RSVP here.
Join NOVAC members who will be on hand to share views of the night sky.
Activities during Astronomy Day will include a telescope meet and greet, solar observing, a guided sky tour, night sky observing, and other demonstrations.
Feel free to walk around and enjoy the views of objects through a variety of telescopes on the field. Please ask the owner before using a telescope. If you have young children, please watch them around expensive astronomical equipment. Remember, telescope mirrors are sensitive to cigarette smoke and bug spray. Pets should also not be brought onto the observing field.
No astronomy experience or equipment is necessary to attend. If you have your own equipment, feel free to bring them along, even if it’s just a pair of binoculars.
For lighting, cover a flashlight in red cellophane (the darker the better). Bring along water to keep hydrated and plan on staying the entire evening or as long as the weather allows. Please dim your vehicles headlights when arriving and departing.
Crockett Park charges $7 per vehicle if you’re not a Fauquier County resident. However the event itself is completely free. NOVAC members are admitted free upon presentation of a membership card (available from the members-only section of the website). If you’re not a member but would like to become one, you can join the club online and print your membership card in only a few minutes.
Note: This event is weather-dependent and may be cancelled because of significant cloud cover or precipitation.
Head over to the Astronomy Day page for more information.
Public Monthly Meeting – Supermassive Black Holes at the Center of M87 and Milky Way: What We Learn
Razieh Emami, Ph.D.
Sunday, June 12, 2022
7:30 PM to 9:00 PM EST
Online event
Monthly Meeting – Public Invited
Abstract:
The most recent resolved images of Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) at the center of M87 (SMBH: M87*) as well as the Milky Way (SMBH: SgrA*) by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHTC) has opened up a very promising era of precision (supermassive) Black Hole astrophysics. Thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, we have now a horizon-resolved image of a few Supermassive Black Holes, as well as some knowledge about the structure of the magnetic field and the accretion flow around some BHs. Inspired by this discoveries, in this talk, Dr. Emami will speak about different aspects of the recently-reported (yet) un-polarized images of SgrA*. She will then continue with the polarized image of M87* and how we could use that to get some novel information about the structure of the magnetic field as well as the accretion flow around M87*. Dr. Emami will end with some of the next questions that scientists would like to address in the Event Horizon Telescope and the next generation of the Event Horizon Telescope (the NGEHT).
Bio:
Razieh Emami is a postdoc at the Center for Astrophysics. She has worked on a variety of different topics, including early universe cosmology, massive neutrinos, gravitational waves, TDES, galaxy evolution and BH physics. As a member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and its next generation (ngeht), she is currently focused on various topics relevant to the EHT, including black hole imaging, spectral analysis, model fitting and image reconstruction.
RSVP Here.
Members of the public are invited attend the largest annual astronomy outreach event in the U.S.
NOVAC will join 30 other astronomy/science organizations on the National Mall between 3rd and 4th Street to share astronomy concepts during the day and share views of the D.C. sky at night.
The festival is hosted by Hofstra University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and their Astronomy Outreach Program.
The event will be on the National Mall between 3rd and 4th Street, sandwiched between the National Museum of the Native American and the National Gallery of Art- East Building.
Note: This outdoor event is weather-dependent and may be cancelled because of precipitation.
Planets Big and Small
Eve Lee, Ph.D.
Sunday, July 10, 2022
7:30 PM to 9:00 PM EST
Online event
Monthly Meeting – Public Invited
Abstract:
Planets in our solar system can be divided into rocky terrestrials as large as the Earth vs. gassy giants as small as Neptune. Planets outside of our solar system, on the other hand, look nothing like our own, with most of these detected exoplanets falling right in between the size of the Earth and Neptune. How can we understand such differences? I will describe the underlying physics that drives the huge diversity in the observed exoplanetary population and discuss how future missions can help us better understand the formation and evolution of solar and extrasolar planets.
Bio:
Dr. Eve Lee is an Assistant Professor of Physics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She received her Hon. BSc in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Toronto, PhD in Astrophysics at UC Berkeley, and spent two years as a Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech before taking up the faculty position at McGill in 2019. At McGill, Dr. Lee leads a theoretical astrophysics group specializing in the formation of stars and planets. She was recently awarded the 2022 Annie Jump Cannon Award from the AAS.
RSVP here.
Join NOVAC members who will be on hand to share views of the night sky.
Activities during Astronomy Day will include a telescope meet and greet, solar observing, a guided sky tour, night sky observing, and other demonstrations.
Feel free to walk around and enjoy the views of objects through a variety of telescopes on the field. Please ask the owner before using a telescope. If you have young children, please watch them around expensive astronomical equipment. Remember, telescope mirrors are sensitive to cigarette smoke and bug spray. Pets should also not be brought onto the observing field.
No astronomy experience or equipment is necessary to attend. If you have your own equipment, feel free to bring them along, even if it’s just a pair of binoculars.
For lighting, cover a flashlight in red cellophane (the darker the better). Bring along water to keep hydrated and plan on staying the entire evening or as long as the weather allows. Please dim your vehicles headlights when arriving and departing.
Crockett Park charges $7 per vehicle if you’re not a Fauquier County resident. However the event itself is completely free. NOVAC members are admitted free upon presentation of a membership card (available from the members-only section of the website). If you’re not a member but would like to become one, you can join the club online and print your membership card in only a few minutes.
Note: This event is weather dependent and may be cancelled due to overcast or precipitation.
For more information, see our Star Gaze page.
Learn about the formation of supermassive black holes and what exciting new discoveries await us from the James Webb Telescope. Â Join NOVAC and one of the leading astrophysists in this field of study, Dr. Jenny Greene, Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.
When: 10/9/22, 7:30pm EDT
Where: Â Dr. Greene will present virtually. Â Those interested may meet at George Mason University, Exploratory Hall, Room 3301 (arrive as early at 6:30pm).
For those wishing to join virtually here is the link:
NOVAC General Meeting
Sunday, October 9 · 7:30 – 9:00pm
Google Meet joining info
https://meet.google.com/osh-bcyd-gti
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 484-430-1468‬ PIN: ‪486 839 001‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/osh-bcyd-gti?pin=1354183604637
Talk Title: The birth of supermassive black holes
Abstract: Supermassive black holes are ubiquitous at the centers of massive galaxies in the universe today, but we have no idea when or how these monsters are first formed. For the first time we have the chance to catch them as babies or adolescents just hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, thanks to the remarkable performance of the James Webb Space Telescope. I will discuss prospects for first results in this area in the coming year.
Jenny Greene is a Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, where she has been chasing intermediate-mass black holes for more than a decade. She is also the faculty director of the Prison Teaching Initiative.
See featured article on front page for more detail and link to join.
https://www.novac.com/wp/blog/novac-public-meeting-2-5-23-730pm-est/
See featured article on front page for more detail and link to join.
See featured article on front page for more detail and link to join.
Come out and celebrate National Park Week with NOVAC at the Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center in Vienna, Virginia!
Special Notes: Volunteers may setup as early as 3:00 pm!  Solar viewing is an option. If you’d like to bring a solar scope, let Kandi Mitchell, NOVAC Outreach Coordinator know ASAP so we can get Wolf Trap to broadcast a start time before sunset.  They’ve agreed to do this if we can make the commitment to start early. The event will be held at 1551 Trap Road and be in the Meadow or in case of rain one of the pavilions.Â