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12 Feb. 2025
The Snow Moon Visits the Star Regulus

Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software

16 Feb. 2025
Venus Shines at its Brightest

Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software

Two Public Star Gazes in February

Image credit: club member Alan Davis – taken at Lookout 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.




21 Feb. 2025 — Friday night — The location for this star gaze will be Lookout Observatory on the UNC Asheville campus, with a weather backup date of Saturday, 22 February. While the event is free and open to everyone, pre-registration is required to attend. To learn more about how to register, please visit the UNCA Lookout Observatory website here. Sunset occurs at 6:18p.m., with shuttle service beginning about 7:00 p.m.

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.

24 Feb. 2025
Conjunction of Saturn with Mercury at Dusk

Illustration created with SkySafari and PowerPoint software

28 Feb. 2025
Conjunction of the Moon with Mercury at Dusk

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.

Detecting Intermediate-Mass Black Holes at the Centers of Galaxies

– 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…