Why hello there! After everything our entire planet has been through in the last year, it feels strange to dust off this web space. I intended to use this site to discuss our club and its membership, and our shared love for astronomy… but it’s hard to encourage people to …
Join members of Shoals Astronomy Club at LaGrange College Site Park in Leighton for a night sky tour Friday September 24, and Saturday, September 25, 2021. Weather permitting, the roof will roll off the historic LaGrange Observatory at 6:30 p.m., and amateur astronomers will curate a night sky tour as …
The cinderblocks could still use a sealant. The roof needs a repair. The rails need staining. There’s still a lot to be done out at LaGrange Observatory, and the punch list seems like it doesn’t get any shorter. But one thing is for sure: “telescope” can now be checked off …
The LaGrange Observatory is truly an observatory once more. Sunday’s first order of business was to remove the hand-built telescope from service. Built nearly sixty years ago, the instrument had been used for years to educate the public about night skies. In time’s irrevocable march, the scope and its cinder-block …
You’ve heard the grade-school imponderable question before: “If a tree falls in the woods, but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Members of Shoals Astronomy Club may take a liberty to rewrite this thought experiment, by asking, “If an astronomy club gets ready for …
The public is invited to LaGrange College Historic Site in Leighton, Alabama on Saturday, April 21st for Astronomy Day. This free event will start at 4 p.m. with filtered solar observing during the day and moon viewing through telescopes after sunset. Held twice a year, Astronomy Day was created by the volunteer-led …
Brand marketing uses the term “relatable” to convey a product’s allure to the public. Amateur astronomy’s “product”, for lack of a better term, is an elusive clear sky unencumbered by light pollution; a difficult thing to find within city limits on select nights. Couple that with cultural disconnects about stellar …
There’s a compulsion to stay snuggled in a blanket, especially for a December meteor shower. For one, clear skies mean cold temperatures. Another, as peak times vary, it’s incredibly inconvenient to set an alarm for 12:30 or 1:00 a.m.; why can’t we just be up late, or wake up early? …
“What size were the boots you wore on the Apollo mission?” Many minutes into the Q&A that followed Thursday’s presentation given by Dr. Harrison Schmitt, someone asked him to recall the strangest question asked of him after the Apollo 17 mission. He easily recalled his flat, unambiguous response: “I have …
At our meeting on November 30th, we took up several topics of recent interest: our introduction to Roy May and the star atlas he gave the club, our upcoming Christmas dinner on December 14th, and the flyby of 3200 Phaethon two days after that. I’ll get back to that topic in a …
