Business Meeting
Membership meeting at Butterworth Center, 7 p.m.
Title: Citizen Science DIY, Presentation by Jericho Kuehl.
Smart telescopes have revolutionized both astrophotography and the impact of amateur astronomers. This presentation on citizen science will inform people on using a smart telescope to observe chaotic stars, distant planets, and mysterious asteroids, showing how all ages can make exciting worldwide scientific contributions from their own backyard.
Biography:
Jericho Kuehl is a high school senior, science communicator, and member/contributing writer at the Milwaukee Astronomical Society. He is passionate about astronomy and writing about the heavens above, and he is pursuing it as a future career. His Unistellar eVscope2 smart telescope is perfect for imaging and collecting valuable data for citizen science. Some of his 200 citizen science contributions include observing variable stars, exoplanet transits, asteroid occultations, and near-Earth asteroids or comets. His research includes multiple observations of recurrent nova, T Corona Borealis, tracking of main-belt asteroids as part of 3D modeling endeavors, taking video of near-earth asteroids, and gathering light-curve data on more than 30 exoplanet transits to date. In one exoplanet study, he obtained light curves of a NASA exoplanet candidate that had only been observed twice. No usable eVscope2 data had been collected on the star until Jericho’s October 26, 2024, observation. His data narrowed down the potential orbital period and kickstarted a possible detection seen from Japan. Such collaborative global observations help determine the sizes of exoplanets and their orbital periods.
He has written about his research efforts in the MAS newsletter, Focal Point, and gives talks to conventions and societies on the citizen science options available to electronic telescope users. During frequent MAS Open Houses, some attended by up to 200 people, he teaches the public about the telescopes, their data collection and imaging capabilities, and the objects being observed. Jericho serves as a volunteer at the Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium where he helps coordinate activities for families after the planetarium shows, prepares for larger scale events like the week-long Wisconsin Science Festival, and captions subtitles for planetarium programs. He does publicity outreach for the MAS during the planetarium’s annual fall festival. He also engages in public outreach as part of his work at the Alice Baker Memorial Library where he tested out and made recommendations for improvement of the library’s in-house Celestron telescope. Jericho's public outreach efforts earned him the Astronomical League's 2025 Horkheimer/ D’Auria Youth Service Award. When he's not stargazing, Jericho enjoys reading, volunteering at his church, and working at a local library.