Open Spiral Bar
2020-12-12 22:00 - 23:30, 2021-01-09 22:00 - 23:30, 2021-02-13 22:00 - 23:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online
This event is free and open to public, to attend please register using the zoom.us link on the box above.
Come and socialize with your fellow astronomy enthusiasts face-to-face virtually!
Bring your latest astrophotos, mini-presentation, questions or none and your own refreshments.

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Geminid Meteor Shower
2020-12-13 | CA
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New Moon
2020-12-14, 2021-01-12, 2021-02-11 | CA

Online Solar Eclipse
2020-12-14 06:30 - 21:30 | Online
The last solar eclipse of 2020 will be on Monday December 14th and is going to be only visible from Southern America.
Behold that OCA in collaboration with Prof. Elizabeth Villanueva and her students from Colegio Alberto Pérez has arranged for an international live broadcast of the event.
The program will be held from the start of the eclipse at 6:30am PST up until its end at 9:30am PST. In addition to the Chilean view of the sun, there will be short presentations by students and teacher from all around the world.
To attend, have zoom installed and then visit the page below at the appropriate time.
https://www.astrozoom.space/attend

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First Quarter Moon
2020-12-21, 2021-01-20, 2021-02-19 | CA

Winter Solstice
2020-12-21 | CA

Ursids Meteor Shower
2020-12-21 - 2020-12-22 | CA
Catch the shooting stars of the last major meteor shower of the year, the Ursids, when it peaks between the night of December 21 and 22, 2020.
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First "Christmas Star" in 800 years
2020-12-21 17:00 - 17:15 | CA
This December 21st, on the winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn will be their “closest” in 800 years. Not since the Middle Ages has this close encounter between these two planets occurred. The event will occur 45 minutes after sunset in the southwest and will result in a spectacular view! Get out your cameras!!
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Full Moon
2020-12-29 | CA

2020 Blair Award Ceremony
2020-12-30 19:00 - 19:30 | CA
Topic: WAA G. Bruce Blair Award
Time: Dec 30, 2020 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84876958189?pwd=[REDACTED]

An astronomy enthusiast since childhood, Bing F. Quock joined Morrison Planetarium’s staff in 1973 and joined the Planetarium Lecturer team in 1975, presenting live shows using the classic Academy-made star projector. In the late ’70s, he taught several semesters of Introductory Astronomy at one of City College of San Francisco’s satellite campuses under Don Warren, then the head of CCSF’s Astronomy Department. From 1982-2003, he served as Morrison Planetarium’s Assistant Chairman and Show Producer, writing and producing approximately 110 planetarium shows for the public, school, and special event audiences during that time, as well as teaching informal astronomy classes and guiding observing sessions for Academy members and youth. During this period, he wrote the “Skywatcher’s Guide” that appeared regularly in the Academy’s quarterly magazine and which continues today, still authored by him, in digital form on the museum’s website (www.calacademy.org). He also created the Academy’s popular “Pocket Almanac,” and since the ’80s has written daily skywatching snippets under the Planetarium’s byline for syndication to about 30 newspapers around the country. He has been a frequent interviewee on Bay Area radio and television, explaining eclipses, meteor showers, and other astronomical phenomena.

From the mid-1990s to 2017, he assisted Ron Dammann as one of the principal operators of the Hume Observatory at Pepperwood Preserve in Sonoma, educating and entertaining small groups of visitors with views of the night sky through the facility’s instruments, which included a 6.4″ Alvan Clark refractor once owned by George Davidson and “Edelweiss,” a 17″ Dobsonian reflector donated by Doug Berger. Although the observatory and its equipment did not survive the Tubbs wildfire of 2017, Bing continues guiding occasional skywatching sessions as part of Pepperwood Preserve’s educational program.

