The Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park hosts Open Houses at the UMD Observatory on the 5th and the 20th of every month. On Open House evenings a guest speaker will give approximately a half hour talk about a topic in astronomy. The talk is followed by viewing of celestial objects through the observatory's telescopes, weather permitting. If weather does not permit viewing, the talk will still go on as scheduled.

Upcoming Speakers

(download a copy of the Fall 2017 Speaker schedule)

  • Tue, September 5, 9:00 pm
    Dr Tess Jaffe on "Studying the Shape of the Universe"
    MC: Corbin Taylor

  • Wed, September 20, 9:00 pm
    Dr. Cole Miller on "Black Holes, Black Holes Everywhere!"
    MC: Ginny Cunningham

  • Thu, October 5, 9:00 pm
    Dr. Nathaniel Roth on "Disrupted! A Tale of Super-massive Black Holes and the Stars that Get Too Close to Them"
    MC: Robyn Smith

  • Fri, October 20, 9:00 pm
    Dr. Aparna Bhattacharya on "Discovering exoplanets at the Center of the Galaxy"
    MC: Pradip Gatkine

  • Sun, November 5, 8:00 pm
    Dr. Li-Jen Chen on "Magnetic explosions at our home planet and accreting black holes"
    MC: Ramsey Karim

  • Mon, November 20, 8:00 pm
    Dr. Derek Richardson on "Deflecting Asteroids"
    MC: Amy Steele

  • Tue, December 5, 8:00 pm
    (Dr. M Hayes-Gehrke & various students) on "ASTR 310 Student Research"
    MC: Julian Marohnic

  • Wed, December 20, 8:00 pm
    Dr. Drake Deming on "TESS: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite"
    MC: Yvette Thackeray