Madison Astronomical Society

  • Cosmos – Personal Voyages:  a Conversation About Beginnings and Convergence

    Friday, Feb 13, 2026, 7 PM, UW Space Place

    February 2026 MAS meeting graphic

    By sharing their personal stories of how their interest in astronomy began and how, 4,000 miles apart, those stories led them to MAS and a lasting friendship, Avtar and Jeff hope to engage the audience in a conversation about their own beginnings and journeys into amateur astronomy.

    Special treat – Avtar and Jeff will bring their first telescopes (which both still have) to share with the audience.

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    • M31, Then and Now

      blinking GIF comparing shots of M31 from the Palomar Survey (POSS) and a modern Seestar.
      The Palomar Sky Survey shot of M31 blink compared to the one from Carol Santulis’s SeeStar. Can you tell which is which?

      Sometimes I like to sit back and marvel at the remarkable progress our hobby has seen over the past half century or so. Technology has revolutionized everything, but perhaps nothing has changed more profoundly than astrophotography.

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    All Astro News

    • MAS Seeks New Space

      MAS members sitting at a meeting, listening to a guest speaker
      MAS members at a monthly meeting in Space Place, August, 2024.

      For the first time in nearly 30 years, MAS is looking for a new home for its monthly meetings.

      Space Place, which is the UW Astronomy Department’s home for outreach and education, will be closing its doors when the lease expires in June. According to Jim Lattis, the recently retired director of Space Place, the UW admin has been mulling this move for some time, and has finally made the decision to shutter the operation.

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    All MAS News

  • MAS Member Photos