Welcome to the Home of the Werner Schmidt Observatory

News & Announcements

January meeting/lecture: The January meeting/lecture will take place on Thursday, 9 at Dennis-Yarmouth High School at 7:300PM.  The lecture will be linked via Zoom.  There will be a dinner at the Hearth and Kettle restaurant at 5:45 PM.  Directions are below. The Zoom link will be circulated by email to the CCAS mailing list.

The evenings lecture will be presented by Professor Stacy McGaugh of Case Western University. His topic will be “Does Dark Matter Make the Galaxies Go ‘Round?”.  Dr McGaugh studied at MIT (S.B. Physics 1985), Princeton, and the University of Michigan (Ph.D. Astronomy 1992) with a postdoc at the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge.

Jim Lynch, President CCAS

January STAR PARTY WEEK: The monthly STAR PARTY  will be held at the Werner Schmidt Observatory (WSO) on the first clear night of the January 27-February 1 week. Time: 6:00PM-9:30PM for senior observatory staff, 6:30PM-9:30PM for Society members and the public. Notice of the specific night will be made by an update of this page and by email.

CCAS Typical Monthly Schedule (Please check website for changes, times and locations)

First of the month:  CCAS monthly newsletter sent via email and published on the website

First Thursday: Meeting/Lecture

Third Wednesday: CCAS Officers and Committees Meeting; CCAF Board Meeting

Weeks of the new moon: Star Party Window

Periodically CCAS also hosts workdays at the Werner Schmidt Observatory to maintain the Observatory or to assist members with telescope operation.  Details will be announced.

Observatory Address:

Werner Schmidt Observatory
210 Station Ave
Dennis-Yarmouth High School
South Yarmouth, MA 02664

Directions to Dennis Yarmouth HS and Werner Schmidt Observatory

For information on the location of our Dome behind Dennis-Yarmouth High School, click on the purple button “Old Website” and once there, click on “Meeting Location;” viewing the two maps that are there: external for the Dome, and internal to locate the high school library where meetings are held. NOTE: We are redoing the website, so that this information may become dated soon. We intend to move any currently useful information to our new website.

For meetings, drive in the south entrance road and go around behind the main building. Park in the lot about halfway down the building and go in the back door and turn down the hall to your left to find the library.

For Star Parties at the Dome, drive in the north entrance road all the way past the north side of the main high school building, through a gate, and on to park near our Dome.

H & K Directions

CCAS hosts a dinner gathering for the speaker (if available), members and friends on meeting nights (just before the meeting) at the South Yarmouth Hearth & Kettle restaurant at 5:45 pm. (The meetings begin at 7:30 at D-Y.) Please join the group to dine and talk about all things interesting, especially astronomy, before our meeting.

The H & K is at 1196 Rt 28, South Yarmouth, about a half mile west of the Station Avenue/Main Street intersection with Rt 28 (stop light). NOTE: Since Covid, we have a mix of fully remote and hybrid in-person + remote meetings. Check the newsletter and/or website to see what the format is each month! There are no dinners when the meeting is fully remote.