Founded in 1937 at the US Naval Observatory by a group of professional and amateur astronomers, the National Capital Astronomers (NCA) is a volunteer-driven nonprofit aiming to ignite public interest in astronomy and space science. We're all about sharing the wonders of the universe with everyone!
While we marvel at the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, we recognize Earth's unique hospitality. This drives our mission to protect our planet's resources and life. After all, as Captain Kirk (a.k.a. William Shatner) discovered, space is a harsh place!
Join us for a cosmic journey and be part of our mission to explore, understand, and protect our universe!
NCA has regular monthly meetings September through June on the second Saturday of the month. For 2025-26, meetings will be held in-person at the University of Maryland Astronomical Observatory in College Park, Maryland (directions/map) AND online via Zoom (details below). Seating is limited, so we are encouraging folks to attend via Zoom.
Public transportation: Directions/maps to the UMD Observatory
Inclement weather: In case of severe weather (tornado/snow/impassable roads), a notice will be placed on the Observatory Website on the day of the meeting. (Be sure to refresh/reload the page to make sure you are seeing an updated page.)
The meetings for this year will be HYBRID (online via Zoom AND in-person), unless otherwise noted!
With permission of the speakers, most meetings will be recorded. Once available the audio and video will be linked.
National Capital Astronomers will be holding its 2025-2026 meetings online via Zoom and in-person. This year, the Zoom meetings have been set up so that there is no registration required. This is the direct Zoom link, it is the same for everybody for every meeting this year. If we have problems with Zoom bombing at a meeting, then the link will be canceled and a new one created that will require registration for subsequent meetings.
As usual, the Zoom room "doors" open at 7pm ET with the actual meeting starting on time at 7:30pm! While you do not need to sign in right at 7pm, please do not wait until 7:35pm!! And since we are not registering folks, it will be important that you have a recognizable name showing so that I can let you in from the virtual waiting room.
With the permission of the guestspeakers, we will be recording the meetings.
Join Zoom Meeting: NCA Monthly Zoom
These guidelines will be updated as needed.
Dr. Christine Hirst Bernhardt, National Earth Science Teachers Association
7:30 pm
Abstract: For most of human history, across cultures and civilizations, people interpreted the heavens as sources of meaning. Planetary alignments signaled upheaval. Eclipses marked divine action. The zodiac mapped human identity onto the stars. Entire cosmologies and creation narratives emerged from these recurring celestial patterns.
This talk explores the tension between interpretation and physical mechanism. Human societies read intention into planetary alignments, eclipses, zodiacal constellations. Modern astronomy situates those same events within orbital mechanics, angular momentum conservation, gravitational interaction, dynamical resonance. We will examine what planetary alignments actually look like in three-dimensional space rather than in flattened diagrams. We will consider why astrological signs no longer correspond to the Sun's true location along the ecliptic. We will revisit culturally significant eclipses and consider how material from the sky, including meteoritic iron once regarded as metal of heaven, shaped early authority and power, then unpack the precise geometric conditions that make totality possible in our narrow window of cosmic time.
These examples illuminate more than historical misconception; they reveal a deeper cognitive impulse: the human brain searches for pattern, agency, and structure. That impulse once shaped myth, religion and prophecy, but now encounters measurement, modeling and theory. The sky has not changed-but our tools have. Under the same sky that once carried omens, we now predict orbits. That shift reflects not a loss of meaning, but a refinement of understanding.
Bio:Christine Hirst Bernhardt is President-Elect of the National Earth Science Teachers Association and STEM Education Coordinator for NOVA SySTEMic at Northern Virginia Community College. Since 2007, she has taught secondary Earth and Space science and other STEM courses, and has taught undergraduate and graduate astronomy since 2015. Christine specializes in Earth and Space science education and has led major curriculum projects, programs, and professional development at regional, state, and national levels, including a high-altitude balloon experiment program and a student space symposium. Her research focuses on how educators foster authentic science experiences and students' epistemic agency using integrated Earth and Space science contexts. She has published the first qualitative study of international astronomy education and a book chapter on using climate science to support epistemic agency.
A decorated educator, Christine received the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship and the Excellence in Astronomy Teaching Award in 2021. She served as a NASA SOFIA educator ambassador in 2017 and joined the Astronomy in Chile Education Ambassador program in 2019. She chairs the U.S. National Astronomy Education Coordinators team for the International Astronomical Union and is a strand coordinator with the National Association for Research on Science Teaching and an early-career researcher with NSF's Astro-Accel project and is a core member of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Advancing Science Teaching and Learning (CASTL K-12). Christine earned a Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Maryland, an M.S. in Space Studies and Planetary Science from the University of North Dakota, an M.A. in Science Education from Cal State Northridge, a geoscience teaching credential from Cal State Fullerton, and a B.S. in Earth Sciences from Humboldt Polytechnic University.
Weather-permitting, there will be observing through the telescopes after the meeting for members and guests.
The telescope making, maintenance, and modification workshop with Guy Brandenburg is held in the basement (wood shop) of the Chevy Chase Community Center which is located at the intersection of McKinley Street and Connecticut Avenue, NW, a few blocks inside the DC boundary, on the northeast corner of the intersection. The workshop is open on Tuesdays & Fridays, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. For information visit Guy's Website. To contact Guy, call 202-262-4274 or Email Guy!
Exploring the Sky is a joint program between the National Capital Astronomers and the National Park Service Rock Creek Park Nature Center and has been run since 1948 at this location, the field at the corner of Glover and Military Roads in the District. There is an adjacent parking lot. It is free and all are welcome who have an interest in observing the heavens. It's not an ideal dark sky location but we can still see solar system objects (even the occasional comet), open and globular clusters and maybe a fuzzy galaxy or two.
Questions? Call NCA at 202-262-4274 and leave a message.
| Date | Time | Things of interest |
| 18 Apr | 8:00pm | M45, Orion, Jupiter |
| 16 May | 9:00pm | M44, Leo, Arcturus, M13, Moon, Jupiter |
| 20 Jun | 9:00pm | Leo, Bootes, Hercules, M13, Moon, Venus, Beehive |
| 18 Jul | 9:00pm | Moon, Hercules, M13, Summer Triangle, Venus |
| 15 Aug | 8:30pm | Moon, Hercules, M13, Summer Triangle, M57, M31, Venus |
| 19 Sep | 8:00pm | Moon, Summer Triangle, Great Square of Pegasus, M31 |
| 17 Oct | 7:30pm | Summer Triangle, Moon, Great Square of Pegasus, M31, Saturn |
| 07 Nov | 7:00pm | Summer Triangle, Pegasus, M31, Saturn, Moon |