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.

This is the notice of the annual meeting of the Houston Astronomical Society. During this meeting, the slate of nominees as presented from the Nominating Committee during the October General meeting will be put on the ballot and other nominations from the floor will be taken. Instructions on how to vote will be provided during the meeting and disseminated to all members via email afterwards.

"Total Eclipse Texas – A Once in a Lifetime Event"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxAZAEnRx9U

A person with a beard

Description automatically generated

George Ellis, speaker

Total eclipses of the sun are one of the world’s most amazing natural phenomena. This talk will attempt to engage those who have never seen a total eclipse to take full advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime event over Texas on 4/8/2024. Even the Texas Star Party will be migrating from its usual format to host eclipse enthusiasts on the center line near Aquilla, Texas, sharing totality with the world.

"Imaging the Total Eclipse"

Don Selle, speaker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL5FPuQE7_I

A solar eclipse in the sky

Description automatically generated

On April 8th, 2024, many locations within the State of Texas will experience a total solar eclipse. This is an awesome natural event that should not be missed. While the eclipse will not be total in the Houston area, traveling somewhere within the state to experience totality is very highly recommended. A 99% eclipse is nowhere as breathtaking as totality.

Many eclipse observers will want to photograph the event. Eclipse photography can be challenging, but with a little know-how and the right equipment, even first-time eclipse observers can safely photograph the eclipse with great results.

Happy Astronomy Wizards—you can be one, too! See the Observatory page for prerequisites

We got rained out in November, so we'll try again in December. This class is still full, but if you'd like to be an astronomy wizard, too, watch for new notices in 2024. We schedule ~3 classes per year, with the hope that we can conduct two. Want more classes? Consider joining the observatory training team! Contact [email protected] to find out more.

Rene, Doug, and Allen
Observatory Trainers

A poster with text overlay

Description automatically generated

NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassadors Khady Ndao and Dan Roy plus “Astronomy in The Park” fixture Rebeca Roy will be on hand to show and tell about the annular eclipse of October 14, 2023, at Space Center Houston, from 10:00 AM–3:00 PM. We are very excited!

We’ll have an 8” SCT goto and a 100mm on slomo. Bring a Coronado!

For more info, contact Dan at [email protected].

" OSIRIS-REx: Sampling the Past to Save the Future”

A person with dark hair smiling

Description automatically generated

by Annie Wargetz

When we think about planetary science missions, it’s easy to become hyper-focused on a specific discovery made by the mission or one of the mission’s milestones. We don’t often think about the mission in its entirety. We are in a unique position to do just that with the OSIRIS-REx mission. For context, the operational phase of the OSIRIS-REx mission, from launch to sample return, has happened within the past 7 years.

Let’s relive the story of OSIRIS-REx by starting at the Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO) phase when the scientific instruments were installed on the spacecraft. We’ll go through each page of the OSIRIS-REx story all the way through to the sample returning back to Earth on September 24, 2023. We’ll close by talking about what happens now for the sample and the spacecraft.

As always, bring your curiosity and your questions. Hope to see you at the meeting where we journey with OSIRIS-REx to Bennu and back!

Our Speaker: Annie Wargetz is a life-long space enthusiast who has a passion for inspiring those around her about space, the Sun, and space exploration. She holds a graduate degree in Space Sciences from the University of North Dakota where she focused her studies on human spaceflight. She studied mission and spacecraft design as well as life support systems. Her favorite topics to speak on as an ambassador are human spaceflight, heliophysics, and NASA's planetary science missions. She hopes to inspire people to look up to the stars with hope and to learn more about the advances in space exploration.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This meeting will be held virtually via Zoom. To attend, you must register for the meeting. You can do so using the link below. You will receive an email with the details of the meeting and a link that will allow you to join in.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckcemgrTMpG9c0OiVW9Gh9Kh9IzCWpm6pN

You only need to register once!

Join us Friday, October 6th, 2023, at 7:00 pm CDST.

See you then!