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November 19, 2025 SDAA Program Topic: Annual Gadget Night Location: Ballast Point Brewing at Miramar https://ballastpoint.com/location/miramar Gadget Night is Back – Fresh Ideas, Cool Tech, Great Company! ***Seating is limited – stay tuned for sign-up details!*** Join us for SDAA’s Annual Gadget Night on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, from 6–9 PM at Ballast Point Miramar! This […]

Speaker: Rich Kagawa, NASA-JPL Solar System Ambassador Topic: Not Just Mars: NASA’s Search for Life on Europa, Enceladus, and Titan Please plan to join us for an exciting talk that will include: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ambassadors/787

Topic: American Women Astronauts Speaker: Dr. Neil Farber We are excited to welcome back Dr. Neil Farber for our September program! The topic will be: American Women Astronauts This presentation traces the inspiring history of women who aspired to become NASA astronauts. It begins with the “Mercury 13,” highly qualified women pilots who passed the physical

Speaker: Richard Wolff-JacobsonTopic: Historical and Modern Tools for Celestial Wayfinding We’re excited to welcome Richard Wolff-Jacobson for a talk that will explore how we describe, measure, and communicate positions in the night sky. He’ll provide helpful background information and introduce modern tools such as encoders, plate solving techniques, and a closer look at the PiFinder.

Topic: Astrobiology: The Search for Life Speaker: Dr. Neil Farber People have often pondered the question of whether we are alone in the universe. More than seeking intelligent life, a fundamental question is whether life of any form exists on other planets or moons. This talk will examine how NASA is seeking out the possibility

Topic: You can almost touch the stars – An Introduction to Astronomical Spectroscopy Speaker: Tom Field Even if you wanted to touch a star, they’re all impossibly distant. In spite of these great distances, astronomers have learned an enormous amount about stars. How? The most common method to study the stars is called spectroscopy, which

Topic: From Backyard to Mount Wilson: The Evolution of Boyce-Astro Speaker: Pat Boyce Since 2013, Boyce-Astro has grown from a local education project into a global network having engaged over 1,000 students worldwide in real astronomical research. With observatories at TDS, SRO, Las Cumbres, and now Mount Wilson’s 60” and 100”, its scope has expanded

SDAA April Program:  Night Sky Celebration at Mission Trails with DarkSky International WHEN:  Thursday, April 24 at 6:00pm-9:30pm WHERE:  In-person at Mission Trails Regional Park Visitor Center, 1 Father Junipero Serra Trail San Diego, CA 92119 TOPIC: Join us on Thursday, April 24 at the Mission Trails Regional Park (MTRP) Visitor Center for a special

Topic: Robots in the solar system – the next decade of exploration Speaker: Steve Murray While both public and private programs are working hard to send humans to the moon and Mars, the work of exploring the solar system continues to be shouldered by an armada of machines. New probes – with increasingly capable onboard

Topic: Zwicky, Rubin, and Friends – new tools and new questions for time-domain astronomy  Speaker: Steve Murray, SDAA Member and NASA Solar System Ambassador Time Domain astronomy is the study of how astronomical objects change with time, from seconds to decades. Understanding these events is essential to understanding the workings of the Universe. A new field