Browsing all posts in Observing.

A week to look up: LCROSS Impact and White House Star Party

As a 1 year long event, IYA2009 has worked hard to provide a steady stream of events. That said, some weeks are more interesting than others, and this week is shaping up to be one of those more interesting weeks. On October 7, Mr and Mrs Obama will host a star party at the US [...]

Galileoscope: A dream of 1 Telescope Per Child

I know a set of men who had a dream. They wanted to see every child in the world have access to a high-quality low-cost telescope. They wanted something that would show the rings of Saturn, survive a tumble down the stairs, and just keep revealing the sky night after night after night. This is [...]

Astronomy & Fire: Mt Wilson Observatory & JPL under threat

This has not been a good August for the hearts of observational astronomers around the globe. A few weeks ago, smoke filled the Canary Islands as fires swept toward – but not quite to – Roque de Los Muchacho, home of the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope . Now, the Station Fire is threatening both the [...]

Eclipse of the Century Part 3 of 3: My First Total Eclipse

I have had several near misses with the Sun. In 1984, I lived beneath an annular eclipse that occurred above rather thick and nasty rain clouds. In 1994 I viewed a partial eclipse from the upper peninsula of Michigan. Total eclipses, however, have always avoided my path. This year I decided to purposely put myself [...]

Astronomy Twitter Users?

So, I’m trying really hard to put together a list of twitter users who talk about astronomy on a regular basis. I’m doing this as part of a general report on New Media for the Decadal Survey. This is a list of everyone from folks who promote their local club, to people who actively share [...]

BAA/AAVSO Day 2: Observing the Sun with Small Scopes

The nearest star to the Earth is easily observed during the day. It just happens to be called the Sun. The problem is, it’s quite close and this can make it very hard to observe safely without hurting yourself or hurting your eyes. The current speaker, Lee MacDonald, is discussing several simple rules for attaining [...]

AAVSO/BAA Day 1: Chasing Rainbows (or Spectra)

One of the hardest things you can observationally do in astronomy is spectroscopy. You have to guide really well to keep the light on the slit. You have to calibrate the sensitivity across you chip (flat fielding like you do in imaging), the sensitivity as a function of wavelength (using a hot standard star as [...]

AAVSO/BAA Day 1: Remote Observing

So, if you’re like, you may not own a telescope (story later, because I know you’ll ask). Like me, you may love looking through telescopes, taking images through telescopes, and just being able to intellectually get your hands dirty doing observational astronomy. If you are like me, you just can’t quite afford the scope you [...]

AAVSO/BAA Day 1: Binary Adventures

Variable stars come in many forms – there are happy little regular stars, widely separated and merrily circling ones dancing an eon long dance. Some white dwarfs – dead stars, cooling into stellar embers of stars – become vampires as they gravitationally suck mass from their companion and heat themselves back out of the stellar [...]

To Texas, and Home Again

Let me just say, I’m always looking for a good reason to go to Texas and especially the Houston area. My entire trip last week was wonderful, and the dessert in San Antonio was a special treat. After going to see Lucy Friday, Saturday was spent lazing around San Antonio’s river walk and then attending [...]