2022 Cultural Tour Company of the Year Award Winner

2022 Travel & Hospitality Award Winner

AstroTours.org has been awarded Cultural Tour Company of the Year for 2022 full press release here:

The Travel & Hospitality Awards is proud to announce that AstroTours.org has been awarded in its 2022 North, South & Central Americas Travel Awards program.

While this year has been the toughest the travel industry has ever faced, we endeavor to recognize those who deserve praise and to promote the hard work of tenacious travel businesses. Recipients of Travel & Hospitality awards in 2022 were scrupulously selected based on the aggregation of reviews from multiple third-party sources. Selected by a panel of experts who analyse submission material, review customer feedback and compare the facilities of each entrant. Our winners are those who can demonstrate their uniqueness, quality of services and facilities and exceptional levels of customer care across a number of categories.

In this extraordinary year of the awards over 1,200 nominations were received for this years program, and the standard of entries was incredibly high. The judging panel had great difficulty in narrowing down the entries but the winners reflect the very best in travel and hospitality standards. The team at Travel & Hospitality Awards, said: “We were overwhelmed by the quality of entries this year. We hope this guide will be a useful tool for discerning travelers planning their next luxury getaway. Congratulations once again to all our winners.”

The full list of winners will be included in the annual awards publication that will be available for digital download in December. To receive this publication, you are encouraged to join the mailing list to be notified upon its release.

For more details on Travel & Hospitality Awards, go to www.thawards.com

Ends.

About the Company: THE TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY AWARDS is an annual celebration of excellence across all sectors of travel. The independent awards program is an annual celebration of excellence for the best hotels, spas, restaurants and tour operators.

About AstroTours.org: Elevated Astronomy Tours offers hands on guided night tours of the sky using telescopes, lasers, and binoculars.Tours are conducted in the Rocky Mountains throughout the week. The tour starts around Sunset and lasts for 2 hours. It consists of looking through telescopes, learning about constellations/folklore, training on how to find objects in the sky, a talk about the cosmos and plenty of question & answer time.

Media Contact:

Stanley Lucas | Public Relations Travel & Hospitality Awards | +44 (0) 800 048 8265 | Stanley@thawards.com

Related Links: https://thawards.com/astrotours-org-is-a-travel-hospitality-award-winner-for-2022/

2022 Orionids Meteor Shower

The Orionid meteor shower is one of my favorite meteor showers and will be in our skies soon!! Get a plan to get outside and watch the shower! This guide will tell you what you need and how to make a plan to see the shower on your own! If you want to skip the planning just book a tour to see the shower and more up close in a telescope with me.

When: October 2nd to November 7th (peaking on October 21st) Full moon is on October 9th so I would say October 17th to October 31st (Halloween) is the best time to see them.

Where: Earth the Orionids are visible in most latitudes. Just be sure to get a dark cloud free spot.

How: The best way to increase your chances to view any meteor shower is to: 1) turn off all lights and let your eyes adjust to the dark for 20min. 2) lay on your back under the night sky to maximize the amount of your field of view taken up by the sky. I recommend heading to a park with a picnic blanket and lay out on your blanket in the middle of a light-less grassy field.

What you need to best see it:

1. Something to lay down on (picnic blanket, trampoline, hammock, sleeping pad, rug, air mattress, etc.)

2. Your eyes

3. Optional:

   1. Bug spray

   2. Warm clothes for falling temperatures

   3. A sky map app on your smartphone

   4. Binoculars

   5. telescope

Orion hopefully it won't be this cloudy when you go out to watch the meteor shower.

Meteor showers are caused by the Earth traveling through a part of its orbit that has lots of debris left behind from a commit. As the Earth travels through this debris, the debris causes “falling stars” “shooting stars” or more correctly “meteors”. Small meteors (about the size of a grain of sand) are responsible for most of the shooting stars we see. These small meteors are moving extremely fast when the earth hits them ripping electrons off air molecules in the upper atmosphere, making them light up “electrifying” the air. I feel like this is what makes them so electrifying to watch!