From 2004-2006, he served as Acting Director of Morrison Planetarium when the Academy of Sciences temporarily relocated to downtown San Francisco, while the Academy buildings were renovated. He performed astronomy outreach to schools with an inflatable planetarium until
the new Academy reopened in the Park. Since 2007, he has held the position of Morrison Planetarium’s Assistant Chairman and presently continues concentrating on outreach, partnerships, and astronomy communication to the media.
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Online Beginner's Class
2021-01-01 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This event is free and open to public; to attend please register using the zoom.us link on the box above.
This session of the Beginners Astronomy Class covers the science behind the telescope.
How do our eyes actually perceive objects we see in the telescope and what is the physics that allows that perception.
For details, please visit here and download the sample information PDF package.
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Quadrantids Meteor Shower
2021-01-02 - 2021-01-03 | CA
The Quadrantids is an above average shower, with up to 40 meteors per hour at its peak. It is thought to be produced by dust grains left behind by an extinct comet known as 2003 EH1, which was discovered in 2003
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Earth's Perihelion
2021-01-02 05:30 - 05:40 | CA
At 5:30am, the Earth will reach its perihelion—the point on its orbit that is closest to the Sun.
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Last Quarter Moon
2021-01-06, 2021-02-04, 2021-03-05 | CA

Online General Meeting - January 2021
2021-01-08 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is an online event, to attend please register with zoom using the link on the box above.
Dark Matter and the Dance of Dwarf Galaxies

Major galaxies, such as our cosmic home the Milky Way, the nearby Andromeda galaxy, or Centaurus A, are surrounded by swarms of smaller dwarf satellite galaxies. Over the past 15 years, our knowledge of these satellite galaxies has exploded. The number of known Milky Way satellites has quadrupled, and highly precise measurements of their motions have provided unprecedented insights into their complex orbital dance. In my research, I investigate the distribution and motion of satellite galaxies to test our ideas of how the cosmos in general, and galaxies in particular, have formed and evolved. Our current leading model of cosmology was largely developed on cosmic scales, and implies that most of the mass in the Universe is dominated by unknown stuff: Dark Matter. Based on this cosmological model, computer simulations can nowadays follow the emergence and evolution of structure in model universes. These simulations predict the distribution and properties of galaxies down to the smallest scales (astronomically speaking). They predict a highly chaotic tangle of satellite galaxies. In contrast, my research finds that the observed situation resembles an ordered choreography: the satellite galaxies around the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Centaurus A are aligned along planes. Many satellites also move along these structures in a common direction. This finding poses a serious challenge to our model of cosmology – and might point at a fundamental misinterpretation of cosmic proportions.
Marcel S. Pawlowski

My research is situated at the intersection of observations and cosmological simulations. I am most interested in testing our cosmological knowledge and our understanding of the properties and dynamics of dwarf galaxies with observations of nearby systems of satellite galaxies. After receiving my PhD from the University of Bonn in 2013, I moved to the United States for a postdoc position at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2016, I was awarded a NASA Hubble Fellowship to work at the University of California Irvine. At the end of 2018 I moved back to Germany to my current position as Schwarzschild Fellow at the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam.
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Online Ventura County Astronomical Society's General Meeting
2021-01-15 20:30 - 22:00, 2021-02-19 20:30 - 22:00 | Online
This is an online event held by OCA for VCAS.
No prior registration is required but when entering the webinar, zoom will ask for your name and email.
At the time of the meeting, to attend via zoom app click here, via your browser click here.
To install the zoom app click here.

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Full Moon
2021-01-28 | CA
The first full moon of the year is colloquially known as Wolf Moon in many northern cultures. A Full Moon occurs when the Sun and the Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth.
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Online Beginner's Class
2021-02-05 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
RSVP using the zoom.us link on the box above.
Please install/update zoom client prior to the event.
This is the “How to Use Your Telescope” session of the Beginners Astronomy Class. If you have a telescope and would like some help learning to set it up and use it, attend this on-line class.
For details, please visit here.
Free and open to the public as well as members of OCA.
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Full Moon
2021-02-27 06:30 - 2021-02-28 08:00 | On the Sky, CA, United States

Online Beginner's Class
2021-03-05 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This event is free and open to public, to attend please use the zoom.us link on the box above.
The first session of the Beginners Astronomy Class gives a general overview of all of the different objects you can see in the night and day time skies, with some history and information about what they are and their significance. An overview of the current scientific understanding of the Universe’s beginning, present and future is also covered.
For details, please visit here and download the sample information PDF package.
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OCA Board Meeting
2021-03-07 10:30 - 12:30 | Online
The OCA board will be meeting online at 10:30am. If a member would like to attend the meeting contact Alan Smallbone.

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