What’s Up in the Night Sky? March 2018
It’s going to be an exciting month for planets and we have 2 full moons again, just like January. They occur on March 1st and 31st. Since the months of the year don’t quite match the lunar cycles, 2 full moons in one month can be the result, and the… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? - February 2018
I must apologize for not providing a column for the last 2 months. Some family matters needed to be addressed. But, I’m back. If this column arrives at your mailbox before January 31st, be aware that a second Full Moon for January will occur on that date. It’s called a… READ MORE
August 2017
The big news this month is that a partial eclipse of the Sun will occur in our area on August 21 starting about 1 pm. Our American friends can view the Total Eclipse along a path that curves across the middle of the United States. If you are ambitious enough… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky - July 2017
This month you will notice that there is a picture of a star field included with the column. It encompasses the summer triangle in its entirety. The circled star at the far left is Deneb at the tail of the Swan constellation Cygnus. The star circled at middle top is… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky - June 2017
I had a fellow email me last month asking if a modest size drawing or picture of the night sky for the month of the column could be included to help find the constellations and objects I point out in the column. I’ll see what I can do. The column… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky – May 2017
Where oh where are Spirit and Opportunity? These 2 Mars rovers landed successfully on Mars in 2004. In 2009, poor Spirit rover succumbed when one of its 6 wheels went lame. It could travel and move at a much-reduced rate by going backwards but soon it got stuck, and in… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky - March 2017
Did you know that the Earth is not a perfect sphere? There’s a special area of study in mathematics that involves measurements of Earth. It is called ‘geodesty’. It got its start in the 17th century when improvements in the field of astronomy made astronomical measurements more accurate. A need… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? - February 2017
What’s up there indeed? In this column, I’m going to talk about, um… nothing. Did that catch your attention? There are vast spaces between the stars and galaxies that appear to be completely empty, seemingly filled with nothing! Even our Solar system looks to be mostly empty space out past… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky – January 2017
I hope the New Year finds you all raring to get out there and find all the adventures and challenges that our beautiful skies have to offer! Of course, the minus temperatures demand dressing carefully to keep warm but the crisp, clear vista overhead that comes with the below zero… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky - The Star of Bethlehem
To track down the celestial event that occurred 2000 years ago that might be interpreted as the Star of Bethlehem, we must have a reasonably accurate idea of when Jesus Christ was born. Theological historians place the birth of Jesus in September or October in 3 or 2 BC. They… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky - December 2016
I remember a Christmas Day some 15 years ago when a ¾ partial eclipse of the Sun occurred at midday. It was a cool, clear day and I was out there with my tripod and camera (a primitive DSLR) taking time lapse photos of the event while family and friends… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? February 2016
Is there a Planet X out there? Gravitational irregularities are shaping the orbits of some very distant Kuiper belt objects far out in the outer Solar System. Researchers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown at Caltech hypothesize that a very large planet some 5000 times the mass of Pluto, gravitationally dominates… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? May 2016
May is Mars month! Every 780 Earth days (2.14 years) Mars has its closest approach to Earth when it is in opposition, which occurs when it is in a line between the Earth and the Sun. Mars has the second greatest eccentricity after Mercury. Eccentricity is a measure of how… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? June 2016
Yahoo! I had a wonderful time getting a video of Mercury transiting the Sun last month. I have to say it was quite a challenge setting everything up to record the event. I can’t say that I’ll qualify for an Oscar with my not very exciting video of a tiny… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? September 2016
One of the biggest announcements in astronomy recently was the discovery of a planet orbiting the star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. First, let’s look at a bit of introductory information. Proxima Centauri is part of a trinary star system called Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? October 2016
This month we have one of the better annual meteor showers, the Orionids. The earliest meteors from this shower will start arriving in a sky near you about October 2 and continue to flash across the sky until about November 7. The shower is predicted to peak on October 21… READ MORE