The Orionids are one of my favorite meteor showers because it is known for having the biggest and brightest meteors. The Orionids are about average for amount of meteors you see at 20 meteors per hour but they more than make up for this with the brightness of the meteors. This is because the meteors of the Orionids are some of the fastest meteors the Earth hits all year. This is because the Earth is hitting the debris field nearly head on. The particles come from Halley's Comet (1P/Halley) which is seen every 75 to 76 years, and the debris it leaves behind is in the perfect angle to cause some of the brightest shooting stars we see all year.

Halley's Comet

Location can have a huge impact on how many shooting stars you will see as well. You want a very dark open area. I recommend using this mapping tool to find the best spot near you: https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=4.00&lat=39.1997&lon=-97.2914&layers=B0TFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Denver's light pollution

I’m always impressed with places like Cherry Creek State Park or the Rocky Mountain arsenal for being so dark yet ~15 minutes away from some of the brightest areas in Colorado. Then there's places that are very dark like Nederland that's less than 1 hr from the brightest areas in the state. It’s all about finding that balance. You’ll still see the brightest falling stars in your backyard, the darker the better but don’t let it be a barrier to seeing the shower.

You want a clear area so when you lay down and look up you only see the night sky. trees/hills are nice to block out some of the surrounding light pollution but you don’t want them to block your view of the night sky and miss out on shooting stars behind them. Definitely check the weather as well, you're not going to see any shooting stars if it's cloudy. Weather.gov

Laying down under the night sky is the biggest cheat code to seeing more shooting stars. This shower is the “Orionids” meaning that the shooting stars will appear to radiate from the constellation Orion which will rising around 1030p MST in the Eastrn sky. You will still be able to see them all over the sky even when Orion isn’t out. Laying down so you can see the maximum amount of sky at one time is the best way to maximize your chances of seeing a shooting star. I recommend picnic blankets, trampolines, hammocks, sleeping mats, a rug, air mattress, anything that will let you lay out under the stars for a good amount of time in comfort.

With that you should be more than prepared to view the meteor shower this October!

Here’s a small list of other bonus things to see if you can spot while you’re out there:

1. The big dipper low in the north west sky

2. Jupiter - Jupiter will be low in the South-Eastern sky next to just after sunset and rising high in the southern sky. You will be able to see up to four of Jupiter’s moons in a pair of binoculars or a telescope

3. Saturn - Saturn will be high in the South-Eastern sky near~ish to Jupiter just after sunset and rising high in the southern sky You will be able to see the rings and some moons in a good pair of binoculars or a telescope

4. The milky way - if you’re in a dark enough area you won’t be able to miss it high in the sky going right over your head

5. Use a star app on your phone to identify other stars / constellations. This is a fun thing to play with but every time you look at your phone remember you are losing your night vision, making it harder to see dimmer shooting stars. Turn down your screen brightness and be courteous of others not to shine light in their eyes.

If you want to see all this and more in a telescope book an astronomy tour here:Astrotours.org/booking

Stargazing Bailey, The Santa Maria Observatory

Over the summer AstroTours.org partnered with the YMCA of Northern Colorado to provide educational astronomy programs to their youth camp in Santa Maria.

the 16 inch dob set up at Camp Santa Maria

Camp Santa Maria is located just outside of Bailey Colorado just a little over half an hour outside of Denver. Camp Santa Maria has exceptionally dark skies and a large field offering a large view of the night sky.

Luke Huxley teaching YMCA staff ow to use the telescopes

The first week we offered training on how to use the telescopes and equipment for the YMCA staff. The next weeks AstroTours provided a guide to give experience and lead astronomy programs once a week for the summer.

Camp Santa Maria can be rented as a venue to host events such as weddings and you can opt to make stargazing part of your private event.