Drake Municipal Observatory

This WON'T be happening but come anyway to our last Summer observing/open house night at the Drake Municipal Observatory! News about the Fall series and tours. As always, free and open to the public. See you after 9:00 PM.

Sky never cleared, but a full house for our event on Friday! Discussion on a variety of topics, tours of the historic observatory, and many thanks to our friends from the Science Center for their fun indoor activities.

Our first summer public night is still on for this evening. The gate will be open by 9:00 PM. If clear, we and the SCI will be setting up telescopes to view the sky. There will also be an open house with indoor activities for everyone. As always, it is free and open to all. See you there!

Happy Solstice!

I just noticed that our Summer and Fall public events schedule have disappeared from the Observatory website. Our next events are still scheduled for next Friday at 9:30 and on July17th at the same time. Hopefully this can be rectified by Monday.
Herb

LOOKING BACK IN OUR DRAKE NEIGHBORHOOD
Decades ago, you could take the streetcar along University avenue through the Drake area for just a nickel. This is a portion of a flyer promoting streetcar routes around the city. .

+ 'University Car' is the predecessor to today's DART bus route 3.

+ Route 3 bus service is scheduled to increase when a new bus plan goes into effect on Sunday, June 14.. However, service will be reduced (or eliminated) on some other routes through Des Moines.

Dear friends of the Drake Observatory, just a reminder that our first summer public night will be on Friday June 26th starting at 9:00 in cooperation with the Science Center of Iowa. We also plan to have one the evening of July 17th. Both will be an open house, whether clear or cloudy, and observing after dark. Dates for our expanded Fall Series are below, topics to be announced.

Fall Lecture Series 2026:

September 18th
September 25th
October 2nd
October 9th
October 16th
October 23rd
October 30th
November 6th
November 13th
November 20th

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It was a stormy Friday Night, not very good for looking at the sky but a full house got to look at some of the weird and wonderful telescopes from the past and browse around our own unique facility. This was our last public night for the Spring, but we will be open again on June 26th starting at 9:00 PM (see website for details). We will try to meet another time or two before the Fall semester if there is an interest. Hope to see you soon, Herb.