It’s March here in Houston, which means spring is right around the corner.  As we start to leave winter behind, the weather starts to get warmer and our evenings will start to become much more pleasant for observing.  The winter months are always difficult for me to observe in, so it was nice to take my telescope out recently for the first time in a while.

In February, we had our first Urban Observing/members-only star party in quite some time.  I want to thank all the members, new and long timers alike, who made it out to the Eastern Glades at Memorial Park to observe with us.  Yes, the moon was nearly full, but many of us had our telescopes trained on our nearest celestial neighbor, as well as other deep sky objects - like M42 (the Great Orion Nebula), NGC 457 (the Owl Cluster), and more.  But even better than that was the chance to interact with our members, many of whom I had never met in person before.  We all had a great time talking about astronomy, telescopes, and other things before calling it a night shortly before 10 PM.  I’ll look for opportunities to put more of these events on our calendar throughout the year, as it’s a great way to get out and observe without having to drive all the way to the dark site.

Lastly, I wanted to give an update on our website migration.  We’re still in the process of moving our membership data over to the new platform and configuring our policies and rules there.  It has certainly taken a little longer than we anticipated, which is why we opted to open up renewals to all members using the old system.  For those of you who have already renewed, thank you for your continued support of the Houston Astronomical Society in 2022.  If you haven’t had a chance to renew your membership yet, please do so at your earliest convenience.  We’re aiming to have most of our renewals processed in the next few weeks before we change our dark site gate code.  Renewing your membership now ensures you don’t lose access to the dark site or to any of the great amenities your club has to offer.