OPT is pleased to announce the fourth annual Southern California Astronomy Exposition, otherwise known as SCAE 2008.

Join us on July 12th for the Seminar Symposium & Star Party and on July 19th for the Astronomy Faire & giant giveaway event. The Seminar Symposium will be a day filled with stimulating seminars on some of the most exciting topics in astronomy, followed by an exciting keynote speaker and an evening star party at nearby Palomar Community College.

The Astronomy Faire on the following Saturday, July 19th, will feature the largest and most exciting names from the telescope industry. We are expecting over forty of the best astronomy equipment and optical manufacturers to attend, demonstrating their latest and greatest telescopes, CCD cameras, binoculars, accessories and more. There will be a free pizza lunch in the afternoon and a HUGE giveaway raffle near the end of the day, with prizes totaling over $50,000 so far!

The most exciting feature of the SCAE 2008 event is that it’s FREE! That’s right… free seminars, free magazines and brochures and a free star party on the 12h of July, and free demonstrations, free presentations, free pizza, free magazines, free information and a free raffle with over $50,000 in prizes on the 19th! There will also be special “One-Day Only“ SCAE pricing on a wide variety of products at OPT on both Saturdays.

SCAE Seminar Symposium & Star Party - July 12th

The team at OPT is thrilled to have an amazing line-up of speakers for our astronomy seminars. Check out the schedule of events below for times, speakers and topics. This year the daytime seminars will be held in our beautiful photo gallery on the bottom level of the OPT building, and the exciting keynote address, by Dr. Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, as well as the star party afterwards, will take place at Palomar Community College, located approximately 10 miles from OPT in nearby San Marcos.

The day will begin when the store opens at 10:00am. Come by early and check out the famous OPT showroom, pick up free issues of Sky & Telescope and Astronomy Magazine, and get ready for the show! You can also meet the lovely and talented actress, Arlene Martel! Ms. Martel is best known for her role as Spock’s wife, T’Pring, on the original Star Trek television series! Arlene will be available to autograph pictures from some of her most famous roles for a fee of only $25! There will also be a “One-Day Only” sale with special pricing on many exciting products, so call, stop by the store or order online to take advantage of these specials.

The seminars will begin at 11:00am and will include Scott Kardel from Palomar Observatory and solar imaging expert Gary Palmer. At 1:00 pm we will take a short intermission and OPT will provide snacks and drinks, or you can take a lunch break at one of the local restaurants. The seminars will continue at 2:00pm and will include Nicholas Law from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and Dr. Marc Rayman, the Chief Engineer for the NASA Dawn mission to the asteroid belt!

FOR MORE INFO ON THE SEMINARS AND SPEAKERS BIOS CLICK HERE

The store will close at 6:00pm and the party will move to Palomar Community College, located on Mission Road in San Marcos, California, just off Highway 78. At 7PM, in Lecture Hall P-32, famous film & screen star, Arlene Martel, will read from the popular book, "The Little Prince", and then introduce our special keynote speaker for the evening, Dr. Seth Shostak. Dr. Shostak is a popular lecturer and radio host as well as the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, and his talk, “When Will We Discover the Extraterrestrials?” should not be missed.

After the lecture, we will have a variety of telescopes set up on campus to gaze at the Moon, the planets, and some brighter deep sky objects. Representatives from OPT as well as companies like Celestron, Vixen, Tele Vue and Lunt Solar Systems will be on hand to show you the wonders of the universe through their newest telescopes!

FOR MORE INFO ON THE LECTURE & STAR PARTY, CLICK HERE

SCAE Seminar Symposium Schedule

SCAE ASTRONOMY FAIRE & GIANT GIVEAWAY – JULY 19TH

If you have been to one of the OPT telescope demonstrations, then you know how exciting it is to see your favorite astronomy equipment live and in action. Even better, these demonstrations allow you to speak to the manufacturer representatives and ask technical questions to your heart’s content.

Yet the SCAE Astronomy Faire is bigger and better than anything you have seen before! The companies in attendance for this year’s event include Apogee, AZ Sky Shack, Astrodon, Astronomik, Astronomy Magazine, Borg/Hutech, Canon, Celestron, Chronos, Coronado, DayStar Filters, Denkmeier, Discovery, FarPoint Astro, FLI, Hotech, the International DarkSky Association, iOptron, JMI, Lunt Solar Systems, Meade, Mitty, Orange County Astronomers,Orion, Pentax, PlaneWave, QSI, Rigel Systems, Riverside Astronomical Society, San Diego Astronomical Society, SBIG, Sky & Telescope, Star Chaserz, Stellarvue, Takahashi, Telescope Stability Systems, Tele Vue, Vixen, William Optics, Yankee Robotics, and more.

