How do you feel about the universe? Is it scary, you know with how large it is? How far way everything is? Is it intimidating when astronomers talk about time in millions and billions of years? Okay, on the surface it’s intimidating. But there are lots of people out there who have made it their mission, sometimes dedicating years to volunteering, and a few well-paying careers, just to bring the universe down to Earth. Dean Regas chats with Kat Troche, project coordinator for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, to learn more.
Leave us a voicemail by calling (513) 352-9188 and you might hear yourself in a future episode!
Episode Transcript: Looking Up is transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Dean Regas: How do you feel about the universe? Is it scary? You know, with how large it is, how far away everything is. Is it intimidating when astronomers talk about time and millions and billions of years? Okay. On the surface, it's intimidating, definitely. But there are lots of people out there who have made it their mission, sometimes dedicating years to volunteering and a few well-paying careers just to bring the universe down to Earth.
From the studios of Cincinnati Public Radio, I'm your host, Dean Regas, and this is "Looking Up," the show that takes you deep into the cosmos, or just to the telescope in your backyard to learn more about what makes this amazing universe of ours so great. My guest today is Kat Troche, amateur astronomer, informal educator, and project coordinator for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
I was first introduced to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific through a program called Project Astro.
[NASA Night Sky Network, “Growing Your Club”]: Hi, I'm Joan Graham, your guide to "Sharing the Universe," the training videos produced by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
Dean Regas: This was a program that paired up science teachers with professional or amateur astronomers to help with lesson planning, and even being an expert guest speaker to the classroom.
[NASA Night Sky Network, “Growing Your Club”]: Welcome to the first episode in our series on growing your astronomy club, welcoming visitors. In this episode, we share research on how astronomy clubs have successfully recruited new members.
Dean Regas: So I was going into these classrooms as their expert, and most teachers, you know, they have had very little astronomy background. Biology, yes. Chemistry, yes. Physics, yes. But astronomy?
[Brooklyn 99]:Astronomy is kinda interesting.
Dean Regas: So they really needed the help, and it was a lot of fun working with all these teachers, and going multiple times into classrooms to work with students, because it's definitely the most popular subject, at least, you know, from my informal and biased experience.
But let me tell you, teachers are scared to death of astronomy. I mean, I was scared of it, too, when I first started. The way I began was at a planetarium. Giving shows under the dome and in the dark, I learned about identifying stars and constellations, and then progressed to the moon and planets.
Kat Troche: Welcome to the Wolf Planetarium. Sit back and relax as I—
Dean Regas (with Planetarium Sound Design): —dim the lights and we head to the stars.
Dean Regas: So I gotta say, it was definitely intimidating to get started, and my breakthrough came when I could identify objects in the actual sky. So I'd go outside, and for the first time, I could find Orion, I could find Gemini, I could find Leo. And who's that up there? The guy with three stars in a row wearing a snazzy belt? It's Orion. The stars around the Summer Triangle—Vega, Altair, and Deneb—are the three noticeable stars during the summer nights that form a triangle shape, even visible from city skies.
I also started the five-night stargazer challenge. And what you gotta do is view the stars for five nights as close together as possible. If you view from the same location, you'll notice certain stars again and again. Maybe a blue star will be over the neighbor's house each night, and an orange star over by the tree. But by the fifth night, you'll get to know them and even welcome them by name. Hey, blue star over there, fancy seeing you again. So that's my trick. Start small, and on that fifth night, you'll break through the biggest intimidation factor.
Kat Troche: Hi, my name is Kat Troche. I am an informal astronomy educator and an amateur astronomer.
Dean Regas: Well, Kat, thanks so much for joining me today.
Kat Troche: Thank you so much for having me.
Dean Regas: Well, so I wanna look at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Tell me all about it and how it got started.
Kat Troche: Sure. So the Astronomical Society of the Pacific has been around since 1889, and it started around the celebration of a solar eclipse that was happening over California. And some folks got together with some homemade telescopes and decided to sort of host a star party of sorts, where they were observing the sun and making solar sketches. And from there, it became this organization of like-minded individuals that wanted to engage in education, astronomy-based.
Dean Regas: And I, I find its philosophy a lot more kind of like backyard astronomers, everybody can do this kind of thing, a little bit more so than, like, the elites. Am I right on that?
