Blog

Amateur astronomers needed to lead observing sessions at Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia!

RAS member Steve Bellavia has created a set of excellent observing charts focusing on the Messier objects and the more popular NGC objects.  Each chart is printable and shows the more prominent objects with Telrad circles to help you find them in the sky with your finder scope. He has kindly made them available for … Read more

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

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

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

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 temporarily dead event. We mourned the loss, as RAS took part in the judging and presented cash awards to project that utilized astronomy and space science. … Read more

We made it successful, in spite of an oversight. RAS was invited to Oak Knoll Middle School’s StemFest. We’ve attended this event a couple of times, but hadn’t it a few years because of the COVID shutdowns. And we’d always had telescope there for night viewing, but this year, the scheduled time was from 5-7pm, … Read more

We saw a beautiful parade of Jupiter, the Moon, and Saturn last night at the Robious Middle School skywatch. About 50 students and parents gathered on the football field, where RAS had set up five telescopes. Joe Racette, Peter Tlusty, and Terry Barker, all club members, guided each attendee through close up views of each … Read more