Frosty Drew Observatory has no telephone or Internet connections. The telephone in the Frosty Drew Nature Center cannot be heard in the Observatory and will not be answered on Friday evenings. Any e-mail sent to us within an hour of opening on Friday, we will not see it until the following morning.
If you are attempting to determine if we will be open on Friday, please visit our Home Page. A status message will be printed below the picture of the observatory. This status message will be updated during the day on Friday and periodically from the observatory on Friday nights. We also post status messages on the Frosty Drew Observatory & Sky Theatre Facebook page and on the Frosty Drew Observatory Twitter. On Friday nights the observatory will open about a half hour after dusk and will stay open till the crowd dies or the weather crashes our sky. On dark, clear nights we will usually stay open till 2am - 3am Saturday morning.
If you have general questions about astronomy or Frosty Drew Observatory you can contact an Astronomer at Frosty Drew Observatory . You'll be put in touch with one or more of our astronomy staffers. We'll do our best to answer your questions. We may have to respond to some questions by saying we don't know the answer. We cannot write excessively long or involved answers via e-mail. Some apparently simple questions have very complex answers. For example "Why is the night sky dark?" This question, called Olber's Paradox, took centuries to be answered correctly! If you come down to the Observatory on the next clear Friday night, we will do our best to answer your long or involved questions.
We will not respond to questions about astrology, horoscopes or similartopics.
If you are inquiring about a visit by a large group (a class trip or a scout group for example), please contact A Frosty Drew Astronomer several weeks before the proposed date. You can always come down in any case, but it helps us if we know that an unusually large number of people will arrive. If your group wants to see something specific, please let us know that as well.
We have a policy for children's groups of one RESPONSIBLE adult per 8 children. We prefer more adults per child ratios particularly for younger children. This is for the children's safety. Children must not be unsupervised at any time.
Every week we send out our Public Night announcement that will note our plans to open as well as a note from the Observatory Director, Francine Jackson. We also send out event notifications and alerts for many celestial events that sporadically happen. If you wish to subscribe to the Frosty Drew Observatory mailing list, please contact listmaster@frostydrew.org and include the email address you wish to subscribe with.