Stargate! Star Wars, Star Wars in the sky!

Stargate: In today's colorful hustle and bustle, the astronomical program locations of the Svábhegy Observatory can be freely toured at your own pace. If you definitely don't want to miss out on this buzzing stargazing bustle, in addition to our tickets sold on site, you can also buy your ticket online well in advance.

Let's see what we are preparing for this afternoon and evening:

17:00-19:00 Daytime astronomy

The Stargate opens at 17:00! At the beginning of the Stargate, the Sun will play the main role at the Telescope Workshop and the** Observation Terrace**! With our solar observation telescopes we can admire the sunspots of the setting Sun, and with our Hydrogen Alpha telescope we can admire the wonderful solar flames of the Sun's atmosphere! In the Budapest dome between 5 pm and 6 pm we will visit the thoroughva, the planet shining in its 97% full disk, which is very close to the Sun, is a real sighting speciality!

17:00-21:00 Interactive programs:

Before dark, we prepare several scientific, interactive, entertaining programs closely related to astronomy:

Star Wars: Fantasy or Reality? We embark on an exciting investigative investigation at the interface between science and science fiction! Can the futuristic technical solutions seen in Star Wars really be created, or are they just a figment of fantasy? What does today's science say about this?

In our meteorite analysis program, we examine the rainbow-colored crystals of stones fallen from the sky with our microscopes. Moreover, we can get our hands on many pieces of our meteorite collection.

By smelling the 'space perfumes' enclosed in the flasks of our planet-sniffing Lab, anyone can feel themselves on the wonderful celestial bodies of the solar system! A unique experience, we guarantee that! :)

**Spacetime **We use glass balls racing on trampolines to model the movements of planets and stars. What would life be like orbiting a binary star, as in the case of Tatooine? The spacetime trampoline helps to imagine this too.

In our Spectrum Zone you can find many illuminating optical devices and light bending devices. This really promises to be a colorful program.

Plush Planet Solar System program we will get to know all the planets and their most well-known moons. In fact, with the help of the children, we build a distance-proportional plush model of the solar system.

**Constellation puzzle: **This time, the most beautiful constellations and star legends come to life not in the sky, but in our Observatory. We are counting on the diligent participation of the children in this as well!

Local History Walk: We can get acquainted with the romantic life of astronomers and the most exciting stories of our centuries-old research institute on this walking tour. What did the old telescope giant witness?

21:00-23:00 Evening stargazing

The observatory will be conducted at four locations: the Budapest dome, the Observation Terrace, the Telescope Workshop and the Observer's Telescope.

After 21:00 we get the most beautiful double stars of the darkening summer sky. Albireo is the star that represents the head of the constellation Swan, which in binoculars is a colorful, beautiful pair of stars with an orange main component and a bluish companion! The double double of Epsilon Lyrae is a real celestial speciality, the loose double star splits into two more close doubles! And** Acrab**, who draws Scorpio's scissors, is a striking pair of two blue-white stars of varying brightness.

From 22:00 we start exploring the most beautiful star clusters and gas nebulae of the summer Milky Way!

The **Swan Nebula **(M17), also known as the Horseshoe Nebula or Omega Nebula, is one of the most amazing interstellar gas nebulae in the southern Milky Way. The neck of the floating swan-shaped mist is drawn by biting into a dark dust mist resembling a horseshoe.

Kepler-16 is a star: we visit the star popular in both science and fiction. Kepler-16b orbits the system, which actually contains two central stars. This exoplanet also boasts the suggestive name Tatooine.

**The Captain Hook cluster **(NGC 6633) is an elongated open cluster at the head of the constellation Serpent Bearer, whose star arc resembles the hooked hand of a pirate.

In the evening sky, on our** laser constellation tour**, you can dive into battles between mythological monsters and creatures of the constellations with a sky-high green Jedi lightsaber. Moreover, with our "laser sword" we show where Kepler-16b lives in the constellation Swan. The planet, also known as Tatooine, is the first exoplanet discovered to orbit two stars. The name match with an inhabited planet from Star Wars is no coincidence. Astronomers were also influenced by the science fiction world of Star Wars.