Upcoming Events
| Event | Date | Details |
|---|---|---|
| SMV Skywatch | TBA, 2025 | No skywatches for the rest of 2024. We’ll announce the 2025 schedule when it’s confirmed. |
| RAS monthly meeting | Jan. 14 | Our monthly meeting will be held at the Science Museum of Virginia (in the Thalhimer Theater) and online at 7:30 pm. We will open the video conference at 7:00 PM at this link for people to chat, if they like, and keep it open after the meeting. Please join us if you can. |
You can find a full list of venues on the Venue Page
Searching for Information About the Sky?
What’s in the Sky Tonight?
Facing South and looking almost straight overhead, you’ll see two bright stars. The one to the right is Arcturus, and the one to the left is Vega. To the left of Vega, you’ll…
Telescope Buying Guide
Do you want to buy a telescope, but don’t know where to start? You might consider using a pair of binoculars first, to become acquainted with the night sky. You…
Schedule a Skywatch
Are you a teacher? Scout Leader? We offer skywatch sessions, free of charge, for any educational purpose. We’ll bring one or more telescopes, depending on the size of the crowd….
Future and Past RAS Events
The Library Telescope Project
An Update from John Sokol (Editor’s note: The Library Telescope Program is a project that a number of astronomy clubs support. Participating clubs purchase and maintain simple telescopes that are…
A Venus Nighthawk
She’s Got It – an update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #212 By Josh Urban – Nov 18 Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc:…
A System of Binoviewing
by John C Raymond I’d like to share some of my ideas and opinions on binoviewing. What is a System of Binoviewing? An assembly of common observing equipment that’s powerful,…
Peter Tlusty’s Students to Compete in International NASA Challenge!
NASA recently selected 75 student teams to begin an engineering design challenge to build rovers that will compete next spring at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center near the agency’s…
First Astronomy Day at Crump Park
RAS decided to try something different this year, and partner with Henrico County for Astronomy Day. While the crowd was not great, everything else worked out very well, and we…
Pass Me a Wrench…
Letters from Josh (A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #204) Excerpted from a Letter from Josh as it appeared in the Altavista…
Mysteries of Lyra
By John Raymond Lyra is a prominent and fascinating constellation that passes overhead for us in the mid-northern latitudes. Its visible most of the year. It has one of the…
Review of Taurus Telescopes’ 12 inch T- 300 Ultra-light Dobsonian
By John Roberts One of the hurdles that we amateur astronomers have is that most of us live in or near cities with bright night skies. Our home’s Bortle 8+…
St. Francis Skywatch
This was a small group, and the sky adjacent to the building was extremely limited. Luckily the Moon was visible from the sidewalk right outside the front entrance. There were…
Trinity Telescope Night
The stars aligned for our 7th annual event at Trinity Episcopal High School. We had a large turnout of enthusiastic science students, hot dogs, five telescopes, and a beautiful sky….
STEAM Night at Woolridge
We set up two telescopes for this event, since it took place during the day. One with the Coronado (for the Sun) and one fixed on the license plate of…
Mobbed at Eclipse 2024
Several RAS members helped out at the Science Museum yesterday for the Solar Eclipse of 2024, and what a day it was. One of the TV stations estimated 1,000 to…