Our Programs…

… are on clear Friday and Saturday nights from March - Late November. Watch the main page. By noon on the day of each program we post a forecast and a note on whether or not the program that evening will go forward.

October 24-25:  Earthshine We’ll be starting a little early these two evenings to catch the lovely glow of Earthshine, the reflection of light off of the earth onto the surface of the moon.  After that, we’ll turn our scopes to some of the objects along the lovely fall Milky Way.  Saturn, too.  6:30 PM.

October 31-November 1:  Spooky Skies Dragons, scorpions, skulls, murder and mayhem.  Come hear about some of the spooky stuff different cultures have memorialized in nebulae shapes and star patterns of the heavens.  Then we’ll be looking at the bright moon and Saturn.  6:30 PM

November 7-8:  Pale Blue Dot We will be gazing at Saturn and imaging what our world would look like from its vantage point, and beyond.  The bright moon rises keeping us from having fully dark skies.  5:30 PM

November 14-15: Fall Galaxies   With the Milky way rolling over to the west, our view of the cosmos looks into the vast intergalactic space beyond. We’ll be taking a look at some of the galaxies there.  5:30 PM

November 21-22:  Greek Drama in the Fall Skies.  Rising high in the northeast are a collection of constellations that tell the story of the vain queen Cassiopeia, her daughter Andromeda, Perseus, a flying horse and a sea monster.  Also, Saturn’s rings are almost invisible this week. This is the last weekend of programs in 2025.  5:30 PM.  

View of the Month:   
NGC 4565 “The Needle Galaxy”

When you're an astro-nerd like me having a favorite galaxy (or star cluster, or nebula...) is not an uncommon or weird thing.

Given how many galaxies there are, and how lovely they appear, it's rather hard to pick a favorite one. But, if forced to choose, I might say "NGC 4565!"

NGC 4565, the so-called "needle" galaxy, looks like a "UFO". It is actually, "flying-saucer"-shaped, but we see it edge-on, making it appear thin and otherworldly (because it literally is! ) from our point of view.

Its distance has been hard to pin down, but it is thought to be somewhere between 35 and 60 million light years distant.

If it's at the far end of that range its estimated size is enormous, perhaps twice the diameter of our own Milky Way.

Through a telescope, this galaxy looks like a ghostly needle piercing the night. In a large telescope, like the 28-inch at JGAP, faint hints of the dust lane- the dark material out of which new generations of stars will form, can be seen.

Though it looks more distant, the small galaxy next to it, may be a bit closer to us.

This image was taken in March by Andy Downey. He gathered photons for six hours to obtain this result.