Stargazing on the Emerald Princess

[Beckers419]

I saw stargazing advertised on the Princess webpage as an onboard ship activity.  Has anyone ever participated?  Or know if this is something even offered on the Emerald Princess (or is it just on certain cruises)?  We'll be on the Southern Caribbean itinerary in May.

[Rick&Jeannie]

I have seen it offered on a previous cruise...not sure but I *think* it might have been the Sky.  It was in Iceland or Norway...but we never did see any Northern Lights!

[2and2]

We did stargazing on an Alaska cruise on the Emerald pre pandemic. It took place on the highest deck late at night .   It was very lackluster for me as the speaker/guide didn't seem to really know that much . She pointed out a few constellations and went on and on about their detailed Greek mythology stories that they were named after.  Maybe I just expected more.

[Thrak]

I have tried the "stargazing" on 4 different cruises in various parts of the world. On the first one the bridge crew screwed up and cut the lights where we all were on the bow. That lasted for about 15 seconds. Then they turned the lights back on. After that the host of the event tried over and over and over to get the lights cut. The crew cut the lights on Lido deck. Not good and dangerous. They never did get it right and we all eventually gave up. I felt really sorry for the young woman who was trying to present the thing.

 

On the other 3 cruises they "cut the lights" in the immediate area but all of the other lights - many right next to where we were all gathered - were still shining brightly. On none of the tries was it ever even approaching dark. On every single one of the tries I had better star viewing in my own back yard. It was a total fiasco every single time. To say we were disappointed every single time is a gross understatement.

[fpsphil]

Wasn't onboard last month. Was plenty dark though up on sky deck on top of skywalkers at night to see quite a few stars

[coops14]

We did star gazing many years ago on the Crown in the Southern Caribbean. The presenter had a light beam she shined into the sky and explained which planet was which. The overriding memory was, it was so windy we could hardly stand up 

[lx200gps]

Amateur astronomer here.  AFAIK, these star gazing sessions involve a junior member of the entertainment staff, armed with a freeware cell phone astronomy app like Stellarium and maybe a green laser pointer, using the app to show major visible objects and pointing them out with the laser. Even if the bridge crew does dim the lights, there is often little to see due to local observing conditions (cloud, fog, haze etc.). The crew member doing the event probably has little to no knowledge of astronomy and so is not likely to be very informative. Also, the results would be heavily dependent on the ship's location, as some routes would result in worse conditions than others. A TransAtlantic under good "seeing" conditions could be a killer, while, say, a California Coastal might not, the light domes of LA and San Francisco killing any visibility to the east for a hundred miles.  Also, keep in mind that aside from the sun. moon, and planets, most deep sky objects will be underwhelming to the naked eye.  E.g. the Orion Nebula is one of the "brightest" deep sky winter objects and yet is still barely visible as a fuzzy patch except under the clearest skies. TL:DR, do it yourself with a free or very inexpensive astronomy app on your phone.  Fire up the app, point it at the sky and it will tell you all about the object in question. In the amateur astronomy community, Stellarium  (freeware) is a good bet, but the gold standard, used by most of us, is one of the variants of SkySafari (inexpensive payware)

[startedwithamouse]

53 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

Amateur astronomer here.  AFAIK, these star gazing sessions involve a junior member of the entertainment staff, armed with a freeware cell phone astronomy app like Stellarium and maybe a green laser pointer, using the app to show major visible objects and pointing them out with the laser. Even if the bridge crew does dim the lights, there is often little to see due to local observing conditions (cloud, fog, haze etc.). The crew member doing the event probably has little to no knowledge of astronomy and so is not likely to be very informative. Also, the results would be heavily dependent on the ship's location, as some routes would result in worse conditions than others. A TransAtlantic under good "seeing" conditions could be a killer, while, say, a California Coastal might not, the light domes of LA and San Francisco killing any visibility to the east for a hundred miles.  Also, keep in mind that aside from the sun. moon, and planets, most deep sky objects will be underwhelming to the naked eye.  E.g. the Orion Nebula is one of the "brightest" deep sky winter objects and yet is still barely visible as a fuzzy patch except under the clearest skies. TL:DR, do it yourself with a free or very inexpensive astronomy app on your phone.  Fire up the app, point it at the sky and it will tell you all about the object in question. In the amateur astronomy community, Stellarium  (freeware) is a good bet, but the gold standard, used by most of us, is one of the variants of SkySafari (inexpensive payware)

This, 100 percent, was our experience. A guy with an app. Most guests knew more than he did. It was fun.

[lx200gps]

28 minutes ago, startedwithamouse said:

This, 100 percent, was our experience. A guy with an app. Most guests knew more than he did. It was fun.

Ya gotta feel for these poor kids, thrown in like that to present material they have little or no knowledge of or experience with, often, as you say, having to present technical material to folks who know far more about it than they do.

[startedwithamouse]

2 hours ago, lx200gps said:

Ya gotta feel for these poor kids, thrown in like that to present material they have little or no knowledge of or experience with, often, as you say, having to present technical material to folks who know far more about it than they do.

They need to list it as "Stargazing - Unhosted" in the patter, then kill the lights.

 

We all have apps anyway. 

[CruisinFinsUp]

9 hours ago, lx200gps said:

Amateur astronomer here.  AFAIK, these star gazing sessions involve a junior member of the entertainment staff, armed with a freeware cell phone astronomy app like Stellarium and maybe a green laser pointer, using the app to show major visible objects and pointing them out with the laser. Even if the bridge crew does dim the lights, there is often little to see due to local observing conditions (cloud, fog, haze etc.). The crew member doing the event probably has little to no knowledge of astronomy and so is not likely to be very informative. Also, the results would be heavily dependent on the ship's location, as some routes would result in worse conditions than others. A TransAtlantic under good "seeing" conditions could be a killer, while, say, a California Coastal might not, the light domes of LA and San Francisco killing any visibility to the east for a hundred miles.  Also, keep in mind that aside from the sun. moon, and planets, most deep sky objects will be underwhelming to the naked eye.  E.g. the Orion Nebula is one of the "brightest" deep sky winter objects and yet is still barely visible as a fuzzy patch except under the clearest skies. TL:DR, do it yourself with a free or very inexpensive astronomy app on your phone.  Fire up the app, point it at the sky and it will tell you all about the object in question. In the amateur astronomy community, Stellarium  (freeware) is a good bet, but the gold standard, used by most of us, is one of the variants of SkySafari (inexpensive payware)

 

 

We did this quite a few years ago in the Caribbean.  It was very much like this experience.   But it was fun and something different!   

[Beckers419]

Thank you everyone for replying with your experiences!  I'm hoping to see this on the Emerald in May, but I'll temper my expectations.  My youngest is a big space fan (they studied the solar system this year in 3rd grade).  He taught me all about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn yesterday.  We love the phone app, so at minimum I suppose we can have our own astronomy night.

[MJC]

For Android users, the app Skymap is very easy to use. Its good for helping beginners to identify the brightest objects in their night sky and the  constellations. It can point you to the Perseids in summer and Leonids in winter. We often refer to it when trying to decide whether to take our telescope out for the evening.

 

The only successful cruise ship stargazing we had was on a small ship when we were anchored. It was by no means an advanced experience but the captain did turn the upper deck lights off, and we enjoyed it. 

 

Edited to add that we have enjoyed stargazing from our aft balcony when we have one, though the section of sky to study is rather limited. Seeing Orion hanging over the wake is a treat though.

Edited February 22 by MJC