OCA Private Outreach - Cadence Park Elementary
2025-02-20 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Cadence Park Elementary, 750 Benchmark, Irvine, CA, 92618, United States
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OCA Astrophysics SIG Meeting
2025-02-21 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-03-21 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-04-18 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-16 19:00 - 22:00 | Orange Coast College, Building 40, Astronomy House, Merrimac Way, Costa Mesa, CA, 92626, United States
The monthly meeting of the Astrophysics Special Interest Group is at 7:00 PM every third Friday of the month at Orange Coast College, Building 40, Astronomy House. Please contact the ASIG chair for details at mark@ocastronomers.org .
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Private Outreach - Cerro Villa Middle School, Villa Park
2025-02-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Cerro Villa Middle School, 17852 Serrano Ave, Villa Park, CA, 92861, United States

Anza Star Party
2025-03-01, 2025-04-26, 2025-05-24 | On the Sky, CA, United States
The new moon weekend for the monthly star party. The Anza site is open to members and their guests only. Join other members for viewing and imaging. Contact any board member if you have any questions.
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Public Outreach - Cerritos Library Astronomy Night
2025-03-05 18:00 - 20:30 | Cerritos Library, 18025 Bloomfield Ave., Cerritos, 90703, United States

Private Outreach - Robinson Ranch School
2025-03-07 18:15 - 20:00 | Robinson Ranch Elementary School, 21400 Lindsey Drive, Trabuco Cnyon, 92679, United States

Astroimagers Special Interest Group
2025-03-07 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-04-04 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-02 19:00 - 22:00, 2025-06-06 19:00 - 22:00 | Orange Coast College, Building 40, Astronomy House, Merrimac Way, Costa Mesa, CA, 92626, United States
Meeting of the Astroimaging Special Interest Group at Orange Coast College Astronomy House. Meeting is from 7pm to 10pm. Parking fees will apply and must be purchased online.
Any questions please contact Kyle Coker
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Online Beginner's Class
2025-03-07 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online Zoom event, to attend please click here at or after 7:10pm
The 1st 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
2025-03-09 11:30 - 14:30 | Online
The Board of Directors for the OCA will be having their meeting on March 9,2025 at 11:30am via Zoom. All current members are welcome, please notify the OCA secretary and a link will be sent out on the day of the meeting. Contact any board member with questions.
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Total Lunar Eclipse
2025-03-13 21:00 - 2025-03-14 03:00 | On the Sky, CA, United States
Tonight the moon will be eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow. It will be viewable throughout North America. It will start just before 9PM and end just before 3AM on 03/14/2025.
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General Meeting – March 2025
2025-03-14 19:30 - 21:30 | Irvine Lecture Hall of the Chapman University, 336 N Center St, Orange, CA, 92866, United States
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This meeting’s speaker will present inperson.

Mars Helicopter Telecom

The highly successful Ingenuity – Mars Helicopter – technology demonstration came to an end in January 2024 after 72 flights over 1000 sols (1.5 Mars years) exploring Mars. The author led the telecommunications team for Ingenuity from conception through flight operations and describes it here.

Courtney Duncan retired from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – California Institute of Technology in July 2021 shortly following the initial demonstration flights of the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity.
His 35-year career included support for space shuttle missions and experiments, GPS radio occultation technology from space, stellar interferometry, deep space navigation software, lunar gravity mapping, Deep Space Network transponders for deep space CubeSats, and finally, Ingenuity telecom.
Courtney has been a licensed radio amateur with since 1972, callsign N5BF, and has been involved in many aspects of the hobby from that time. He is a past president of the San Bernardino Microwave Society, a past official of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, AMSAT-North America, and of the JPL Amateur Radio Club, and frequently gives talks on both the Mars Helicopter and on the profound value to society of avocations such as amateur radio.*
Courtney was married to Viann WD5EHM (SK) for 45 years and has three children, Viannah KG6GXW, Katherine KG6HUI, John KG6HCO, and two grandchildren. He is also a classically trained pianist and is routinely involved in a variety of musical performances.

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Private Outreach - Del Lago Elementary School
2025-03-22 20:00 - 22:00 | Del Lago Elementary School, 27181 Entidad, Mission Viejo, 92691, United States

Anza Star Party - Messier Marathon
2025-03-29 | On the Sky, CA, United States
The new moon weekend for the monthly star party. The Anza site is open to members and their guests only. Join other members for viewing and imaging. Contact any board member if you have any questions. This night is also recommended if you want to do a Messier Marathon.
Views: 2

Online Beginner's Class
2025-04-04 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event, to attend please register with zoom by clicking here at or after 7:10pm.
The 2nd session of the Beginners Astronomy Class covers the different types of equipment used to observe the night sky, including telescopes, mounts, eyepieces, filters, and advantages and disadvantages of different options.
This session is a must if thinking about buying a telescope.
For details, please visit here and download the sample information PDF package.
Views: 2

General Meeting – April 2025
2025-04-11 19:30 - 21:30 | Irvine Lecture Hall of the Chapman University, 336 N Center St, Orange, CA, 92866, United States
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This meeting’s speaker will present inperson.

