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 were able to smoothly combine astronomy activities at our demo tables with solar observing and nighttime observing, all in the same general area. Henrico County … Read more

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 some landscape lights out front, but a paper bag over the closest one made us happy.

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. The physics teacher there, Mrs. Kelly, makes sure that the event is well publicized at the school, and we always have a large group of … Read more

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 a car in the parking lot, about 100 feet away. The event was a science fair that Woolridge Elementary holds every year. All the exhibits … Read more

Mobbed at Eclipse 2024

SMV Eclipse 2024, crowd at smv

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 1,500 people there. Thanks to Dan Salkovitz, Billy Wooten, and Allen Noah for helping out. RAS also helped with events at Crump Park, where Peter … Read more

RAS “wins” at STEM Fair 2024

Hooray, we had another STEM Fair, revived from our Covid gap in 2020-2022. The Fair has been picked up by the VCU STEM Education Department, and they successfully pulled off their second one this month. There were about 118 exhibits, and over 200 students who created projects for the competition. The categories were shifted slightly: … Read more

Powhatan State Park, January 2024

60 people joined us for this skywatch at the park, which is about 35 miles west of downtown Richmond. The park rangers here are very friendly to our club, and are happy to host skywatches from time to time. You’ll always see notices of upcoming dates on the front page of our website. The facility … Read more

Take Your Own Picture of the Moon

Would you like to take your own picture of the Moon? Come to one of the SMV skywatches, and if the Moon is up, you’ll likely get one. This picture shows a visitor doing that very thing-she has her phone attached to the eyepiece of the telescope, and she’s using the keypad of the telescope … Read more

Apollo Lands at The Virginia House

RAS helped the Virginia Museum of History & Culture host a skywatch for one of their annual member events. The event’s theme was based on the museum’s current exhibit: Apollo: When We Went to the Moon. It was held at one of Richmond’s cultural gems: The Virginia House-a manor house built on a hillside overlooking … Read more

Richmond STEM Fair 2023

Yes, the STEM Fair has been revived. After three years of COVID shutdowns, VCU’s School of Education Center for Innovation in STEM Education has stepped up and hosted the temprarily dead event. We mourned the loss, as RAS took part in the judgin and presented cash awards to project that utilized astronomy and space science. … Read more