from The Planetarium of Crete have many years of experience observing the incredible night sky and they will bring some of the largest telescopes in Greece to your villa including a 16-inch dobsonian telescope.
Depending upon the time of year different planets are visible including Jupiter with it’s color belts and large moons, Saturn with it’s rings, the red planet, Mars, and ever bright Venus. In addition to the stars and planets in our solar system, star clusters, nebulae, and even other very distant galaxies are visible!
Each participant with be given a star map of the current month and a small red flashlight so that they can identify the constellations using Uranography and the help of the planterium staff. You can even learn how to find your way home at night with the just the north star for guidance.
We can promise that you will be taken to “another world” and spend an incredible night that you will never forget.
