Cincinnati Astronomical Society

09/10/2026

For those of you going to the Harvest Home Fair Parade today in Cheviot, look for CAS members marching in the parade and wave hello!

09/08/2026

Today offers an observation challenge for astronomy enthusiasts. At 3PM there will be a daytime lunar occultation of Jupiter. Our moon will appear to pass right in front of Jupiter and will obscure the giant planet until just prior to 4PM when Jupiter will appear out from behind the moon.

And yes, you can actually see planets in the daytime if you know exactly where to look. This occultation offers a chance to locate Jupiter in the daytime sky, though the thin crescent phase of the moon itself can be difficult to spot.

If you do attempt an observation you'll likely need at least binoculars or a small telescope, which will also offer you a glimpse at the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. Please use caution as the moon is relatively close to the sun in the sky. Accidental glimpses of the sun through optics can cause significant damage to your eyes.

Let us know if you are able to catch this occultation today.

09/07/2026

For those of you who may be getting up early on the holiday tomorrow, check out the nice conjunction of planets stars and the moon in the East before dawn.

Mars, the waning crescent moon, and Jupiter will form a line in the sky, with Gemini twins Castor and Pollux hanging out nearby. Check it out and let us know if you see it.

09/04/2026

Now that ALCON is behind us, we are back out in force in September. Check out where we will be around town, including three events on the 19th!

09/01/2026

September is not nearly as exciting as August was, but there are some nice conjunctions, plus the Fall equinox!

08/30/2026

Congratulations to everyone at NASA and affiliated organizations for a successful launch of the next great space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope.

The telescope is on its way now to Lagrange point 2 (L2) which is the same gravitational location as the James Webb Space Telescope.

Roman will be a telescope that will hunt for signs of dark matter and energy, look for exoplanets around distant stars, and while also operating in the infrared like Webb, will do so over a much broader field of view than both Webb and Hubble. This will allow for more repeated comparisons over time of various targets in the sky. What Roman can do in about a month would take Hubble a century to achieve.

While Roman’s mirror is similar in size to Hubble, its field of view is 20x larger, and can retask faster, allowing for more captures per day. Webb is more focused on smaller field of view and has more detail in its camera sensor. Roman will take larger surveys of wider area of sky, allowing for more opportunities for research.

Roman will push down nearly 1.5 terabytes of data daily, whereas Webb sends down about 60GB per day, and compare that to Hubble’s 3GB of data per day.

Roman will take about 3 months to arrive at L2 and will immediately begin sending back data for not only professional scientists, but citizen scientists as well.

08/30/2026

Who is up early watching the Roman launch?

08/30/2026

08/28/2026

Earlier this year CAS announced a new partnership with The Moeller Observatory, a private research-class observatory in Adams County.

So what does a partial lunar eclipse look like through a 1-meter research-grade reflecting telescope? Thanks to CAS member and citizen science team leader Matthew Garrod, now you can see. Matthew was out at the observatory last night capturing images through this giant telescope, and his luck was better than ours here in the city as he had clear skies for most of the critical parts of the eclipse, including maximum eclipse.

Nice work Matthew!

08/28/2026

Check out this gorgeous shot of last night's partial lunar eclipse from CAS member Michael Schneider. It's a tough shot to get, capturing the highlight side of the moon, as well as the shadow side and the dimly lit clouds. Excellent work!