The Astronomical Society of Greenbelt is an organization made up of people in and around Greenbelt, MD who are interested in astronomy. The group's objective is to educate people about the fascinating science and hobby of astronomy. Persons of all knowledge and skill levels, whether members of the Society or not, are welcome to attend activities.

Regular meetings, normally featuring a presentation by an authority on some astronomical topic, are (usually) held on the last non-holiday Thursday of each month at the Greenbelt Community Center. Check our Events page and our message server (see link below) for specifics.

Star parties are held on selected Saturdays -- and other days for notable events -- at the City of Greenbelt Observatory on Northway (extended) in Greenbelt. Visitors are welcome to set up their own telescopes on the hill. Check our Events page for scheduled dates, and check our message server a day or so in advance for specific star party agendas.

Notice!  All of ASG's remaining 2020 events, including meetings at the Greenbelt Community Center and star parties at the Greenbelt Observatory, were cancelled in late March due to the pandemic. And they remain cancelled. However, we are now (in mid-June) resuming operations in an online mode.

Our first online lecture will be on June 25th, starting at 7:30 PM. Dr. Marc Neveu, of GSFC and U. Md. will speak on "Life detection: the next frontier of robotic space missions." Hosting will start at 7 PM so that those who wish to get together again after many moons can do so, virtually.

Our first stab at an online star party could be any clear night now. We plan to start with events announced only via posts to greenbeltastro@groups.io, and will not be announcing via the Greenbelt News Review until we are satisfied that we have a good grip on online hosting. We plan to start with a telescope on a deck in Lanham and another in a back yard in Brentwood, MD, near the DC border, observing deep sky objects currently high in the sky, since the horizon is blocked by surrounding houses and trees. By the way, if you are an ASG member with a telescope and wish to participate in online observing, you should contact our Observatory Committee Chairman.

ASG message server (groups.io/g/greenbeltastro)

2020 ASG brochure (All scheduled events will be online until further notice)

2020 ASG star party schedule (All scheduled events have been cancelled until further notice)

"Star Parties at Greenbelt Observatory" (What to expect, when life returns to normality)

"ASG favorite images" (A picture gallery)

News, 17 Mar 2020:  Sebastian Rivera-Muñoz, a student at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, has completed his senior year Research Project, the development of an image sharpening algorithm now incorporated in ASG's "QuickStack" live-stacking application currently in use at Greenbelt Observatory to enable the observation of very faint cosmological "deep sky objects." Sebastian developed his algorithm, called "2Delta-PSF" (for two times a delta function minus the point spread function), using Microsoft Visual C++, an application development system he mastered (well enough for his purpose) during the course of the project. The beauty of his algorithm is that it uses the telescope-and-camera's image of a star to automatically determine the proper degree of sharpening required, making the process quick and easy to use at ASG star parties. Sebastian compared his algorithm with a standard astronomical image sharpening algorithm called the "Lucy-Richardson deconvolution algorithm," and we deemed his algorithm superior with regard to the aspects important to us (fewer artifacts and acceptable processing time). His mentor for the project was Conrad Terrill of ASG.