Kat Troche: I would say you're right on that. It's a good place to get started in astronomy, or at least they thought so in 1889, where there was no barrier. If you wanted to learn astronomy, you could come to them. Anyone who is interested, you know, you're an astronomer. If you have a passing interest, if you have a deep interest, you're an astronomer. You can learn astronomy, and you can do it with us.
Dean Regas: And so, you've been with them for a little while. What's your focus within the ASP?
Kat Troche: So I've been with them for about three years now, and I am the current administrator for NASA's Night Sky Network program, and that is a program that connects about 400 astronomy clubs across the United States to science, to articles, to materials for outreach, and we make sure that these clubs are able to connect with their audiences using the tools that we offer them.
Dean Regas: How many clubs about are in the Night Sky Network now?
Kat Troche: Ooh, it's about 407 now.
Dean Regas: Whoa, from like every state?
Kat Troche: Just about. We have clubs as far south as Puerto Rico and up to Washington state. There are only three states that we are missing in our network, and it happens to be the Dakotas and Mississippi.
Dean Regas: Hmm. We gotta work on that. All right, listeners out there—
Kat Troche: Mm-hmm.
Dean Regas: —you got a project. Join the Night Sky Network. So yeah, what's your, your kinda best way that the ASP is reaching people around the country?
Kat Troche: Ooh, so I would say in addition to Night Sky Network, which is a program that ASP operates, one of our past works was with the Eclipse Ambassadors program, and that was connecting amateur astronomers or astronomy enthusiasts with undergrad students and teaching them eclipse science and how to talk to their audiences about the annular and the total solar eclipse from 2023 and 2024. And we would send them out into their communities with materials and all sorts of things that they can use indoor or outdoor so that they can disseminate that down to their audiences.
But as of now, for 2026, I would say one of the better ways would be our Learn at ASP platform, and that is a series of either workshops or classes that you can take with us. Some of them are low cost, some of them are free, and one of the recent ones we had was with a Unistellar workshop on how to use your Unistellar telescope and not just take the pretty pictures, which, I mean, we all love to do if you have one of those, but how to learn how to do citizen science and to contribute to citizen science research.
Another thing that we have had is our Confidence and Curiosity series, which lives on the Learn at ASP platform, where it teaches folks how to talk to women and girls at the telescope because, you know, girls, especially around the age of 12, they kinda fall off the science track, and it's how to boost that confidence and boost that curiosity if you're out there doing astronomy outreach.
Dean Regas: Yeah, that's a really important part. What, what are some of the suggestions you have for folks on that topic?
Kat Troche: One of the ways that we try to encourage that confidence is we talk about misconceptions. Like, "Oh, I didn't know that you knew science." You know, like, never assume what a person knows or doesn't know, how to make sure that we are avoiding biases and, you know, micro-messaging, saying like, "Oh, you know, you're really good at, at operating that telescope, or you're really good at operating this PowerPoint." You know, again, never making assumptions, you know, that, that you're kind of conveying confidence with that message instead of saying, "Oh, I didn't know you could do that."
Dean Regas: Well, at the recent American Astronomical Society meeting, you had a great idea organizing a star party where you and a bunch of people set up telescopes in a public space for the attendees and the public to view. What are these sidewalk astronomy events like for you as an educator?
Kat Troche: So as an astronomy educator in New York City specifically, it can get kind of challenging to set up star parties or just have sidewalk astronomy because of the light pollution. But I find that setting up telescopes on sidewalks, whether it is a planned event or a pop-up event, can be extremely rewarding for the people that you engage with, just because it's something delightful. It's something that nobody expects. And doing that for 16 years now in New York City has been incredibly challenging but rewarding.
And one of the key takeaways, I would say, for doing, you know, sidewalk astronomy in general is to make sure that you have a little something for everyone. So if you're outside and you're setting up a telescope, if you're by yourself, have, you know, one or two things you're going to focus on, have your talking points about what you want to convey to those folks. Make sure that you have something that almost grabs their attention. So, for example, if I'm doing solar observing, which is what we were doing at the AAS meeting in Phoenix, if I'm out here, you know, on the streets of Queens, what I would say to folks is, "Hey, do you wanna see some explosions on the sun?" And that'll get their attention right away. The Sidewalk Astronomy event from the AAS meeting was definitely a team effort, but it was a lot of fun until the clouds rolled in, of course.
Dean Regas: Always the clouds. And yeah, I just, I, I keep forgetting how fun Sidewalk Astronomy is 'cause you never know who's gonna come around the corner. You never know what people are gonna react, how they're gonna react to telescopes. And by and large, they are outstanding, uh, interactions.
