Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association

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Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association

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Official page for the Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association. Founded in 1955.

Mission Statement:
To promote community interest and participation in astronomy through outreach, education and research. The Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association – in existence for over 60 years - is an organization of more than 100 astronomy enthusiasts of varied ages, backgrounds, and interests. We are an eclectic mix of individuals and families who share a common interest in and appreciation for the wonders of the universe.

11/01/2026

Here is the calendar of moon phases for the month of November, courtesy of moongiant.com.

With the changing of the seasons, November's full moon is connected to death and loss across many different cultures. The Celts called it the Reed Moon, after mournful woodwind music. Some Indigenous tribes in North America called it the Beaver Moon, after the fur that they used to make clothing in order to survive the cold winter months. Another Native American name for November's full moon is the Moon When Rivers Start to Freeze, acknowledging the moon as a signal for winter's approach. Pagans refer to November's full moon as the Mourning Moon because their winter preparations involve mourning, a period of time to let go of unwanted objects and burdens.

10/26/2026

NGC 7129, otherwise known as the Flower Bud Nebula or Small Cluster Nebula, was a main focal point for the James Webb Telescope recently.

This young open star cluster is home to many protostars and stars with the majority of them being on the right side of the central star. The red shows outflows of shot and heat that these stars are emitting packed with blue clumps of cooler, molecular hydrogen. The beautiful golden glow is hot, atomic hydrogen gas.

With the protostars being quite young, the central star is within its mature stages of its life cycle. Because of this, the heat its emitting breaks down the molecular hydrogen into atoms, causing the differences in color and temperature.

Taken from NASA’s page about this nebula, here’s a bit of info related to the color:

”These images were acquired by the NIRCam instrument on the Webb Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample varying wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue= F115W, F187N Cyan= F200W, Yellow= F335M, Red= F444W, F470N”

10/22/2026

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a space observatory that detects gamma rays. Having launched in June 11, 2008, this powerful telescope has an extended mission as it’s still in perfect working condition for scientists to continue using it for studies.

Gamma-rays makes cosmic viewing vastly different than what we typically see with visible light. This gives scientists a different outlook on what is out there. Thanks to Fermi, 300 gamma-ray pulsars have been discovered, giant flares from super magnetized neutron stars can be detected in galaxies outside of our own, there’s new theories on gravity and the nature of dark matter, and revealed new components called the Fermi Bubbles in our galaxy.

Fermi is in a low-Earth circular orbit. The image shown is a gamma-ray radiation detected over the entire sky which was taken over the course of 5 years (2009-2013).

10/19/2026

Do you know the differences between An Asteroid, Comet, Meteoroid, Meteor and Meteorite?

Learn more here: https://science.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-meteors/

10/14/2026

Students wanted! Becoming a GRAAA member grants you access to training and use of the telescopes at the Veen Observatory. Learn more and become a member today at graaa.org.

Address

3308 Kissing Rock Avenue SE
Lowell, MI
49331

Telephone

+16168977065

Website

http://graaa.org/, http://linktr.ee/graaa, http://youtube.com/@gr_astronomy, https://discord.gg/36JrbpEb

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