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab:

Quantum Science

and Technology Maturation

on the International Space Station

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab (CAL) launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2018,
and has been operating since that time as the world’s first and only multi-user facility for the study of ultra-cold quantum gases in space. The unique microgravity environment of the ISS is utilized with CAL by a national group of principal investigators to achieve sub-nanokelvin temperature gases, to study and utilize their quantum properties in an environment free from the perturbing force of gravity, and to observe and interact with these gases in the essentially limitless freefall of Earth’s orbit. In addition to the toolbox of capabilities originally built into CAL, an upgrade in 2020 enabled the study of atom interferometry in orbit, and a 2021 upgrade and repair facilitated investigations of the interactions between mixtures of 87Rb, 39K, and 41K and a demonstration of dual-species (87Rb – 41K or 87Rb – 39K) atom interferometry. This talk will review the up-to-date quantum gas research explored with CAL and the technical accomplishments to operate, maintain, and upgrade CAL during its tenure in the microgravity environment of the ISS. The research of CAL has broad applications in fundamental physics and precision sensing to open the door for future quantum-enabled mission opportunities.

This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

2019 Tech Highlights ReportRequesters: Micaela Velasco, Elina SolisPhotographer: R. LannomDate: 13-MAY-2019Photolab order: 070915/171297
Dr. Jason Williams specializes in developing light pulse atom interferometers and optical atomic clocks, and their applications to both fundamental and applied physics in space. He currently serves as Project Scientist and a Principal Investigator for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, a multi-user facility operating on the ISS dedicated to the study of quantum gases in space. Dr. Williams received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University, studying ultracold Fermi gases, and held a NIST NRC Postdoctoral RA in Professor Jun Ye’s lab at JILA and the University of Colorado developing high-precision optical lattice clocks.

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Crystal Cove State Park Grunion Run
2025-04-27 21:00 - 23:00, 2025-06-12 21:00 - 23:00 | Cottage 21, Los Trancos Beach, Crystal Cove State Park, Newport Coast, 92651, United States

Online Beginner's Class
2025-05-02 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event, to attend please register with zoom by clicking here at or after 7:10pm.
The 3rd session of the Beginners Astronomy Class covers different methods of finding objects in the night sky. Special topic is learning the constellations.
For details, please visit here and download the sample information PDF package.
Views: 2

OCA Board Meeting
2025-05-04 11:30 - 14:30 | Online
A meeting of the OCA Board to Trustees, the meeting is held online via zoom starting at 11:30am. The meeting is open to current members, please contact the club secretary to have a link sent to you for the meeting.
Views: 2

General Meeting – May 2025
2025-05-09 19:30 - 21:30 | Irvine Lecture Hall of the Chapman University, 336 N Center St, Orange, CA, 92866, United States
Join Zoom

This meeting’s speaker will present live from Albany, NY.

Fast Radio Bursts-Signals

from Across the Universe

This artist’s impression (not to scale) illustrates the path of the fast radio burst FRB 20220610A, from the distant galaxy where it originated all the way to Earth, in one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms. The source galaxy of FRB 20220610A, pinned down thanks to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), appears to be located within a small group of interacting galaxies. It’s so far away its light took eight billion years to reach us, making FRB 20220610A the most distant fast radio burst found to date.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright flashes of radio waves that last only a few milliseconds and are visible across the universe. Although approximately 10,000 of these occur every day, they were only discovered by accident in 2007. Their origins remain largely unknown, making FRBs one of the hottest topics in radio astronomy. In this talk, Dr. McKee will describe the discovery of FRBs, what we know about them, and what the next few years of radio astronomy holds for this exciting new field of astronomy.
Union College headshotsWednesday, September 4, 2024James McKee, Union College, Physics & Astronomy
Dr. McKee studied physics at the University of Hull, and obtained a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Manchester while working at Jodrell Bank Observatory. Dr. McKee has held research positions at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, where he was also the on-site pulsar astronomer at the Effelsberg radio telescope, and at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto where he worked on the CHIME telescope. He is currently an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Union College in NY, where he leads research into pulsars and fast radio bursts.
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Online Beginner's Class
2025-06-06 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event, to attend please register with zoom by clicking here at or after 7:10pm.
The 4th 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.
Views: 2

General Meeting – June 2025
2025-06-13 19:30 - 21:30 | Irvine Lecture Hall of the Chapman University, 336 N Center St, Orange, CA, 92866, United States
Join Zoom

This meeting’s speaker will present online from Los Angeles.

A Trip to the Center of Our Galaxy

The heart of the Milky Way is home to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole approximately four million times the mass of the Sun. Although it remains largely quiet today, it is surrounded by a turbulent sea of gas, dust, and exotic objects that could one day trigger dramatic outbursts. This presentation delves into this extreme environment, exploring the large-scale gas clouds and the closer-in structures that fuel the black hole. It examines how molecular hydrogen manages to survive intense ultraviolet radiation and introduces a newly identified class of enigmatic objects orbiting perilously close to Sagittarius A*. Observed over two decades with the Keck Observatory, these objects may represent the remnants of stellar collisions or merged binaries, offering valuable insights into how matter behaves under immense gravitational forces. Mapping this region helps to illuminate the intricate interplay of stars, gas, and gravity at the core of the galaxy.

Anna Ciurlo’s research focuses on stars and gas around the supermassive black hole in the center of our Galaxy. Her work leverages high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy from large ground and space-based observatories like Keck and the JWST. She earned her PhD in astrophysics from the Sorbonne Paris Cité and pursued postdoctoral research at UCLA. She was an inaugural year Keck Visiting Scholar at Keck Observatory. Anna continues at UCLA as an assistant researcher and adjunct assistant professor in the Galactic Center Group.
Views: 2
