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Me and a group of my family drove from Pittsburgh for the stargazing tour in early August. Considering the price and what is advertised, we were expecting a professional guided tour of the sky including the use of a high-quality telescope to see things that we cannot see in Pittsburgh. The stargazing tour was was disappointing and not what we expected.
Greg (owner and presenter) started by reading a long poem and then talking about Indians and the origins of their names and other forgettable discussion. This took about 45 minutes. I feel like everyone was sitting around uncomfortably wondering what the heck was going on. I know we were.
Around 10:00 pm Greg began pointing out stars and constellations with a laser pointer. He pointed way too quickly so if it was behind you, you had to twist around quickly to see where he was pointing or you would miss it. Eventually people were standing so that they didn’t miss the pointing and also so as not to get all twisted up in their seats. After pointing to the constellation, Greg told various stories regarding the star and constellation naming and historical information. This is fine but it was just too much as it went on for about an hour until about 11:00 pm. So, for roughly 1 hr and 45 minutes there was no attempt to even use the telescope nor any type of material presentation.
I figured for the $40 per person fee that the night would have included some sort of presentation…. an introduction, maybe a discussion of galaxies and star formation and maybe some photos of prior successful stargazing nights. There was nothing like that.
Unfortunately, clouds rolled in quickly around 11:00 (as the forecast predicted) and we did not get to look at the sky at all with the scope. There are websites that provide a lot of weather analysis for stargazing and they were predicting clouds around 11:00 but for some reason, Greg did not start using the scope until the clouds rolled in. Then he said that we couldn’t see anything because of the clouds and the night ended, sort of. He was continuing to talk but he was hard to hear. People were tired and ready to leave so most people were packing up their chairs and leaving as he continued to talk about who know what. With nothing presented and the clouds rolling in at 11:00 being completely mishandled, we all felt that we were overcharged for what we received.
I don't know if Greg intended to show any visible planets with the scope but planets were not mentioned all night, not even with the laser pointer. For example, when I visited a California observatory, they had scopes fixed on several of the planets as well as the moon and the images were very interesting to see. A programmable scope can be set up and move around the sky and focus on objects quickly.
It is also worth mentioning that you may have trouble hearing some of what is being said. Some people are good speakers and some are not. Greg is hard to hear at times regardless of the volume due to having a bit of an unstable voice and a tendency to tail off at the end of his sentences.
Speaking and presenting skills can be worked on if people would just give honest feedback and reviews. I think because Greg is a bit quirky but also likeable, some people don’t want to hurt his feelings so they are not honest. I am being honest with my review for the benefit of anyone who is considering traveling a distance, spending time, and possibly paying for lodging for this experience.
Initially I tried calling Greg to let him know that my group was not satisfied with the experience and that I wanted to give him feedback but he did not answer and his voice message box was full. So, I sent him a text message mentioning this. He did not reply so I sent a second text that I was going to write a review that was honest but not complementary if he did not reply to me. He still did not reply. I sent him and email with my review and still no reply. Apparently, Greg is not concerned with the satisfaction of his customers and he does not want to hear any...
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I couldn’t be happier that I received a call from Greg, at Potter County Stargazing Tours, Monday evening…”It looks like the clouds will be clearing by 9:30 tonight if U can still come out!”. I was disappointed by cloud cover over the wkend but was still close enough to run over when he called. There were even some others, like me, arriving too. We were all thrilled when Greg spotted some unusual light on the northern horizon and YES!🙌 WOW!🤩 Like that! We saw the Aurora Borealis that we all knew had moved on to Canada by this evening. Even if we had not seen this miraculous light show of the northern lights, the stars, moon and galaxies didn’t seem secondary to northern lights. Greg has a huge telescope that is also some combination of computer. He let us look into the eyepiece while he verbally directed our moon surface view. He explained in layman's terms how the view we had was always light affected. Greg went on to entertain us w/stories of interesting local history relating to the night sky. He then shared views of stars I have always heard of but was never quite certain what I was looking at before. He used a laser pointer to point out constellations!! He had the path of and times the Sky Lab would cross our view…twice during his presentation…”there’s the international space station again!”. I couldn’t believe it had already circled once!! Another thing Greg did was show how the computer in his telescope worked, to take pictures of two stars on opposite sides of the night sky… then continue to photograph between those, to fill in the center in between those two points. Those pictures then showed up on the screens he had brought along for our viewing pleasure!! We saw galaxies and clusters were broken down into individual pieces! I could have never seen anything like this before with my own home telescope!! If U read this Greg, Thanks again so much for your guidance and “showmanship”! I look forward to returning with my kids...
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We had an incredible experience with Greg and Potter County Stargazing Tours. From confirmation that the weather was cooperating, to meeting and obtaining directions to the field, Greg was right on it. We reserved our slots back in January for July hoping the new moon would help the Milky Way pop and it sure did!
Greg is extremely knowledgeable about everything relating to space. His presentation was very informative providing an overview of the visible constellations and their relationship to each other in the sky. He answered questions and pointed out the stars making up the constellations with a powerful laser pointer so you knew exactly what he was discussing.
My favorite part was looking into the telescope at the craters of the moon and later having the nebulas projected from the telescope to the wide screen. The telescope could pinpoint one star in the vast sky and bring it to life. It’s hard to fathom the distances and times he described, not to mention he could find that particular star in the sky.
At the end of the presentation Greg granted me permission to photograph the Milky Way with my own camera which was a big plus for me. I have never been to a dark place with such a wide uninterrupted view of the night sky. So many more stars were visible than where I live. We even saw two shooting stars!
The entire evening was awesome. I took Greg’s recommendation to bring an additional jacket - it cools off considerably after sunset and the cooler temperatures and dampness set in. I was happy to have it! I highly recommend Greg and Potter County Stargazing Tours. It took us about 3 hours to reach Cherry Springs from WNY and was definitely worth the ride to visit. I’d recommend staying in the area a few nights to increase your chance of clear skies.
I hope you go and enjoy it as...
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