STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The first-ever astronomer-in-residence for the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve will lead headline a dark sky observing night at 9:30 p.m. tonight—Thursday, June 30--at the Croy Canyon Trialhead, 3.1 miles west of Hailey.

Catherine Slaughter, an astronomer who is working in conjunction with Boise State University, will take part in several events this summer in the Sun Valley and Stanley areas. To take part in tonight’s gathering and learn the location of the event, RSVP to Kristin.fletcher@haileypubliclibrary.org. Telescopes will be provided for those who don’t have them.

“Wood River Valley residents are privileged to live in a place of pitch-black night skies,” said Kristin Fletcher, HPL’s programs and engagement manager, “Catherine loves to teach astronomy in ways that are accessible and grounded in humanity.”

Catherine Slaughter has a Bachelor of Arts in Astronomy and Physics from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. There she studied stellar evolution and globular clusters which are stable, gravitationally bound clusters of stars numbering in the tens of thousands to millions of stars. She is completing a Master of Science in Astronomy Research from Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands, with a focus on the impact of particular stars in the Orion Nebula.