Under the Stars: A Night of Music, Science and Marshmallows

Faytroun, Lebanon- On Saturday evening, the sky became the main attraction. Starting at 5 p.m., the fourth edition of AstroNotes gathered families, astronomy enthusiasts and children at SkyLodge in Faytroun for an evening that moved from the moon to the stars, with a few stops for music, food and marshmallows along the way.

Created by UniversCiel, AstroNotes was designed as an outdoor astronomy experience that brings science closer to people through activities, discussion, music and observation. Jean-Pierre, one of the organizers, says the idea came from wanting to make astronomy something people could enjoy together.

“We decided to combine art with science and to make it enjoyable also for kids,” he says. The program grew from there: children’s activities, astronomy discussions, a musical performance, solar observation and a final sky tour. The evening followed that rhythm.

Rockets before the stars

The first big moment belonged to the kids. At 5:45 p.m., water rockets launched into the air, giving younger visitors their first taste of the physics behind space travel. Jean-Pierre explains that the activity was developed as an inquiry-based learning project linked to school science and physics curricula, allowing different age groups to engage with it in their own way.

For some families, AstroNotes has already become something of a tradition. Joseph Issa had attended every edition. He came with friends, drawn by his long-standing interest in astronomy and by the fact that each event offers something different. “Very beautiful. I like it. I came every time,” he says. “And every time there is something new in these events.”

There were also children discovering the event for the first time. Ten-year-old Clara was especially excited about the campfire and marshmallows, while also looking forward to seeing the stars for the first time. Her verdict on the evening was immediate: “I love my marshmallows.”

Questions bigger than the sky

The astronomy discussion brought astrophysicist Mark Bou Zeid into the conversation, giving the audience space to ask questions and explore the universe beyond what could be seen with the naked eye.

For Philipe Bou Zeid, who attended with his son Joseph, this kind of experience matters precisely because children can encounter science in a physical, immediate way. “I think it's like a real-life experiment,” he says. “So, they get in touch with things closely, not just through books and theoretically.”

Twelve-year-old Fouad Arrasi was already coming with some experience of his own. He brought a telescope, said he regularly uses it to look at the sky and had previously attended a school session with Mark. He was back to follow the program again.

Then came Elie Abou Assi’s Sky Tour. As the sky grew darker, he guided the audience through constellations and the stories attached to them, moving into Greek mythology and tales surrounding Zeus. The stars became characters, stories and pieces of a shared history. Jean-Pierre explains that the sky tour also explores the Arabic names attached to many stars visible from Lebanon, connecting astronomy with mythology and cultural memory.

Saj, chocolate and a campfire

Between the astronomy sessions, the evening became much more social. People gathered around the food stations for Saj and other bites, while children moved around with crepes and chocolate in hand. Then the campfire was lit.

Marshmallows went onto sticks, parents stood around the flames and children settled into the simple pleasure of roasting something over a fire. The setting helped make the whole experience feel removed from the city's usual pace. Lara, part of the SkyLodge management team, describes the venue as a place where people can “disconnect from the whole city or the whole life chaos.”

For SkyLodge, which primarily operates as a wedding destination, hosting AstroNotes remains an occasional way of supporting organizations connected to nature, science and culture rather than a move toward becoming a regular events venue.

Looking up

At 8:15 p.m., Cristina Bou Zeid took the stage. Her live set shifted the atmosphere again, filling the space between the rocks with music as families listened from the wooden benches. Then the audience started moving. Children began dancing alongside their parents, turning the concert into another shared part of the evening.

It was a fitting continuation of what Jean-Pierre had envisioned for AstroNotes from the beginning: an astronomy event that could hold music, imagination and family life in the same space.

For him, astronomy itself starts with curiosity. “The answer is in the astronomy field,” he says, explaining that those early questions can eventually lead toward much bigger ones about black holes, the Big Bang and time. And that curiosity was visible everywhere that night: in the children watching rockets take off, in the questions directed at Mark, in Fouad bringing his telescope, and in the crowd following Elie’s stories across the constellations.

The final part of the evening belonged to the sky. With telescopes set up for observation, the audience gathered again to look beyond the lights around them. Depending on visibility, the moon and Saturn, including its rings, were among the celestial objects observed during the evening.

For Joseph Issa, the reason to keep coming is simple. He says astronomy gives people a chance to think beyond their everyday routines: “We are all stuck on this earth and we work, we jump and then we die, and we don't know everything about where we are living.”