Upcoming Events

Events are open to all members and the general public. Sign up for email event updates by registering with Night Sky Network.

Most of our events happen at the Chabot Space and Science Center. Get directions here.

Next General Meeting

Note that our speaker this month will be in-person, so please join us at Chabot if you have tickets (which are now sold out), or on Zoom if you do not.

Our guest speaker for the evening is Dr. Shreya Anand, LSST-DA Catalyst postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will begin surveying the Southern sky later this year, creating a paradigm shift in the field of high-energy astrophysics. Rubin’s LSST is expected to yield several million alerts (changes in brightness) per night, presenting a significant big data challenge. Many of these alerts are caused by transients – astronomical explosions that brighten and fade quickly over time – happening both in our galaxy and in other distant galaxies. The study of transients connects to a broad range of subfields across astronomy including the study of stellar evolution, galaxies, and astro-chemistry. Rubin’s unprecedented breadth and depth will enable the discovery of more than 100,000 transients per year, far more than other contemporary surveys combined, allowing us a unique opportunity to study populations of transients to answer many of the open questions in the field. In my talk, I will discuss how the enormous volume of Rubin alerts are produced, processed, stored, and disseminated to the community, the process of filtering and classifying explosions with Rubin data, the insights we may gain from population studies of transients, and the exciting possibility of finding weird and unknown transient phenomena in the Rubin stream.

Shreya Anand is an LSST-DA Catalyst postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University. Her research involves mining data from wide-field surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the Zwicky Transient Facility to identify and characterize transients using photometric and spectroscopic data from observations. She is an active member of Rubin and specifically the LSST Transient and Variable Stars collaboration, and contributed to the very first multi-messenger observing campaigns with Rubin. Shreya received her Ph.D. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology before joining KIPAC.

Shreya originally hails from the small town of West Orange, New Jersey, and was inspired by her high school physics teacher to pursue an astrophysics career. Her upbringing amongst a diverse cohort of peers instilled in her the firm belief that science should be open and accessible to everyone, regardless of their background. As one of the co-organizers of the KIPAC Summer Teacher Fellowship, she aspires to help high school teachers bring their astronomy research experiences back to the classroom and inspire the next generation to pursue careers in astrophysics.

Telescope Makers’ Workshop

The Telescope Maker’s Workshop is one of few regularly scheduled such workshops in the world! Every Friday from 7 to 10 PM, amateur telescope makers from the bay area meet at the Chabot Space & Science Center and learn how to grind, shape, polish, and figure mirrors for reflecting telescopes, under the guidance of EAS volunteers. The workshop is free; participants pay only for the mirror blanks and grinding tools, which generally cost between $100-$300, depending on the size of the mirror. All the instruction, grinding grit, testing equipment, and camaraderie is free of charge! For more information, email Richard Ozer at pres@eastbayastro.org, or come by the workshop any Friday to see what it’s all about.

Dr. Simon Steel is Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, located in Mountain View, California. He is interested in galaxies, black holes and, of course, aliens.

Outreach

EAS sends volunteers to schools, libraries, and anywhere curious aspiring astronomers gather. EAS volunteers bring their own equipment or borrow telescopes. Students, parents, and teachers are always thrilled to look through the telescopes and ask questions. You’ll meet all sorts of interesting people and provide a unique and inspiring experience to kids and parents who may have never looked through a telescope before.

Inquire about and request visits by e-mailing EAS Outreach Coordinator Raymond Howard at outreach@eastbayastro.org. Visit our outreach page to find out about upcoming events.

Members Only Viewing Nights (MOVN)

Once a quarter, we schedule a Members Only Viewing Night at the Chabot Telescope Deck for both EAS and Chabot members. This is our opportunity to look through Chabot’s historic instruments and research telescope, as well as bring our own equipment to share in a more quiet venue. The schedule for MOVN will appear in the event calendar below.

Calstar

Spring Calstar 2026 is scheduled for April 15 – April 19 at Lake San Antonio. Fall Calstar will be held on September 9 – September 13. For more information visit https://calstar.observers.org/