Monthly Meetings

Join us for Skyscrapers’ November Monthly Meeting at Seagrave Memorial Observatory Featuring Rafael Martínez-Galarza

Saturday, November 7, 2026
Social hour at 6:30pm, Presentation at 7:00pm

AI for Astronomy: Exotic Black Holes, Galaxy Evolution, and the Role of the Humans

In this talk Rafael will share the experience of how at AstroAI we are using modern methods of artificial intelligence for advancing profound questions in astrophysics, from the discovery of exotic compact objects in the Universe, such as neutron stars and stellar mass black holes and their imprints in the X-ray Universe, to the characterization of galaxies that are potential hosts to gravitational wave events. He will show how machine learning has opened new avenues of research, showcase interesting discoveries in the high energy universe, the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, and the morphology of the most anomalous galaxies. He will also discuss the opportunities challenges that agentic AI has created for astronomers and scientists in general, and his view of how to successfully safeguard the human experience of discovery.

Rafael Martínez-Galarza is the deputy director of AstroAI at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, where he leads a research group on multimodal representation learning, and applications in astrophysics. This includes generative models for modeling astronomical data distributions, Large Language Models in astro, contrastive learning, and simulation-based inference for high energy astrophysics. In the past, he has worked as a scientist for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, where he was involved in the curation and scientific exploitation of large X-ray data repositories. As a former member of NASA’s JWST Mid-Infrared Instrument Consortium, he is also interested in infrared astronomy, in particular in observational investigations of starburst regions/galaxies. Outside of work, he enjoys sailing, biking, traveling, and reading about history. He also writes about science in his personal blog.

The festivities will begin on Friday night for those in the area; 
registration for AstroAssembly is not necessary to attend.

Friday, October 2nd

Seagrave Memorial Observatory
47 Peeptoad Road, North Scituate, RI

6:00 PM    Socializing & Refreshments
7:00 PM    Short Talks
8:30 PM   Observing, weather permitting

Presentations

John Kocur – “Ten Carbon Stars for Observation”

Tony Costanzo – “Astronomy and Music”

Jay Baccala – “Remote Telescope Operation Service”

Join us for Skyscrapers’ September Monthly Meeting at
Seagrave Memorial Observatory
47 Peeptoad Road
North Scituate, RI 02857

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Featuring Dr. Savvas Koushiappas, Brown University

Social hour at 6:30pm, Presentation at 7:00pm

One Law for the Apple and the Moon

Two thousand years of separate heavens and Earth were undone by a single number. In this talk I will tell the story of universal gravitation, the audacious idea that united sky and ground — a single calculation that proved the fall of an apple and the orbit of the Moon are the same thing at different distances. I will discuss how one small equation went on to predict a comet’s return, discover Neptune with a pencil, weigh the Sun, and guide telescopes and spacecraft today. The effects of this universal law are visible every time you are at the eyepiece, with double stars, planets, comets, star clusters, galaxies and hidden mass — all running on one simple idea.

Savvas Koushiappas is a professor of physics at Brown University, where he studies astroparticle physics and cosmology. He has been an amateur astronomer for forty years, and he enjoys stepping back from the research frontier to share the stories behind the science and, when given the chance, to point a telescope at the objects those stories are about.

Join us for Skyscrapers’ August Monthly Meeting at Seagrave Memorial Observatory
Saturday, August 1, 2026

Featuring Dr. Vijay Varma, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Social hour at 6:30pm, Presentation at 7:00pm

Two black holes smash into each other, shaking space and time itself. We caught the very first gravitational waves emanating from these violent collisions back in 2015, leading to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017. Ten years after this groundbreaking discovery, we will explore what new mysteries this new window to the universe might unveil.

Vijay Varma is a computational astrophysicist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He uses supercomputers and machine learning models to study black hole collisions.

Skyscrapers, Inc. is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: August Monthly Meeting
Time: Aug 1, 2026 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85163836601?pwd=grKlU2RGbQiyY5fVyMr9QZZvaTbnGV.1

Meeting ID: 851 6383 6601
Passcode: 621382

Join instructions
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Date: Saturday, August 1, 2026

Location: Seagrave Memorial Observatory
47 Peeptoad Road
North Scituate, RI 02857

Saturday, July 11, 2026

Featuring Member Presentations

Social hour at 6:00 pm, Presentation at 7:00 pm

Lots of activities for a summer night of fun at Seagrave Memorial Observatory:

Member’s presentations, Observing with fellow members | Pizza provided by Skyscrapers before!

RSVP to Kathy Siok (kathys5@cox.net) if you plan to attend the Pizza Party.
Desserts to share would be appreciated.

Member Presentations: 7:00pm

A Historic Series of Titan Shadow Transits in 2025
Presented by member Greg Shanos

Greg is a retired pharmacist by profession and NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador by passion. A Rhode Island nativ, Greg became a member of Skyscrapers in 1986 with the apparition of Halley’s Comet. He married in 1990 and relocated to Sarasota, Florida. During the COVID shutdown of 2020 Greg once again became a member of Skyscrapers once the lectures were being live-streamed via zoom from Seagrave Observatory.

A recent trip to the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona
Presented by member Sean Salstrom

Sean is an Associate Professor of Glass at RISD. He has a background in glassblowing and art making. He is new to Astronomy, coming into it through the material of glass and learning to grind his own mirrors. To date he has completed a 6″ f/8 and a 12.5″ f/5 (Newtonian Reflectors) and am almost finished with a 10″ f3.7 Cassegrain. You can find more on my Faculty Bio at RISD if that is useful.

Sean will discuss his recent trip to the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona where they are casting the largest pieces of glass ever made for the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Refurbishment of an 8-inch Dobsonian Telescope
Presented by John Kocur

John Kocur, Skyscrapers member since 2005, amerteur astronomer with intrests in art, science, astronomy, photography, and astrophotography. Designed and built an 8-inch Newtonian, builds telescope accessories. Enjoys participating in outreach events for Skyscrapers and attending major star parties in New England.

John will present about the refurbishment of a donated 8-inch Apertura Dobsonian telescope that was donated to Skyscrapers recently. He will explain the cleaning, collimation, and upgrades he made to the scope.

57 Years of Skyscraper Memories
Presented by long time Skyscraper member Rick Lynch

Rick is one of our longest serving members and will be presenting a retrospective of his over 50 years of membership with many images of all our old-timers and famous visitors we have had at Skyscrapers over this time period.

Join on Zoom

Skyscrapers, Inc. is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: July Monthly Meeting
Time: Jul 11, 2026 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83782123826?pwd=goMjXfKQYV81DMqJwkbu8OySVdk3yb.1

Meeting ID: 837 8212 3826
Passcode: 914557

Join instructions
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