Invited, but Ignored

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

Reference

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

Parade of Planets

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

Read The Sky at Night Mag for Free-Update

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

Doesn’t Get More Casual Than This

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

Country Club or Camp?

scouts skywatch at camp brady saunders in goochland

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

Skywatches are Getting “Perkier”

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

Metro Richmond STEM Fair 2021

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

Binocular Event at Trinity

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

First Light: Using Your Telescope

RAS made a few people happy about their telescopes the other night–we fixed them. The Science Museum of Virginia hosted a workshop on Feb. 3, and invited RAS members in to help attendees with their telescopes. One lady brought in one that had sat in her attic for 20 years, unused. Volunteers were Joe Racette, … Read more