Welcome to Houston Astronomical Society

Fostering the science and art of astronomy through programs that serve our membership and the community. Founded in 1955, Houston Astronomical Society is an active community of enthusiastic amateur and professional astronomers with over 70 years of history in the Houston area. Through education and outreach, our programs promote science literacy and astronomy awareness. We meet via Zoom the first Friday of each month for the General Membership Meeting and the first Thursday of the month for the Novice Meeting. Membership has a variety of benefits, including access to a secure dark site west of Houston, special interest groups that focus on particular areas of astronomy, an active community outreach program, and much more. Joining is simple.

" Light Pollution Effects on Human Health

and the Environment”

By: Deborah Moran

Swayed by strong economic and climate-related arguments, many localities and businesses around the world are switching to LEDs for use in street and premises lighting. However, not all LED lighting is optimal.

LED fixtures which produce excess blue light are harmful to both human health and the environment. They interfere with circadian rhythms and reduce melatonin production which can lead to suppression of the human immune system. There is now voluminous data showing a higher risk of hormonally linked cancers with melatonin suppression. Excess blue light also can have negative effects on plants and wildlife.

Lighting fixtures that are overly bright, improperly designed or installed can create glare. Overly blue-colored light makes the glare worse, since blue light scatters more in the human eye. This leads to increased disability glare which has serious implications for night-time driving visibility and can hide pedestrians or other conditions from a driver’s view.

Speaker Bio: Deborah Moran has had a lifelong interest in astronomy since her childhood in Midland, TX where all the scenery is in the sky. She has been a member of the Houston Astronomical Society since 1980, where she has served in several capacities in the past including Treasurer, Education chair and Novice chair for nine years. She also participates in outreach programs and is a volunteer telescope operator at the George Observatory in Brazos Bend State Park.

Deborah is the 2017 recipient of the International Dark-Sky association’s Hoag-Robinson Award for education of government officials about outdoor lighting issues. In 2010, her Woodside neighborhood became the first one within Houston city limits allowed to install low glare fully shielded decorative streetlights. For the past several years she has presented concerns about the choice of high glare white LED street lights in Houston to city officials and hopes that the Houston area will someday join other communities in moving to warm or soft white to amber LEDs which are recommended by the American Medical Association for their reduced glare and reduced disruption of day/night circadian function.

She has combined her love of travel and astronomy by chasing total and annular solar eclipses around the world. In 2010, Deborah retired from the Houston Symphony violin section after 27 years.

To see the video, click Light Pollution Effects on Human Health and the Environment”.

“Calendar Systems”

By Deborah Moran

There is no easy mathematical relationship between the lengths of the solar day, the orbit of the Moon around the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the sun. How different civilizations dealt with this conundrum when devising their calendars is an adventure. Learn about the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar, the Jewish and Islamic calendars and the Chinese calendar.

Speaker Bio: Deborah Moran developed a lifelong interest in astronomy living in Midland, TX as a child where all the scenery is in the sky. She has been a member of the Houston Astronomical Society since 1980, where she has served in a number of capacities in the past including Treasurer, Education chair and nine years as Novice chair in charge of talks for new members. She continues to speak frequently in the community on astronomy topics and light pollution. She is also a volunteer telescope operator at the George Observatory in Brazos Bend State Park. She actively fights light pollution in Houston and was awarded the Dark Sky International’s Hoag-Robinson Award in 2017 for her efforts. She has combined her love of travel and astronomy by chasing total and annular solar eclipses around the world. She retired from the Houston Symphony violin section after 27 years in 2010.

To see the video, click Calendar Systems.

Galaxy season gives us a rare window to peer past the Milky Way into the true depth of the universe. This month's AP SIG Target of the Month is a challenge: capture a deep field. Integrate long enough into a seemingly empty patch of sky and watch distant galaxies reveal themselves. Tools like "What's in My Image" in Seti Astro Suite or PixInsight are great for exploring what you've captured. How deep can you go?

" Introduction to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope"

By: Dr. Dominic Benford

Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Project Scientist

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (the Roman Space Telescope, Roman, or RST) is a NASA infrared space telescope, scheduled to launch as early as the fall of 2026 to May 2027. It is named after former NASA Chief of Astronomy Nancy Grace Roman.

Roman is a wide field of view space telescope that will carry two scientific instruments. The Wide-Field Instrument (WFI) camera will provide the sharpness of images comparable to that achieved by the Hubble Space Telescope with an FOV over 100 times larger than Hubble. The Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) is a high-contrast, small field of view camera and spectrometer covering visible and near-infrared wavelengths using novel starlight-suppression technology.

Dr. Benford will provide an overview of the Roman Space Telescope, its mission and its observational and science objectives.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Dominic Benford is the Program Scientist for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (formerly known as WFIRST), the Decadal Survey-recommended mission to conduct major surveys in the near-infrared to answer fundamental questions of the nature of dark energy, the distribution of dark matter, the occurrence of planets around other stars, and even to enable the direct imaging of planetary systems. He is the Deputy Chief Technologist for Astrophysics with responsibility for the Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) Program, the Roman Technology Fellowship (RTF), and other technology-focused programs. He was also the acting lead for Laboratory Astrophysics. Previously, his other roles at NASA’s HQ included being the program lead for the APRA portfolio, funding early-stage technologies and suborbital-class projects, and roles on Euclid and the Origins Space Telescope.

To see the video, click Introduction to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope