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
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
The RAS site is a subdomain (ras2.teebark.com) of the WordPress multisite, teebark.com. teebark.com is hosted with hawkhost.com, and is owned by Terry Barker (terry@teebark.com). The URL, richastro.org is registered with mydomain.com. The site is built in WordPress, with GeneratePress as the theme, and uses the native WordPress editor, Gutenberg. A child theme (ras2-gp-child) is used … 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
This is an update to an earlier post about reading astronomy magazines for free. You may be aware that you can read books online from your local library, but you may not know that you can also read a few astronomy magazines as well. And many more. It took me a while to figure out … Read more
Intermission Beer Company enjoys us setting up in a field next to the brewery. The crowd displays unusual interest–I’m guessing because it seems so incongruous to see telescopes being set up in a party atmosphere. The sky prediction was iffy, but we showed anyway, and we had great luck-the skies cleared, just as it got … Read more
RAS hosted a skywatch at Camp Brady Saunders (Goochland), and I have to say, this is one of the most gorgeous camp sites I’ve ever seen. They built an amphitheater on the shore of the lake, where they can hold Scout ceremonies, and with bonfires down front, it’s very impressive. I set up my scope … Read more
At last night’s skywatch, at Charles City, we were treated to pizza, chips, soft drinks, and Girl Scout cookies. At the one last month, hosted by Henrico County we had bonfires, s’mores and hot chocolate. I like these “perks” we’ve gotten lately. The city park at Charles City really jazzed it up–in addition to the … Read more
Did we have astronomy this year? Since RAS presents monetary awards to science fair winners, how did this year’s edition work out? As you might expect, this year’s Metro Richmond STEM Fair, was held virtually. But, it still took place. Alas, gone are the crowds of students proudly standing in front of their project presentations. … Read more
With the complication of the virus lockdown, RAS has altered the way we host skywatches. Telescopes are out, due to the impracticality of cleaning the eyepiece between viewings. So, we’re now offering two alternatives: a remote Zoom session, or people bring their own binocular, and we provide a guide to point out objects in the … Read more