A Death Valley party to stargaze, talk space and check out wildflowers

If you’re up for a drive out to the desert, the annual Death Valley Dark Sky festival is happening Feb. 6 to 8.

Kind of like the Coachella of star gazing, the weekend is packed with opportunities to spot celestial bodies through telescopes and hear scientists talk about everything from black holes to cutting edge radio telescopes.

Cameron Hummels, a research scientist and director of astrophysics outreach at Caltech, said he’s headed out to this convening of star gazers in Death Valley for five years.

He said it’s one thing to go to public science talks or watch them on YouTube, “but to have a visceral experience of looking through a telescope at a dark night sky is like something you have to go to a place to do."

Friday and Saturday will include outdoor star parties, where attendees can get access to the dozens of telescopes they’ll have set up.

The weekend’s programming will include talks from NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists, space-themed pub trivia at the Badwater Saloon and guided walks of the Death Valley spots that helped experts design missions off our planet.

“Because [Death Valley is] such an exposed landscape, it makes a really good planetary analog for a lot of the other locations in our solar system. Whether it’s the moon or Mars or some of the other objects in our solar system,” Hummels told LAist.

On Saturday, Hummels will lead a presentation on the “formation and evolution of galaxies.”

These dark sky events — known as astro-tourism — are becoming more popular, Hummels said. People seem to be increasingly interested in space in the last five years or so. And there are other pluses of laying out under the stars with a friend.

“I think anytime you get into the great outdoors you’re gonna have mental health benefits... I can highly recommend this to people as both an educational opportunity but [also] a place to see our place in the universe and have a fun chill weekend,” Hummels said.

And if you need a more terrestrial reason to make the trip out to Death Valley? All that rain we had is making for good wildflower conditions.

“Death Valley is poised for a better-than-average bloom, and with a little luck, it could even be better than that,” David Blacker, Death Valley National History Association executive director, wrote in his Wildflower Report earlier this month.

Organized by the National Park Service, the festival is a collaboration between NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ames Research Center, Caltech and other institutions.

How to go

Death Valley Dark Sky Festival 2026

Friday, Feb. 6 to Sunday, Feb. 8.

All locations and times for talks, tours and star parties are listed on the National Park Service’s website.

All public events are free with entry to Death Valley National Park.