Upcoming Observing Events
Members with telescopes are needed for these public outreach events. If the weather looks questionable for an observing event, check the ASNH website after 4:00pm. There will be a scrolling message on the home page if an event has been cancelled.
Friday, August 11, 8:30pm (Rain date Saturday, August 12)
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Meig’s Point Nature Center, 1288 Boston Post Rd, Madison CT (map)
Friday, August 18, 7:00pm
Colchester Land Trust
Cold Spring Farm, 46 Town Road, Colchester CT (map)
Saturday, September 30, 10am-12pm
Milford Library Solar Star Party
57 New Haven Ave, Milford CT (map)
Saturday, October 14, 6:30pm
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Meig’s Point Nature Center, 1288 Boston Post Rd, Madison CT (map)
Friday, October 20, 7:00pm
Silver Sands State Park
Milford CT (map)
Saturday, October 21, 7:00pm
Young’s Park
60 Blackstone Ave, Branford CT (map)
Sunday, October 29, 7:00pm
Madison Moonlight Walk
Madison Surf Club, Madison CT (map)
Friday, November 17, 7:00pm
Silver Sands State Park
Milford CT (map)
Saturday, November 18, 7:00pm
Young’s Park
60 Blackstone Ave, Branford CT (map)
Upcoming Monthly Meetings on Zoom
Tuesday, July 25, 7:00 pm
Tuesday, August 29, 7:00 pm
We will continue to use this format for monthly meetings for now. A week or two before each meeting, members will receive an email announcement with a link that will allow them to connect to the online meeting.
Just click the link or copy and paste in your browser and that will connect you to the meeting. You can do this on any device that has an internet connection and a browser. You can do this on a smart phone. You can display yourself if you like with your selfie camera on your device. If you don’t that’s okay, don’t feel you have to.
You can also dial in to the meeting. The number and password will be given in the announcement.
Our Recent History of Weather Cancellations
By Jim Mazur
Short-term numbers can be deceiving. If three or four observing nights in a row are canceled because of the weather, it may seem that few of our observing events actually happen. Conversely, if we have a few successful events in a row, we may feel that the weather is often with us. To get a better perspective on how Connecticut weather treats us, we need a larger sample. With this in mind, I looked at our records for observing events scheduled from 2018 through June 2023. (Due to the pandemic, we held no events in 2020-2021.) The numbers below include both public events (Silver Sands, Young’s Park, etc.) and private events (Girl scout events, Colchester Land Trust, etc.). A few of these events had rain dates, but over 90% were scheduled for just a single night. Here are the data:
| Year | Events held | Events scheduled | Percent held |
| 2018 | 8 | 18 | 44% |
| 2019 | 15 | 24 | 63% |
| 2022 | 10 | 18 | 56% |
| 2023 (through June) | 5 | 9 | 56% |
| Total | 38 | 69 | 55% |
With this fairly large sample size, the results are pretty clear: Slightly more than half of our scheduled observing events actually took place.