Monthly meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 PM online at this link
Join us at RavenCon April 24-26. We'll also have telescopes there for daytime and evening viewing.
Registration is now open for the fall installment of the Staunton River Star Party (October 21-27). Registration information at http://www.chaosastro.org/starparty/ This star party is distinguished by being held at Staunton River State Park, which is designated by the International Dark Skies Association as a dark sky park and has a dedicated observing field adjacent to … Read more
Below is a link to images of the March 2018 party compressed into three minutes for your enjoyment. Click on the image to view the video or watch on YouTube here. You can view a longer version of the October 2017 party at this link.
Greg Redfern of the website What’s UP? The Space Place gave us all a good reason to stay awake at conventions: he played a video of the Chelyabinsk meteor exploding over Russia in 2013. The shock wave damaged 7,200 buildings and injured over 1,500 people. Needless to say, the playback over the sound system was LOUD. … Read more
. On April 20 John Raymond, Ray Moody and I traveled by car to Suffern, NY for the 2018 Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) show (27th year!). Indeed, quite a show it is. . The lengthy trip was a pleasant one, with no shortage of discussion among the three of us about the world of astronomy. … Read more
Clouds, clouds, and more clouds. ECSP, sponsored by Kent Blackwell, ran from Thursday 10/12 to Saturday 10/14, but it was cloudy every night. For those who could stay one more day, Sunday turned out to be the redeeming factor. It was clear, but oh, the result of hitting the dew point was almost as bad … Read more
We’ve had some pretty large crowds at the SMV, but Aug. 21 of 2017 was one of the largest I’ve seen. Since we gave away 750 pairs of eclipse glasses, I’m estimating we had at least 800 people there. As you can see from the pictures here and below, it was pretty much standing room … Read more
I used an app called Nextdoor last Saturday night to announce a skywatch that I wanted to hold at my local high school. The tennis courts at the school are perfect, because there aren’t any parking lot lights in sight. And the webbing they have up on the surrounding fence almost completely eliminates the glare … Read more
Ray Moody and I (Terry) had a good crowd at Tomahawk Baptist Church last Friday (8/4/2017) evening, and in spite of being alongside very busy Hull Street, we had a great time viewing the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Albireo (double star). I’m estimating about 60-70 kids and parents were there, celebrating the end of their … Read more
I received this email after helping St. Paul Baptist Church host a skywatch in July. They were a great bunch, and we had a good time viewing Jupiter, the Moon, and some double stars. And I was surprised and pleased to see Tiffany and Joyceline at the last SMV skywatch–now, that’s staying in touch. Hi Terry, We … Read more
What a good group of kids–we had about 60 students and parents show up for the Short Pump Middle School skywatch. We started off in the auditorium with Madhup Rathi showed an astronomy slide show, and then we headed out behind the school to a fairly dark sky. Amazing–we could even see the big dipper … Read more