Star Tours : Embark From Caspers Park With South County Astronomer as Your Host

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  Deep in the wilderness of a land preserve, Aurelie Bentley peered into a 16-inch-wide telescope and blinked at the million twinkling lights.

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In a moment, Dan Manrique was adjusting the telescope, bringing into view something 22-year-old Bentley of Huntington Beach had always wanted to see: the brightly colored bands of Saturn, hundreds of millions of miles away.

“I could see the rings,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

It’s a big universe out there, and sometimes, budding stargazers just need someone to point them in the right direction.

Every month for the past three years, Manrique, an amateur astronomer, has shared his knowledge of the cosmos with as many as 60 beginning students at a time at the 1,200-acre Rancho Mission Viejo Land Conservancy.

And Friday, Manrique will begin to expand his program with additional astronomy sessions during the month at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park, making the San Juan Capistrano area one of the few places outside a college campus where an amateur can find star lessons.

The program will be structured like college, with an hour of class time followed by two hours of fieldwork. But beginners may just choose the sessions they want to attend.

“There’s a lot of people who want to know a little more about the universe,” Manrique said. “They just don’t know where to get started.”

The first program will delve into newly discovered phenomena in the solar system.

“I will show and explain many things they don’t even imagine exists in the universe,” Manrique said.

A programming manager for an insurance company by day, the 55-year-old Manrique of San Juan Capistrano is a star man by night, a lifelong passion passed along by his father in their native Peru.

Manrique’s father took him for long walks under the Lima night sky, once to the ruins of an ancient Inca observatory.

“I remember three seats carved into stone,” he said. “One was a picture of the moon; another, the sun, and the third was a constellation. I was very impressed by it all.” A year later, when Manrique was 9, his father taught him how to build his own telescope, he said.

Manrique’s visual tour of the solar system will stop at some of the major planets: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. He will talk about recent discoveries such as the Kuiper Disc and the Oort Cloud, asteroid belts that orbit the sun in the outer fringes of the solar system.

The presentation has been honed by almost three years of lectures in the wide-open spaces of the land conservancy, executive director Jill Davison said.

“I’ve seen Daniel grow a lot,” she said. “At first, it was just setting up a telescope and pointing out things in the sky. Now, his program is really well-honed. A little bit of science, a little bit of Greek mythology. He makes it interesting for both the adults and the kids.”

For many, stargazing is also an outdoors experience enhanced by the smell of oaks and the sounds of wildlife.

“You’re out in nature as you’re looking at the stars,” Manrique said. “Basically, you get a much better feel of being one with the universe.”

Tony Mann knows what Manrique is talking about. Friday night was the third time that the 34-year-old science teacher has traveled from his South Pasadena home to attend the astronomy program.

Like Bentley, “the first time I saw Saturn, it was with Daniel’s telescope,” Mann said. “You can actually see the bands on Jupiter. It doesn’t look like a dot.”

A lover of the outdoors, Mann became interested in the heavens while camping out.

“On probably every camping trip I’ve ever been on, when the campfire talk dwindles, you invariably look to the stars.”

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Manrique’s astronomy sessions at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park cost $15. For information about the program, call (714) 728-0235 or (714) 248-5176. The land conservancy program costs $4 and reservations for its monthly field trips can be made at (714) 489-9778.