Astronomical Society of Long Island

Astronomical Society of Long Island The Astronomical Society of Long Island is an astronomy club which meets every Wednesday night at the Vanderbilt Planetarium at 8:00 PM.

Our website is < www.asliclub.org > You can see our weekly programs on our website. The Astronomical Society of Long Island is a very active astronomy club on Long Island, New York. We meet every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM at the Vanderbilt Planetarium, in Centerport, New York. We are a group of dedicated amateur astronomers and telescope makers with a passion for our hobby, and a willingness to

share our knowledge and excitement of the hobby with others, both experienced, and those who may have just discovered the hobby. Please come join us at our meetings, and enjoy the view through our telescopes at our observing sessions. You do NOT need to be a member to attend our meetings.

02/08/2026

THIS ACCOUNT FOR THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY IS AN OLDER ONE AND NO LONGER IN USE.

PLEASE LOOK FOR THE NEW VERSION WITH A SIMILAR NAME:

ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF LONG ISLAND (ASLI)

02/08/2026

THIS ACCOUNT FOR THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY IS AN OLDER ONE AND NO LONGER IN USE.

PLEASE LOOK FOR THE NEW VERSION WITH A SIMILAR NAME:

Astronomical Society of Long Island (ASLI)

02/08/2026

THIS ACCOUNT FOR THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY IS AN OLDER ONE AND NO LONGER IN USE.

PLEASE LOOK FOR THE NEW VERSION WITH A SIMILAR NAME:

Astronomical Society of Long Island (ASLI)

02/08/2026

THIS ACCOUNT FOR THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY IS AN OLDER ONE AND NO LONGER IN USE.
PLEASE LOOK FOR THE NEW VERSION WITH A SIMILAR NAME:

Astronomical Society of Long Island (ASLI)

COMET FEVER! Last night was a great night for the first evening views of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. A number o...
10/13/2024

COMET FEVER! Last night was a great night for the first evening views of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. A number of friends in our astronomy club had a chance to see and view the comet on Long Island. I am in Los Angeles and so went to Venice Beach in hopes of seeing the comet after sunset, out over the Pacific Ocean. When it did appear, after all the color of the sun had gone, it was exceedingly faint and first seen in binoculars. The I made photographs with both a wide angle lens and a 200mm telephoto lens with the camera on a tripod. What a thrill to see this magnificent, but subtle, and magical thing!

11/30/2019

This Wednesday Night, Dec 4, 8 PM - "The Cosmic Neutrino Background" by Neelima Sehgal. Dr. Sehgal will discuss the sea of invisible neutrinos that is all around us and explain its origin. Then she will discuss how, by detecting this sea of particles we could capture the oldest photograph of the Universe, a baby picture when the Universe was one second old. Finally, she will talk about the significant challenges that exist in capturing this baby picture, and some experiments on the horizon that may achieve this. Dr. Neelima Sehgal is an Associate Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department. She received her B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Yale University and her PhD in Physics and Astronomy from Rutgers University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford and Princeton Universities before joining the faculty at Stony Brook in 2012. Neelima Sehgal is an Associate Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Stony Brook University.

10/30/2019

Tonight's meeting of the Astronomical Society of Long Island is a lecture about the upcoming Transit of Mercury in November. Come hear our expert describe the event and how you can watch it. Everyone is welcome, you don't need to be a member to attend our meetings. 8:00 Tonight at the Vanderbilt Planetarium, Centerport, NY
Oct 30 - The Transit of Mercury, November 11th. - by Frank Melillo. Catch Mercury traversing the sun during the rare planetary transit! We witnessed the last Mercury transit on May 9, 2016 and now we will see the second one just 3 1/2 years later. This coming November 11th, we will see Mercury’s small dark disk crossing the face of the sun during this truly remarkable event. Lets make sure we all see this one because you don’t want to wait 30 years for another transit. I will show the highlights of observing the transit and some of the fine images of Mercury I took recently.

