Colorado Springs Astronomical Society

08/15/2026

CANCELLATION NOTICE: Due to forecast rain and cloud cover tonight's (Saturday, Aug 15) stargazing program at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument has been canceled.

08/13/2026

Cancellation Notice: Our Stargazing event scheduled for Friday, Aug 14th at Cheyenne Mountain State Park is canceled due to forecast cloud cover (80%) and rain (80-100% chance of rain) conditions. We hope to see you at our planned lunar eclipse event in the park in two weeks (weather permitting of course!)!

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08/02/2026

Another CSASTRO summer picnic is now in the can. We had a light turnout but the food was superb as always and all had an enjoyable time with perfect weather. Here's a few pic of those attending. Tom D.

07/24/2026

From CSASTRO Member, Mark Harter:
A Florissant neighbor of ours here in Colorado Mountain Estates (CME) recently became the new Director of Camp Solid Rock (Jeff Dunn). This is a family camp that has been in obsolete status for a couple years, he's been asked to restore it to operational use this summer. They have about a dozen cabins, activity fields, cafeteria, chapel, etc.
Jeff contacted me as he's been to our FLFO-CSASTRO events. There's an observatory on their camp grounds, he wants to know if CSASTRO would be interested in helping them bring this observatory back into operational use once again. It is called the Michael Silva Memorial Observatory, built in 2001. It's an enclosed wooden structure about 15' x 15', with retractable roof, hard wood floor, power & electrical outlets. 3 telescopes and some astronomy materials in it: 1) Meade Magellan 1 Starfinder Dobson (14" ?); 2) Celestron Astromaster 130mm Newtonian Reflector w/EQ mount; 3) small Orion Starblast Dobson (4"?) on a table mount.

I went over to look at it and think this could be restored relatively easily and quickly with some focused attention by a couple CSASTRO astronomers. Everything is in decent shape (but needs cleaning). Observatory needs a thorough cleaning, telescopes need collimation, perhaps some lenses. I believe this would be a relatively straight forward project to get them up and running again. Maybe help them host a kickoff star party when it's ready to go. Good press and great community project.

Camp Solid Rock is on Lower Twin Rocks Rd between Divide and Florissant, if you come that way for the FLFO events you pass right by it (on the south side of the road, can't miss it).

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06/17/2026

If you missed the occultation of Venus by the moon today, check out the encore tonight just after dark as the moon and Venus lie on either side of the rich star cluster M44. Binoculars will give a fantastic view.

06/17/2026

Observed the moon occult Venus at 12:56:15 MDT with 20x80 binocs. First noted dimming on Venus at 12:56:01 MDT.

06/17/2026

Getting ready to view the moon occult Venus with my 20x80 binocs. Any set of binocs or a small telescope well show the event. Occultation will happen just before 1:00 PM and reemmergence just after 2:15 MDT in Colorado Springs.

06/15/2026

Get your binoculars or small scopes out on June 16-17 for some cool lunar and planetary action. The weather on the 17th is looking good for the lunar occultation of Venus in the afternoon sky!

06/14/2026

For everyone who departed RMSS arly in anticipation of bad weather ... you forget that our little valley doesn't follow the rules, as it's been an unexpected but very welcome beautiful night so far!

06/06/2026

Saturday's star party at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (Saturday, June 6th, 9-11 PM) is cancelled due to forecast cloud cover. We hope we have better weather for our other planned events later this Summer! I'm ordering it now.