24 Feb. 2025
– Conjunction of Saturn with Mercury at Dusk
Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software
Next Public Star Gaze
Image credit: club member Jerry Sherman – taken at Grassland Mtn. Observatory
Continue to check this home page as weather could change the venue or postpone and possibly cancel a star gaze. Check again after 5:00 p.m. on the afternoon of the observing session for the latest info and update.
28 Feb. 2025 — Friday night — This public star gaze will be held at Grassland Mountain Observatory in Madison County, with a weather backup night of Saturday, 1 March. This event is free and open to everyone — registration is not necessary to attend. A temporary gate code, required for entry, will be provided here on the day of the star gaze by 4:00 p.m. Directions to Grassland Mountain Observatory can be found here. These star gazes normally conclude about 3 to 4 hours after sunset, and visitors are not permitted to stay past the conclusion time. Sunset occurs at 6:24 p.m.
28 Feb. 2025
– Conjunction of the Moon with Mercury at Dusk
Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software
1-14 Mar. 2025
– Mercury at its Best Evening Apparition for 2025
Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software
5 March 2025
– The Moon Visits Jupiter in Taurus
Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software
6 Mar. 2025 – Club Meeting Presentation
— Thursday night, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
This free speaker presentation will be offered in-person at the UNC-Asheville Reuter Center and virtually online. Registration is not required; use this Zoom link to watch the presentation remotely.
Although parking for this meeting at the Reuter Center is free, you must register your vehicle with a “visitor daily” permit at this link. Once registration is complete, visitors will not need to print or display a permit; the new system utilizes camera-based License Plate Recognition technology. All vehicles must park front-end in, so that the license plate is visible.
Hunting for Relic Black Holes throughout Cosmic Time
– presented by Chris Richardson, Ph.D., Elon University
At the center of all large galaxies, like the Milky Way, resides a supermassive black hole millions of times the mass of the Sun. Strong evidence suggests that these black holes and their host galaxies co-evolve with one another, which makes understanding how black holes grow to be supermassive of paramount importance. Unfortunately, intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) representing early stages of black hole growth are scandalously rare. One promising avenue for finding them occurs in dwarf galaxies, which are much smaller than the Milky Way and thus likely to harbor lower-mass black holes. Read more…