ASTRO-ACRES

"Where The Stars Shine"

Beaver City, Indiana

Updated September 15, 2008

A great star party starts with a great observing site. Amateur astronomers travel great distances and put up with environmental hardships to get to these sites. It doesn't have to be that way!

Astro-Acres is less than a two hours drive from downtown Chicago. Astro-Acres is a great observing site. The hundreds of attendees of EPOCH 2007 and EPOCH 2008 concur.  Astro-Acres was specifically developed as a site for doing astronomy - and doing it with style! We believe things such as electrical power, water, food, showers, and nice restroom facilities should not be considered optional at star party events. Why go anywhere else?

In this satellite overview of the area, the location of EPOCH 2008 is between Kankakee, Illinois, and West Lafayette, Indiana. Closer in, it's between the small towns of Brook and Morocco, Indiana. Light pollution from Morocco does not impact the site and light pollution from Brook is virtually nil to begin with.

This 2 minute exposure was taken with a Canon 20Da with the stock kit lens June 23, 2006 at Site B.

This is very comparable to the actual view at Site B through binoculars

Image by Chris Brownewell

As this Google Earth / light pollution overlay shows, Site B and AstroAcres fall in a

"dark hole". Actual experience on the ground here suggests that it is a bit darker than the IDA light pollution density measurements would suggest. It is an order of magnitude darker that the sites of the Prairie Skies Star Party and Astrofest - both located west of

Kankakee, Illinois.

Graphic courtesy of Al Degutis

For Road Directions from Morocco, Indiana CLICK HERE

For more information, call 219-741-2686, or email us at the link above