Yellowstone Valley Astronomy Association

Visit our website at yvaamt.com for more information about our club!

Pictograph Caves - Public Star Party
We are inviting everyone out to Pictograph Caves for a public star party. Come out and look through telescopes provided by the club and learn a bit more about the night sky!!

06/13/26
8pm-11pm
Pictograph Caves State Park

YVAA will be at the Audubon center down by Norm’s Island in collaboration with Parks and rec tonight! This is a free and public event!

Don’t forget our lecture this weekend, February 14 at 3 PM at the library! It’s gonna be a good one! See previous posts or go to our website at yvaamt.com for more details

Yellowstone Valley Astronomy Association Established in 2003 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization

Mr. Dean Regas reached out to our club. He was the longtime astronomer at the Cincinnati Observatory and the cohost of PBS' Stargazers. For the past several years He has been offering online classes and making them available to astronomy groups around the country for free. He has a free lecture series, with a lecture today! Click the link below to watch tonight at 7 pm.

The Winter Sky and 2026 Sky Highlights Wednesday January 14, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time Learn how to identify the stars, constellations, planets (and a few challenging objects) of the season with astronomer, author, and former host of PBS' Star Gazers, Dean Regas. Great for beginners to experts. Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83219059782?pwd=hKwhzHgsb3916gaSD4UaPuVpRArMa8.1 Passcode:055185

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Shane Larson will be here in Billings to provide a lecture about his work with Gravitational waves on 02/14/26 at the Billings Public Library.

A Tapestry of Gravity: LISA and the Future of Gravitational Wave Astronomy
Shane L. Larson
Clarkson University

Virtually everything we know about the Universe has been discovered from the study of photons --- light in all its myriad forms from radio waves, to visible light, to x-rays and beyond. At the dawn of the 21st century, advanced technology is providing access to the Cosmos through detection of ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself -- gravitational waves.

These ripples in spacetime, called gravitational waves, carry information not in the form of light or particles, but in the form of gravity itself. Gravitational waves are messengers which carry the stories of what happens when two black holes collide at the centers of galaxies, of how the compact stars fall into monstrous black holes, and of how the graveyard of the galaxy is filled with the quiet whisper of binary white dwarf stars that spiral together ever so slowly as they fade into oblivion.

This talk will explore the modern description of gravity, what gravitational waves are and how we hope to measure them, and what we hope to learn from their detection. We'll focus on the forthcoming space gravitational wave observatory, LISA, being launched in the early 2030s by ESA and NASA. LISA observations will unveil the stories of what happens when two black holes collide at the centers of galaxies, of how the compact stars fall into monstrous black holes, and of how the graveyard of the galaxy is filled with the quiet whisper of binary white dwarf stars that spiral together ever so slowly as they fade into oblivion. Gravity has a story to tell, and in this talk, we'll explore some of discoveries we hope to make.

3pm- 4:30pm
1306 Central Ave, Billings
This meeting will be at the Connect Office at 1306 Central Ave in Billings. We will be holding Elections and Paul Bevacqua will be discussing his work with Satellites. A brief history, Design and operations and finally what to do with an old one. His work was focused around communications with active satellites. The meeting is at 3:00pm. Anyone interested in getting more involved with the club is invited to join in on the elections. This is open to the public as well.