Include this unique, breathtaking stargazing experience at Cardrona in your next ski holiday itinerary. Nestled in the heart of the Southern Alps, the Cardrona Valley offers some of the best conditions on Earth for stargazing. Not only does it have a dark sky with minimal light pollution, but it’s far enough south to have a great vantage point to view the famous Southern Sky, and you may even see the Southern Lights!
ALPINE STARGAZING TOUR CONSISTS OF TWO PARTS:
The first part is a naked eye astronomy tour. Your guide will talk about the night sky specific to your location in New Zealand. You’ll cover highlights of the Southern Sky, constellations, movements of planets, celestial navigation, and general information about what can be seen without the aid of a telescope.
In the second half of the tour, you’ll use a top of the line portable telescope to see (when visible):
- Star clusters and nebulae
- The Highlands, Maria and craters of our Moon
- The moons of Jupiter
- Rings of Saturn
- Binary stars
- Other galaxies
Your guide will explain what you’re looking at, and why it’s so cool! Cardrona is ideally placed between Queenstown and Wanaka so that it has very little light pollution – easily accessible from both towns but remote enough to show pristine views of the Southern night sky.
