by Pamela | May 13, 2008 | Astronomy, Nebulae, Stars
One of my favorite things to do with students in the late fall is to take them outside and point first to the Orion nebula, then to the Pleiades, and finally to the Hyades cluster, saying “these are snap shots in the evolution of open clusters.” Each of...
by Pamela | Apr 12, 2008 | Astronomy, Stars
The word Novae generally refers to a “New Star,” or a “Guest Star” – An object that springs up in the sky quite suddenly as a new but non-permanent object. Today we give these non permanent sky features a dozen or more names: Supernovae...
by Pamela | Apr 11, 2008 | Astronomy, Observing, Stars
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...
by Pamela | Apr 11, 2008 | Astronomy, Stars
After several days of travel, I’ve settled into the front row of the BAA/AAVSO meeting in New Hall, in Cambridge, UK. Dr. Paula Skody is giving an excellent talk on pro-am collaboration to make Hubble Space Telescope observations of cataclysmic variables. She...
by Pamela | Feb 28, 2008 | Astronomy, Stars
I saw a really cool paper (to me) on the pre-print server today. Astronomers Kuzic et al. have made detailed measurements of two groups objects in the center of the galaxy within half a parsec of the center of the Milky Way. These objects, named IRS 13E and IRS 13N...
by Pamela | Feb 13, 2008 | Astronomy, Planets, Stars
As some of you may know, my favorite favorite star to bring up when discussing binaries is Tau Boo B (Go ahead, say it out loud. Giggle. Join me in the giggling. Wasn’t that fun?). This little red dwarf star is the companion star to the much more famous, but no...
