07/17/2025
Welcome Stargazers!
We apologize for the short notice, but we have some Big changes for this year’s star party. We are changing the weekend of the star party to September 19th – 21st. This brings it back to new moon weekend and keeps us from competing with Astronomy at the Beach in Kensington. River Valley is booked with an event that weekend, so this also requires us to Move the star party to a new venue. We are partnering with and being sponsored by the Friends of Ocqueoc Outdoor Event Center. They are just getting started with star parties and we wanted to help them out. The event center is located at 7142 Ocqueoc Lake Rd, Millersburg, MI 49759. The reason this location was chosen, is because they have Bortle 2 skies, bunk houses, bathroom facilities and access to power. The men’s and women’s bath houses have showers and running water sinks and toilets. These will be located near the observing field. Being that this is new and a big change we are only running Friday – Sunday this year. Due to permits we were not able to get tent camping for Friday night, but it is available on the observing field for Saturday night. The bunk houses have bunk beds, you would still need to bring bedding. Spaces are limited so we are only doing pre-registration this year and if spots fill up, we will start a waiting list. You will receive an email confirmation from us letting you know if you are all set or potentially on a waiting list. There will be a men’s and a women’s sections in the bunkhouses. We do have a few locations to house families together. The cost has gone up a little this year but that small increase will include dinner Saturday night; hot dogs, sides and drinks, and breakfast Sunday morning; pancakes, side and drinks. We know change is tough, and it was not easy making this decision. With the beautiful dark skies and facilities, we think the change will be worth it.
The facility does not allow generators or any RV/Camper set up. There are cabins and hotels/motels within 20 minutes around Black Lake and in Rogers City. There is also Ocqueoc Cabins and Campsites within 10 minutes on 23, but they have very limited availability.
Here is a link for the page for the Ocqueoc Outdoor Event Center so you can see even more pictures of the location: https://www.facebook.com/p/Ocqueoc-Outdoor-Center-100057494716078/
Here is the link for the GLSG website for registration details:
http://www.greatlakesstargaze.com/
