Luna Gregoria is an amateur astronomer and observatory host in North Carolina. She started observing at 16 with a hand-me-down Bushnell Voyager 4.5x100 reflector. At 17, she joined the GTCC Stellar Society as vice president and began volunteering at GTCC’s Cline Observatory. In 2017, she took an observational astronomy class to formally learn amateur astronomy and to become certified to operate the 24” CDK, becoming an assistant host. During the first days of the class, she went on an expedition to Newberry, SC, where she viewed a life-changing total solar eclipse. She volunteers every clear Friday night that the Observatory is open and usually shows guests the wonders of the night sky using 8” dobsonian telescopes. In 2019, she became a certified observatory host, leading observing sessions in the dome.
Luna has used over a dozen telescopes, ranging from catadioptrics on Go-To mounts to cheap tabletop telescopes to beefy dobsonian reflectors up to the 24” observatory telescope. Her primary personal observing instrument is an Apertura DT6 f/8 6” Dobsonian taken out a short drive to a nearby field.
Gregoria regularly keeps observing logs and is an advocate of visual astronomy and journaling observations. She’s very interested in bringing astronomy to the general public, both through hosting observing sessions as well as star parties and sidewalk astronomy. You’ll occasionally see her staring up when exiting buildings at night, excitedly pointing at the Moon, or saying to whoever will listen, “Hey, y’all, you see that bright star up there? That’s not a star at all; it’s the planet Jupiter!”