Throughout the day there will be informational presentations on a variety of topics on astronomy & astronomical equipment from the best and brightest minds in amateur astronomy. These presentations will include talks by PlaneWave, Denkmeier, FarPoint Astro, iOptron, Meade, Stellarvue, Yankee Robotics, QSI, Rigel Systems, Pentax, Takahashi, Vixen, Telescope Stability Systems, Lunt Solar Systems, Hotech, and more!

SCAE Astronomy Faire Schedule

As noted in the schedule, OPT will sponsor a free pizza lunch at 2PM, and throughout the day, there will be a special “1 Day Only” sale with amazing prices on our most popular products.

One of the highlights of the Astronomy Faire will be the amazing Giant Giveaway Raffle, where great prizes valued in excess of $50,000 will be given away! This may be the largest astronomy giveaway raffle ever, so do not miss it! With over 70 prizes, chances are exceptionally good that you will walk away with an amazing prize. Entry is completely free… no strings attached. You must be present to win the raffle prizes.

OPT is in awe of the prizes donated by our fabulous vendors this year! Apogee Instruments has amazed OPT with their generous donation of a Alta U9000 CCD Camera worth a whopping $9995! FLI will be giving away a MicroLine ML8033 Color Imaging System, worth $4995, and DayStar Filters is providing a $4,000 .5A T-Scanner H-Alpha Filter for our giveaway! Vixen Optics will be donating a Sphinx SXW mount with an 8” VMC200L on board, valued at over $3600, and Meade Instruments will be offering up an 8” LX200, a mySKY with cable, and a Coronado PST, valued at over $3600! Come on, you got to admit that OPT has the best vendors in the universe, and if you don’t believe me yet, check out our ever-changing SCAE 2008 Prize Page and I bet you’ll be convinced!

Prizes with a retail value of at least $1000 have been graciously donated by Canon, SBIG, Imaging Source, Celestron, Lunt Solar Systems, Takahashi, Yankee Robotics, and iOptron, and valuable prizes have been donated by Discovery, Denkmeier, Mitty, William Optics, Orion, Stellarvue, Tele Vue, Software Bisque, Pentax, Astrodon, JMI, Sky & Telescope, Astrozap, Hutech, StarGPS, TSS, Hotech, Rigel Systems, StarChaserz, Astronomy Magazine, FarPoint, AZ Sky Shack, Astronomy Technology Today, and TeleGizmos!

READ MORE ABOUT THE GIANT GIVEAWAY PRIZES & SPONSORS

General Event Information

The Southern California Astronomy Exposition will be located at OPT’s beautiful showroom location. The address is 918 Mission Avenue in Oceanside, California. We are located 250 yards west of Interstate 5 on the corner of Mission Avenue and Horne Street.

There is no charge for admission to the event. Please arrive early for the seminars as seating is limited. We will do our best to accommodate as many people as possible, but we expect a large attendance at this event so please plan ahead.

A large number of attendees will be from the local San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties, but many astronomy enthusiasts will be traveling from around the state and around the country. In fact, we have had visitors from other countries for past events and hope to see friends from outside of the United States this year as well.

For those of you who have not visited OPT before, you will need to first find your way to Interstate 5. If you are coming north on the 5 freeway, you will exit Mission Avenue and take the left hand branch for Downtown. This will swing you around heading west towards the beach. Go west approximately 250 yards and you will come to the intersection of Mission and Horne. OPT is the big building on the northwest corner. If you are coming south, exit Mission Avenue and stay in the right hand lane. Turn right on Mission Avenue and head west. Go west approximately 100 yards and you will come to the intersection of Mission and Horne. OPT is the big building on the northwest corner.

There is plenty of free parking in the vicinity. The most popular lot is located directly west of OPT in the Mission Square Shopping Center, however there is plenty of street parking nearby as well.

For those of you planning on staying the night in the local area, there are a number of quality accommodations in Oceanside, Vista, and Carlsbad…all within a few miles of OPT. Search the internet for more information.

The closest major airport is the San Diego International Airport. It is approximately a one hour drive from the airport to OPT and it is an easy drive north on the I-5.

In conclusion…

We are expecting this to be an amazing, must-attend event. The last three years’ events were huge successes, so we expect bigger and better things for SCAE 2008! If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call or send us an e-mail to opt@optcorp.com. If you have a specific question about the event or wish to participate in the event as a demonstrator, please e-mail me direct at penny@optcorp.com and I will get back to you. Thank you for visiting!

Penny Distasio
Event Coordinator - SCAE
OPT

FOR MORE INFO ON THE SEMINARS AND SPEAKERS BIOS CLICK HERE

FOR MORE INFO ON THE LECTURE & STAR PARTY, CLICK HERE

READ MORE ABOUT THE GIANT GIVEAWAY PRIZES & SPONSORS