What we’re about
SEE YOUR UNIVERSE EVERY CLEAR WEDNESDAY NIGHT AFTER 8 PM
(After sunset in the summer)
Planning on coming for a WAS Wednesday Star Party? Great! Visits are always free but to keep operating our non-profit we suggest a donation of $5 per person if you are not a member of the Society. Want to support WAS over the year? Become a member!
For up-to-the-minute updates on opening the observatory, please check our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Meetup feeds.
We hope to see you soon under the bright skies of Westport!
In addition, please join us for our free monthly lectures, featuring the best speakers from around the world in diverse fields such as astronomy, cosmology, and physics.
Sign up for our mailing list to be notified of any special events at the observatory here: http://www.was-ct.org/
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Public Night at the Westport Astronomical SocietyWestport Astronomical Society, Westport, CT
Come and join our nonprofit all-volunteer staff every Wednesday night (if it's clear) from 8-10 pm. We suggest a donation of $5 per person.
All events are weather permitting & when the skies are clear - remember, near the summer solstice it doesn’t get dark until late, so please plan to come well after sunset.
Enjoy the views of planets, nebulae, and other deep-sky objects through our telescopes with the help of our members and volunteers. The Tower Observatory Dome covers a 14″ Celestron EdgeHD and the lawn regularly hosts the HUGE 25″ Obsession telescope, the largest in Connecticut available to the public.
Check the links for up-to-date information if we'll be able to open: Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or the WAS Website.
- Public Night at the Westport Astronomical SocietyWestport Astronomical Society, Westport, CT
Come and join our nonprofit all-volunteer staff every Wednesday night (if it's clear) from 8-10 pm. We suggest a donation of $5 per person.
All events are weather permitting & when the skies are clear - remember, near the summer solstice it doesn’t get dark until late, so please plan to come well after sunset.
Enjoy the views of planets, nebulae, and other deep-sky objects through our telescopes with the help of our members and volunteers. The Tower Observatory Dome covers a 14″ Celestron EdgeHD and the lawn regularly hosts the HUGE 25″ Obsession telescope, the largest in Connecticut available to the public.
Check the links for up-to-date information if we'll be able to open: Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or the WAS Website.
- Public Night at the Westport Astronomical SocietyWestport Astronomical Society, Westport, CT
Come and join our nonprofit all-volunteer staff every Wednesday night (if it's clear) from 8-10 pm. We suggest a donation of $5 per person.
All events are weather permitting & when the skies are clear - remember, near the summer solstice it doesn’t get dark until late, so please plan to come well after sunset.
Enjoy the views of planets, nebulae, and other deep-sky objects through our telescopes with the help of our members and volunteers. The Tower Observatory Dome covers a 14″ Celestron EdgeHD and the lawn regularly hosts the HUGE 25″ Obsession telescope, the largest in Connecticut available to the public.
Check the links for up-to-date information if we'll be able to open: Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or the WAS Website.
- Caleb Scharf – NASA’s Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at Ames ResearchLink visible for attendees
# The Search for Life in the Universe: 2024 and beyond
THE CLASSROOM WILL BE CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT
###### This lecture will be hosted as a Webinar on Zoom as well as a live stream on our YouTube channel. We encourage you to participate, ask questions, and be a part of the live meeting.
We welcome back for the third time our friend and NASA’s Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at the Ames Research Center, Dr. Caleb Scharf. Caleb has previously spoken to WAS back in September 2015 about Gravity’s Engines and again in November 2018 about the Zoomable Universe (available on our YouTube channel).
I’ll present a round-up of where things are at for the pursuit of evidence for life elsewhere in the universe, and I’ll discuss where things are going. This will cover research in exoplanetary science, exploration of the solar system, and upcoming plans for Mars, Titan, and the Habitable Worlds Observatory – NASA’s future space telescope.
Caleb Scharf is the Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley. Prior to joining NASA in 2022 he was Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University in New York. He has also served as a global science coordinator for the Earth-Life Science Institute’s Origins Network at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2022 Scharf was the recipient of the Carl Sagan Medal for excellence in public communication in planetary science from the American Astronomical Society. His research spans cosmology, exoplanetary science, and astrobiology, where he is helping lead NASA’s scientific efforts to find life in the universe.
