For an astronomer located in one of the grayest regions of the country, summertime means more than just fun in the sun, it means clear skies at night.

And with them, the giant lid of the largest public access telescope in the Northwest peels back to suck in starlight, giving observers a clean glance into Earth’s neighborhood and beyond.

Those who attend the Battle Point Astronomer’s next free planetarium show and star party at 8 p.m. June 9 may get that chance, depending on weather, to peer through the lens of the Ritchie Telescope at the Ritchie Observatory in Battle Point Park on Bainbridge Island.

Throughout the night, they’ll be looking into other galaxies within the Virgo Supercluster and beyond — including the Milky Way and its neighbors.

“These are things you don’t normally see,” said BPAA education officer Stephen Ruhl, who will be giving a planetarium presentation beginning at 8 p.m. Saturday. “They are pretty and they are beautiful, but they also tell us a lot about how stars evolve.”

Galaxies have been called the visible atoms of the cosmic fabric. They range in size from dwarves with as few as 10 million stars to giants with more than a trillion stars revolving around a common center of mass. Experts estimate that there are billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

“Milky Way is one of millions of billions, it’s like a grain of sand out in the beach,” Ruhl said.

Ruhl will take a look at just a few in his planetarium presentation — which will be accessible for beginners — including the Milky Way’s biggest neighbor Andromeda as well as smaller galaxies like the Whirlpool (M51), Bode’s (M81), the Cigar (M82) and others from the Virgo Supercluster.

Then the group will head outdoors and observe some of those same galaxies with the naked eye.