Madison Astronomical Society

  • A Polar Telescope in the Spirit of Porter

    Friday, Jan 9, 2026, 7:00 PM, UW Space Place

    MAS promo image for January 2026 meeting

    The design for this unusual telescope, which features a polar-aligned, fixed eyepiece, takes me back several decades. At the time, I was investigating warmed-room observatories, many of which had been featured in the well-known Amateur Telescope Making book series (three volumes). One of the simplest of these had been constructed by Russell W. Porter (1871–1949), principal founder of the amateur telescope making movement, which (in the U.S.) began in the early twentieth century.

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    • Aurora Through Clouds?

      Photograph of red aurora shining through clouds: Timothy Hughes. timothyhughes.com.
      credit: Tim Hughes.

      When the aurora borealis is going off, clouds are almost always the spoiler. But is it possible to see the aurora through the clouds?

      Obviously you can see the northern lights through breaks in the clouds. When skies are mostly cloudy, every hole becomes an astronomer’s friend. Holes allow us brief glimpses of the heavens—planets, deep sky objects—for fleeting intervals as a cloud deck drifts overhead.

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    • MAS to Lose Space Place

      MAS members sitting at a meeting, listening to a guest speaker
      MAS members at a monthly meeting in Space Place, August, 2024.

      For the first time in nearly 30 years, MAS is looking for a new home for its monthly meetings.

      Space Place, which is the UW Astronomy Department’s home for outreach and education, will be closing its doors when the lease expires in June. According to Jim Lattis, the recently retired director of Space Place, the UW admin has been mulling this move for some time, and has finally made the decision to shutter the operation.

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  • MAS Member Photos