JULY PROGRAM SCHEDULE 2025
All ASLI Meetings Begin at 8:00 PM
ON ZOOM AND IN PERSON
July 2: Digitizing the Astronomical Plates at Harvard – by Steve Lieber
Harvard University has the largest collection of astronomical photographic plates in the world. Harvard was working on a project to digitize the images and make them available on the Web. Steve Lieber met Ed Loss, who at the time was involved with the Harvard Observatory. Loss provided so much information that Lieber was able to write a talk on this ongoing project. Lieber also wrote an article that appeared in the March 2010 Sky and Telescope. Editor in Chief Robert Naeye stated that this was one of the best researched articles that he ever published. The project was completed in 2024. This talk is an update of the original. It includes information on how the digitizing progressed and problems they encountered. It will also review was has been learned so far from the scans.
ON ZOOM AND IN PERSON
July 9th: The Roman Space Telescope, Assembly and Test – by Neil Zimmerman
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is in its final phase of testing at Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Zimmerman will describe the road to launch, the observing plans, and scientific goals for the first five years of the mission. Neil is a staff scientist in the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Neil has been a member of ASLI since he was a teenager!
ON ZOOM AND IN PERSON
July 16: The Three Body Problem – by Maddalena Romano
The Three Body Problem is defined as the study of the motion of three point mass particles interacting through gravitational forces, often applied in astrodynamics to analyze scenarios like the Moon orbiting the Earth influenced by the Sun. It involves complex mathematical formulations due to the lack of a general solution, leading to the consideration of simplified models based on physical reasoning.
IN PERSON ONLY
July 23: Observing Night (this is Stellafane week)
This is an ASLI Club Observing Night, open to everyone! We set up in the parking lot of the Vanderbilt Museum and the lights are turned off for us for the evening. Bring your telescope or binoculars to our public observing session, or look through our telescopes which we set up for everyone to look through. We can show you some of the wonderful objects in the night sky during the evening. We will only have this observing session if there are perfectly clear skies, however. Check this website the day of this event before coming to the event, just to make sure it has not been cancelled because of weather
IN PERSON AND ON ZOOM
July 30: Fire, Smoke, & Astronomy by John Speroni
Many astronomer’s pursuits, visual as well as photographic, have been hindered by smoky skies from forest fires. John will discuss why these seasonal wildfires occur, their impact on professional observatories, how techniques related to astronomy are being used to fight fires, and his personal experience with a fire burning its way toward the Astronomical League conference in Bryce Canyon, Utah.
EXTENDED ASLI CLUB CALENDAR