Kat Troche: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I would say for every 20 people, I maybe have 1 person that says no thank you to looking through a telescope. There are always folks that will, at the very least, you know, look at what you're doing, and then you can kind of get them to come over and look through the telescope. Like, they'll be curious initially, and they don't wanna approach you, but then you tell them, "Hey, you, do you wanna come over and take a look at, you know, the rings of Saturn," for example. That's always a crowd favorite.
Dean Regas: Well, so there you are in the heart of New York City, working for an organization in San Francisco on the other side of the country in the Pacific. How'd you get into this field?
Kat Troche: Uh, so amateur astronomy happened by accident. It was a star party in Central Park, and that was with the Amateur Astronomers Association. I happened to just be relaxing in Central Park, as one does, and saw folks wheeling in these massive telescopes. At the time, I didn't realize what they were doing, but they were wheeling in these massive Dobsonian telescopes, and they were setting up for a star party that evening. And I was invited to stick around and hang out with them, and the first thing that I had ever seen was, through a pair of binoculars, the Pleiades. And that was—the bug bit, and that was that. I never looked back. And that was in 2010.
Fast-forward a few years, I became a NASA Solar System Ambassador, so a volunteer ambassador for NASA to do some of the outreach I was already doing around New York City. And in 2023 is when I was approached by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific to help them with their Eclipse Ambassador program, and then to subsequently help with NASA's Night Sky Network.
Dean Regas: Well, and so what advice would you give to someone who's just getting started, or somebody who's interested in astronomy? Other than if you see a telescope in, in the park, go look at it.
Kat Troche: If you're on the academic track, you know, make sure that you are connecting with your advisors. Make sure that you have a good group of folks behind you taking as many physics and math classes as you can. But if you are a non-traditional student like I am, it's never too late to start. I got my start in my very late 20s, almost my 30s, and I have enjoyed every moment of it, even though it has been... You know, sometimes it has been challenging, but it's been incredible. So if it's something that you're passionate about, pursue it. There's no one way to do it. So you can do it with schoolwork, you can do it the traditional route, you can go the non-traditional route. Find a way that works for you and just stick with it.
Dean Regas: Well, this has been awesome, Kat. Thanks so much for chatting today.
Kat Troche: Thank you so much for having me, Dean, and it's great seeing you again.
Dean Regas: Great seeing you, too, on the East Coast, West Coast, doesn't matter. You are everywhere.
Kat Troche: I am very proud to say, have scope, will travel.
Dean Regas: Okay, so you did my patented five-night stargazer challenge where you went outside and watched the stars for five nights in rapid succession. What's next? My vote is to get social with it. Join your local amateur astronomy group. Wherever you are, there's at least one not too far away. Like in southwest Ohio where I live, there's like half a dozen to choose from.
Some of these clubs focus on outreach and education to the public and community. Others get into the latest gear and can help with equipment, including astrophotography. Either way, they have cool stuff, and they'll let you borrow it or at least use it. One thing I've learned is that amateur astronomers are passionate and love sharing their expertise.
One of the coolest things astronomy clubs often do is to hold star parties where members can show off all their fancy telescopes to the public. I mean, some of these setups that amateur astronomers have are better than some professionals', and they can cost so much as to even endanger their family's finances. It's even more important for you to give these folks attention. I mean, they're risking their marriages to invest a fortune in telescopes. Your interest, attention, and oohs and aahs make it all worthwhile to them. Trust me. And best of all, you don't have to buy anything. You don't have to jeopardize your finances. They already did it, and they want you to look through it and explore the entire vast universe.
Looking up with Dean Regas is a production of Cincinnati Public Radio. Kevin Reynolds and I created the podcast in 2017. Ella Rowen and Carlos Lopez Cornu produce and edit our show and still have not approved my purchase of a massive Obsession telescope. Yeah, that's the brand name, Obsession. I'm gonna get it.
Jenell Walton is our Vice President of Content, and Ronny Salerno is our digital platforms manager. Our theme song is, “Possible Light” by Ziv Moran. Our social media coordinator is Hannah McFarland, and our cover art is by Nicole Tiffany. I'm Dean Regas, keep looking up!
Additional credits: Sound effects this episode courtesy of Freesound.org users klankbeeld, hatsuka and israel-gallo-5. Undersea Garden by Podington Bear is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. Pink Gradient by Podington Bear is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
