Recent Public Events

Meteorites and Solar and Lunar Observing in Harwinton, Connecticut

By Al Washburn

On Saturday, July 19, 2025, the ASNH presented its meteorite collection in the Harwinton Public Library, in Harwinton Connecticut. All began at 10 am, where 37 people, mostly children, were introduced to meteorites and then a meteor drop box experience. This was followed by all attendees being able to handle and test the meteorite samples with magnets and ask questions. The indoors event ended with a PowerPoint on basic meteorite types. All were then invited to go outside, where three telescopes were waiting with one looking at the Sun (Greg Barker) and two more were looking at a crescent Moon (Cheryl Barker and Laurie Averill). The event ended around 11:45 am.

Hammonasset Family Astronomy Night, August 15

By Donna Pursley

The event at Hammonasset is always a favorite. The crowd started to build before it was dark. We were all looking for the first star to show itself. Of course, it was Vega.

There were members of 3 astronomy groups out with their scopes; ASNH, Thames Amateur Astronomical Society and the Shoreline Astronomy Society. They set up a total of 21 telescopes.

As the sky grew darker, we moved on to other objects. It wasn’t a particularly dark sky, but there were plenty of things to find. People were very excited to see the Milky Way. There was a noticeable number of children in attendance. They were very eager to look through the scopes. There were about 200 people in attendance. It wasn’t the largest crowd that we have had at Hammonasset, but we were all busy until around 10pm. The clouds started to move in anyway.

A big shout out to Ranger Russ Miller, who does a great job preparing the site for us. There are red lights set up to make it safe and the windows are blocked to keep the light from escaping. He had a small crew helping out with keeping everything moving smoothly all night.