Welcome to the 2017 Telescope Gift Guide! This article is an updated version of one we published last year as a collaboration between Jon Groubert with his Light Polluted Astronomy blog and Sorin (aka the Soggy Astronomer). Jon has been an active contributor answering reader questions for quite a while here on …
A video of my experience on eclipse day. All footage was shot on August 21, 2017 in Casper, Wyoming. If you would like to learn more about how I photographed the eclipse, see the earlier blog post, Photographing the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. Select photos are available as free wallpapers …
Did you know we are less than 6 months away from what could be one of the most amazing events of your life? The August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse will cut across the continental US from Oregon to South Carolina. Even people outside of totality can see a partial …
Today marks the 11 year anniversary of the New Horizons launch. It was in July 2015 that the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto, giving us our first close look at a surprisingly diverse world. But did you know that one of the telescopes onboard New Horizons isn’t that different from …
If you haven’t been following the news about the 30-meter telescope being constructed on Mauna Kea, then you may not be aware of the protests from native Hawaiians who are concerned about the development of a spiritually sacred site. The most recent bit of news here concerns a DLNR rule that …
Planetary conjunctions are a pretty cool sight, and easy to photograph, often without a telescope.
The International Space Station is an inspiring sight. If you’ve never spotted it cruising across the night sky, have a look at 3 Easy Tools for Spotting the ISS to find out when it will be visible passing overhead. (If you live in the UK, follow @VirtualAstro on Twitter for …
I’ve been attending comic and sci-fi conventions for a few years, actually since before I got deep into astronomy. It occurred to me last year (2013) at ECCC that there would be a large overlap of the convention attendees that would be interested in Astronomy. NASA actually had a large …
There seem to be a lot of asteroids in the news this week, counting the 3 close flybys of Earth, and the breakup observed by Hubble. I thought some of you might find it interesting that there are three asteroids you can have a look at in a small telescope …
I was fortunate to have a clear morning on Nov 20th to setup the telescope a few blocks away from my apartment at Observatory Park in Denver, CO. Despite the light dome from the city and the still nearly full moon, I managed to capture some decent images of both C/2012 S1 …