Welcome to Houston Astronomical Society

Fostering the science and art of astronomy through programs that serve our membership and the community. Founded in 1955, Houston Astronomical Society is an active community of enthusiastic amateur and professional astronomers with over 70 years of history in the Houston area. Through education and outreach, our programs promote science literacy and astronomy awareness. We meet via Zoom the first Friday of each month for the General Membership Meeting and the first Thursday of the month for the Novice Meeting. Membership has a variety of benefits, including access to a secure dark site west of Houston, special interest groups that focus on particular areas of astronomy, an active community outreach program, and much more. Joining is simple.

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Voting for the slate of nominees: click here

" Introduction to Telescopes and Getting the Right One from Santa"

By: Will Sager

Christmas is the time of year that many people think of buying a telescope, either for themselves or a present for a loved one. It is also the time of year that bad telescopes come out to tempt the neophyte with amazing claims of power and reach. In this presentation, I will be assisted by some knowledgeable HAS regulars and we will cover the basics of telescope types, their mounts, how they operate, and what they are good at. We will show some actual, real telescopes as examples and introduce the HAS loaner telescope program. In the spirit of the holidays, we will also give insights about what makes a good telescope present.

Speaker Bio: Will Sager is a professor of geophysics at the University of Houston. Unfortunately, he lives close to the university at the center of the Houston light dome. He received his first telescope (a 6-inch Criterion reflector) for Christmas at the age of 10, many, many years ago. Over the ensuing 6 decades, Will has owned many telescopes.

To see the video, click Introduction to Telescopes and Getting the Right One from Santa.

“A Little Bit of Everything in the Universe and a Little Bit of Stellafane”

A person standing next to a large telescope

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By: Larry Mitchell

Topic: I will briefly cover my lecture at the Stellafane Star Party which is where amateur astronomy began in 1923.

New astronomical discoveries are made daily, and I will cover some of these. We also will explore what relativistic redshift time/distance numbers really represent – How big is the Universe and what is its future.

Speaker: Larry Mitchell is a well-known visual observer who has pursued a lifelong interest in astronomy since the age of 10. Larry’s astronomical accomplishments are many.

He is the author of “Visual Mysteries of the Universe” which is based upon the Texas Star Party Advanced Observing Programs that Larry authored. The series (currently at 3 volumes with a 4th book available in 2026) helps observers locate obscure objects without using a computer.

Since 2000, Larry has been Chairperson the Texas Star Party “Advanced Observing Program” and has also been -Co-Chairperson of the Stellafane Observing Olympics since 2015. He is also the recipient of the Texas Star Party “Lone Stargazer” and “Omega Centauri” awards.

Larry’s other astronomy accomplishments also include – discovery of Supernova SN1994S, a type 1a Supernova, discovery of 117,300+ galaxies as documented in the “Mitchell’s Anonymous Catalog”, the “MAC” found in MegaStar. In addition, Larry has observed and loged all 2500+ of Wiliam Herschel’s nebulae and star cluster discoveries.

Larry is well known for traveling the world giving lectures and observing the night sky, and he is always ready to view the night sky and share the adventure with my many astronomy friends.

For his many astronomical accomplishments, asteroid “126183 Larrymitchell” was named in Larry’s honor.

To see the video, click A Little Bit of Everything in the Universe and a Little Bit of Stellafane.

What members are saying... 2025 10 27

10/24/2025
- John Benner: 2nd image of IC 443 Taken over 3 nights from the backyard. Imaged with my Celestron EdgeHD 1100 @ f/7 with the ASI2600mm on an iOptron cem70. Filters Astronomic 6nm MaxFR narrowband in Ha, OIII and SII. 50 exposures 300 sec on each filter. Stacked and processed in PixInsight. SHO pallet.
10/24/2025
- Stephen Jones:Tried processing again... this time with my NGC 1365 data from Sunday at the Dark Site.
10/25/2025
- Mike Hooper: Repost of NGC891 shot on 10/23/25. I ran HDR composition to get more contrast and color saturation. I also cropped in a bit more but didn't want to loose the small galaxy near the top left.
10/25/2025
- Mike Hooper: vdB 16 shot last night from Animas, NM using Askar 103APO at 700mm FL and ASI 2600MC Pro. 180-120 sec subs with UV/IR filter. Preprocess= BlurX (correct and stellar/nonstellar) SPCC, NoiseX and StarX. Postprocess= GHS stars and starless. Starless= ColorMaskMod with curves for saturation, dark structure enhance. Screen Stars Script to combine stars and starless. Final NoiseX. No crop.