Welcome to the Central Coast Astronomical Society's Tour of the Universe.  This very brief tour is presented for beginning astronomers, people who want a very basic understanding of astronomy and our Universe and for those people who may be planning to attend a star party for the first time.  

For first-time star party visitors, please understand a very important point about stargazing through telescopes ... the celestial objects you will see will be tiny and sometimes very faint because amateur astronomers cannot afford to spend millions of dollars for huge telescopes having mirrors many feet across to enlarge the objects which are thousands, millions or billions of light-years from Earth.  But it is exciting to see the points of light in the night sky in a little better detail than you would through binoculars, if they are even visible in binoculars, enough to realize that what you are being shown is extremely fascinating once an astronomer explains what the objects are.  For additional information about star parties, including important words of caution, see Star Parties.

In the words of the 1960's television series Star Trek and subsequent movies, deep space is truly the "Final Frontier", a frontier that we are only just starting to explore and begin to understand.  Mankind's study and exploration of our Solar System, our Milky Way Galaxy, and the unimaginably immense Universe of galaxies beyond our tiny Milky Way, is presently beyond our full understanding, being the single most monumental effort human beings have ever tackled, and will be for the rest of eternity.  The development of human life on Earth demands that we "Seek Out New Worlds", to see what is out there beyond our limited vision and attempt to find possible signs of life.  Someday humans must venture to the stars to fulfill our inner most need ... to explore and expand our vision and civilization, understand the cosmos beyond our tiny world, and answer the deepest questions, "Where did we come from?" and "Is there other life beyond Earth?".  Humans are adventurers, looking to climb that next mountain or see what is around the next bend in the road, always interested in knowing more about things, to see and experience things for themselves.  Men and women astronomers, scientists and astronauts take the study of the stars to heart, strongly desiring to be part of that monumental challenge of "Boldly Going Where No One Has Gone Before".

Our brief Tour of the Universe presents some of the primary types of celestial objects that can generally be seen through telescopes, along with beautiful photos to show you what really is out there that even our amateur telescopes can't see in terms of size, composition or color.  Many of the colors and much of the composition of many of the beautiful celestial objects we view through telescopes are not visible to humans because of the limitations of our eyesight which only sees a small range of colors, especially looking at objects so far from Earth.  Because of the Hubble Space Telescope, other orbiting observatories and huge ground-based telescopes, we have wonderful detailed photos of many of the popular viewing objects in the sky.  We hope you enjoy this glimpse of some of the most beautiful objects hidden in the depths of space and that you have this in mind when participating in a star party.

Table of Contents:
Because of the significant use of thumbnail images to enhance this presentation, it has been separated into the following pages.  Be aware that each page may take a very short period of time to open due to the number of thumbnail images.  Please be patient until each page opens .... it is well worth the short wait.  Click on most of the thumbnail images to view a larger version of the image.  You are about to experience the biggest undertaking of mankind ... our bold attempts in Reaching for the Stars!  Enjoy!