Saturday, January 11, 2025
Presenter: Jeromino Vasquez

Title: “Mayan Planetary Science: Implications of the 819 Day Calendar”

Jeromino is the owner of the Mayan Winds coffee house on Fourth Street and is currently on the Coconino County Board of Supervisors, District 2. His background is in education having worked in the Flagstaff district for 14 years. He has his Bachelor's degree in Botany and his Masters in Social Cultural Anthropology from NAU.

Over 2000 years ago, ancestral Mayans observed celestial intricacies unknown to modern astronomers. They deciphered an 819-day planetary cycle using their base-20 math system, integrating it into their cultural knowledge. Join Jeromino as he shares details and stories January meetingabout this fascinating history.

Saturday, February 15, 2025
Presenter: Ken Herkenhoff, USGS

Title: “NASA's Mars Rovers: A Brief History”

Of the 21 lander missions on Mars, the Curiosity rover and Perseverance rover are currently in operation on Mars. Ken will be discussing the history of the various Mars missions and what has been discovered.

Bio: Ken Herkenhoff worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for 9 years before moving to the U. S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in 1998, where he worked for 25 years as a research geologist. Ken is a Co-Investigator on the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission and on the Mars Science Laboratory Mastcam/MAHLI/MARDI and ChemCam science teams. MSL landed on August 5, 2012 and continues to explore Gale crater on Mars. Finally, he is a Co-Investigator on the Mars 2020 Mastcam-Z science team and is enjoying his involvement in another successful rover mission!

Saturday, March 15, 2025
Presenter: Dr. Danielle Adams - Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition

Title: “25 Years of Advocacy for Flagstaff's Dark Skies”

Description: In this 25th anniversary year of FDSC, Danielle will explore the legacy and impact of dark skies in Flagstaff, going back to 1892, when it was called "Skylight City", and the ongoing work today of the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition to nurture and celebrate our dark-sky ethos as a model for other communities to replicate. Danielle will also give CAS a preview of FDSC's plans for Flagstaff's International Dark Sky Week Celebration, April 19–27

Bio: Dr. Danielle Adams is a cultural astronomer and dark sky advocate who studies indigenous Arabian astronomy through pre-Islamic poetry and Arabic historical literature. She is active in informal astronomy education, speaking to various groups about Arabian cultural astronomy and the heritage of the many Arabic star names that astronomers still use today. Danielle serves as the interim executive director for the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition and uses the inspiration of pristine desert skies to advocate for the modern-day preservation of dark skies.

Saturday, April 12, 2025
Presenter: Kevin Shindler – Lowell Historian

Title: “TBD”

Lowell History

Saturday, May 10, 2025
Presenter: Lisa Prato – Lowell Observatory

Title: “Herbig-Haro Objects: The Smoking Guns of Early Star Formation”

Description: “As protostars coalesce in the cold dark cores of molecular clouds, they spin up to rapid rotation rates while the remnant material from star formation collapses into dusty gaseous circumstellar disks. The interactions between disks and strong young stars magnetic fields spawn energetic gas jets and outflows that subsequently slam into the interstellar medium, exciting the cloud material. Thus observations of these shocked regions, the Herbig-Haro objects, are superb tracers of early star formation. I will describe recent advances by my team in identifying, cataloging, and understanding these objects in the nearby star forming regions."

Bio: "Lisa Prato grew up in the Boston area and attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she completed undergraduate degrees in Astronomy and in English and discovered the world of scientific research. After another year at UMass as a non-degree graduate student, Prato moved to Colombia, South America, and worked for 3 years as a professor in the Department of Physics at the Universidad Industrial de Santander in the city of Bucaramanga, teaching classes in astronomy and astrophysics and working toward a masters degree in Physics. Prato returned to the US to complete a PhD in Astronomy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, followed by two postdoctoral positions at UCLA, one with the Nobel Laureate Dr. Andrea Ghez and one with Dr. Ian McLean. Prato is a Tenured Astronomer on the science faculty at Lowell Observatory and an Adjunct Professor at Northern Arizona University; she works with postdocs, undergraduates, interns, and gradate students on young binary stars and planet formation.”

Saturday, June 7, 2025, 3:00-7:00PM Presenter: TBD

Title: “TBD”

Saturday, July 12, 2025
Presenter: TBD

Title: “TBD”

Saturday, August 9, 2025
Presenter: TBD

Title: “TBD”

Saturday, September 6, 2025
Presenter: TBD

Title: “TBD”

Saturday, October 4, 2025
Presenter: TBD

Title: “TBD”

Saturday, November 8, 2025
Presenters: TBD

Title: “CAS Member Activity Presentations”

Saturday, December 6, 2025

CAS Holiday Party

Location: The Peaks Flagstaff
Time: From 2:00-6:00PM

Further details on getting to the location are being sent in an email to all club members.