07/09/2019

Our program this Wednesday night, July 10 - will be "Photographing the Night Sky from Hawaii "- by Stan Honda. Stan was recently an artist-in-residence at Haleakalā National Park on the Island of Maui, home of the Haleakala Observatory and he spent the month photographing the night sky and the incredible lunar-like volcanic landscapes at 10,000 feet and tropical scenes at sea level. He also spent time in Idaho photographing the Minedoka War Relocation Center, National Historic Site, and he will show some night sky photography from there. Do not miss this presentation! The meeting starts at 8:00 PM

06/03/2019

June 5 - NEWBIE NIGHT - 7–8 PM – The Astronomical Society of Long Island (ASLI) welcomes everyone to Newbie night at the Vanderbilt Planetarium. If you have questions about getting started in astronomy, we are here to help. We will have ASLI members available to work with individuals and small groups to discuss telescopes, binoculars, observing and related topics. If you have a telescope and need some help, bring it.
The weather forecast does NOT look good for observing, which was originally scheduled.

June 5 - Alternate Program if sky is not clear – 8 - 9:30 PM - Observing the Gas Giants - Jupiter and Saturn - by Ed Anderson. This program will be an introduction for beginning observers. Ed will discuss observing these planets with beginner equipment, and will provide tips on how to get the most out of your observing session including tools and techniques that will help you see more. There will be time after the presentation to meet the ASLI members and chat about astronomy. All are welcome.

05/20/2019

Wednesday night, May 22 - is a “Double Header” program - 2 speakers!

"The American Museum of Natural History, And How It Got That Way" by Colin Davey. Originally Mr. Davey intended to write a comprehensive history of our beloved Hayden Planetarium, but he found the intrigue, the politics, the suspense, and the shifting balance of power so compelling that the book became a history of the entire American Museum of Natural History, of which the Hayden Planetarium is an essential part. Copies of the book will be available if you wish to purchase one.

“A Deliberate Yet Impossible World” - by Sam Storch The little-known historical background that led to the discovery of Pluto. The late 19th century had brought the capabilities accompanying great wealth and the noble tradition of the “gentleman astronomer” to join with the new methods of scrutinizing the heavens through photography along with intense human mathematical calculation. The passionate writings of Percival Lowell ignited great public interest in an inhabited Mars. When Lowell’s canal-building Martians couldn’t be objectively verifed, Lowell’s intense drive to vindicate his professional reputation through hypothesis and discovery led to a search for a planet beyond Neptune - a search that unfortunately succeeded well after Lowell’s death. Yet, even with intense and “brute force” application of the new tool of photography the discovery of Pluto was almost unlikely result, presenting astronomers with a combination of characteristics once thought impossible.

The ASLI meeting this Wednesday Night, May 15 has an exciting program: "The Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua" - by Profess...
05/14/2019

The ASLI meeting this Wednesday Night, May 15 has an exciting program: "The Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua"
- by Professor Phil Armitage. In the Fall 2017 the Pan-STARRS telescope detected the first object of clearly interstellar origin passing fleetingly through the inner Solar System. Named ‘Oumuamua, after the Hawaiian word for "scout", our first interstellar visitor was a small body that may have originated as an asteroid or comet within an extrasolar planetary system. The existence of interstellar asteroids and comets was no surprise - our Solar System probably ejected many Earth masses of such bodies as it formed - but ‘Oumuamua showed unexpected and mysterious properties that remain to be fully explained. In this talk I will discuss what we know about ‘Oumuamua, and what we hope to learn about planet formation from future observations of similar visitors. Prof. Phil Armitage is a theoretical astrophysicist in the Stony Brook Physics & Astronomy Department. He is interested in the formation of planetary systems and the astrophysics of black holes. He joined Stony Brook last year after many years at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Address

180 Little Neck Road
Centerport, NY
11721

Opening Hours

8pm - 9:30pm

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