Saturday, October 26, 2024 — Star Party at the Railway Museum
Wiscasset, Waterville, and Farmington Railway
Alna Center Station, Alna Road / Route 218, Alna ME 04535
Google Maps Plus Code: 39MJ+2QC Alna, Maine
5:30pm — Setup (earlier arrival welcome)
6:30pm — Guests arrive by train
Time for another amazingly successful, enjoyable star party at the railway museum! The Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway restores steam trains and runs them along narrow gauge rails. It attracts a particular clientele with a fascination for all things scientific, mechanical, and beautiful. The rail buffs who will be our guests are the perfect crowd for astronomy outreach, because they ask consistently insightful questions about everything seen in the eyepiece.
We astronomers will arrive by car and set up telescopes in the field at Alna Center Station, a stop along the tracks some distance from the museum’s main campus. Our guests will arrive by train. With time limited by the train’s arrival and departure, there is always a pleasant intensity to the observing. The train has been sold out for months, so we are guaranteed a crowd.
For directions, use only the link in the address above, or type the Google Plus Code into the search field of Google Maps. Trying to find your way with other links or other mapping software will likely lead you to the wrong location, due to frequent errors in mapping software for rural Maine.
The observing field is reached by a long, narrow dirt road along a tree line at the edge of a field. The entrance from the paved road is usually marked by some orange traffic cones, with no other signage. When traveling north on Route 218/Alna Road from Wiscasset, you’ll find the access road on the left side of the road, about 2/10 of a mile after the fire station. When traveling south from Whitefield, find it on the right, a little over 3/10 of a mile after the bright yellow Alna Meetinghouse.
After driving about 2/10 of a mile along the access road, you will cross the railroad tracks and arrive at Alna Center Station. Park alongside the access road. The landowner has requested that we not drive onto the field, to protect it from ruts and tire tracks.
It would help us to have a headcount of astronomers, so please let us know you’ll be coming.
