Sharing the Night Sky with the Public Since 1949

For over seventy-five years, the Denver Astronomical Society has brought together stargazers across the Denver metropolitan area and beyond. The society hosts dozens of events and activities yearly to promote amateur astronomy across our unique region, one mile nearer the stars.

June

8:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Open House

Looking for a FREE fun family activity? Join the Denver Astronomical Society for our monthly Open House Saturday night at dusk. This event will occur on the south lawn of DU’s historic Chamberlin Observatory, 2930 E. Warren Avenue, Denver. Weather … Read More ...

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When Technology Fails

By Mike Hotka In this continuing series of articles, I want to discuss contingency plans. When I am having trouble with my smart phone, you will often hear me say, “Technology is wonderful when it works!”. Those of us who are engineers, can make a living figuring out why specific technology is not working and getting it fixed for the end user. When I first got started in observational astronomy, I would find the objects I wanted to observe by a method called star hopping. Star hopping is a skill of navigating the night sky to find objects by using…
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Personal Observing Goal Verification

By Mike Hotka At the end of last month’s article, I left you driving home from your observing location after a successful night of observing. Now I’ll discuss what I do after I get home. I have a few more tasks to do before I consider this observing session complete. The first thing I do is to log all my outing’s observed objects into my Standard Edition of SkyTools 4 (ST4) (SkyTools 4 Standard Edition (skyhound.com)) database. First, I open the observing list I was working on during the outing in the main ST4 display: I highlight an object I…
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Connecting the ‘Dots’ with Asterisms

This article is distributed by NASA’s Night Sky Network (NSN). The NSN program supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach. Visit nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov to find local clubs, events, and more! By Kat Troche In our December Night Sky Notes, we mentioned that the Orion constellation has a distinct hourglass shape that makes it easy to spot in the night sky. But what if we told you that this is not the complete constellation, but rather, an asterism? An asterism is a pattern of stars in the night sky, forming shapes that make picking out constellations easy. Cultures throughout…
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Skyward for January 2024

By David H. Levy This month let us explore one of the seminal galaxies in the nigh sky, NGC 253, Caroline Herschel’s galaxy. It shines deep in the southern portion of the sky, south of the bright star Beta Ceti and southeast of the even brighter star Fomalhaut. This is one of my favorite galaxies, largely because of the beautiful story that is associated with its discovery. This galaxy, which I call Caroline Herschel’s Galaxy, is a starburst galaxy. It is so named because it is undergoing a burst of formation of new stars. This process was set off relatively…
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Chamberlin Observatory Tours

The Denver Astronomical Society hosts weekly and monthly events* at the University of Denver’s historic Chamberlin Observatory, which features its prized 1894 Alvan Clark-Saegmuller 20-inch refracting telescope. The Observatory serves as the DAS home base for numerous Astronomy Nights, Open Houses, and special events throughout the year.

Due to overwhelming demand, we are changing how we reserve our Astronomy Nights and adding more to the calendar. For details, see our Reservations page.

If you have any questions about EXISTING reservations or want to change your existing reservation, email us at reservations@denverastro.org.

M•45 – Pleiades, Seven Sisters, Subaru image by Darrell Dodge

Astrophotography Special Interest Group

The Denver Astronomical Society (DAS) has established a Special Interest Group amongst its members devoted to Astrophotography. Do you want to learn or improve your skills in astrophotography? Do you enjoy viewing pictures of the Sun, Moon, Planets, or Deep Sky Objects? Can you take similar images? You may have skills that you could pass on to novice members. Consider joining DAS and being part of this Special Interest Group. Please email us for more information. astrophotogroup@denverastro.org

The Van Nattan-Hansen-Anderson Scholarship

Established in 1973, the DAS Van Nattan-Hansen-Anderson Scholarship supports graduating high school and undergraduate college students majoring in astronomy and the physical sciences. Interested and eligible students are invited to apply for funding on the Scholarship Page.