ALCON 2026 is coming to Cincinnati August 12th to 15th 2026. The Conference which is held every year by The Astronomical League (Astroleague.org) is being hosted this year by the Cincinnati Astronomical Society (Cinastro.org). The conference will be held at the Cincinnati marriott at Rivercenter right across the river from downtown Cincinnati in Covington Kentucky.

The conference, which has an open registration to members and non-members of The Astronomical League, will feature nationally known and regional presenters, happy hours, tours, the annual StarBQ which is being held at The Cincinnati Museum Center, and a keynote banquet featuring Dr Rebeccas Williams; Planetary Geologist and Deputy Principal Investigator Mars Curiosity Mastcam and MARDI cameras who is also a Senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. She will present on Snapshots of Mars’ Watery Past from NASA’s Rovers.

We will also have two featured speakers Friday night; Pranvera Hyseni, PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz, Celestron ambassador and founder of Astronomy Outreach Kosovo. She will be speaking about water and organics on asteroids. Our late Friday presenter is Dr Shane Larson, professor of Physics at Clarkson University and the Director of Integrated Engineering and Applied Science Projects. Dr Larson will speak about The Women of the Harvard Computers and the Birth of Modern Astronomy.

Our general sessions throughout will educate and entertain, and we have developed a bit of a citizen science them across our programs.

This year we will offer something different; an ALCON afterparty. While technically not part of ALCON, we will be hosting an afterparty at The Moeller Observatory, a new reasearch-class facility about 90 minutes East of Cincinnati. This new observatory recently has entered into a partnership with the Cincinnati Astronomical Society allowing amateur access to this fine facility. The afterparty will be of no additional cost to ALCOn attendees and is sponsored by Dieter and Susan Moeller.

Join us for ALCON 2026 Cincinnati at ALCON2026.org