Space and astronomy news
[/caption] Run — don’t walk — to astrophotographer Thierry Legault’s website to see his latest incredible video of the International Space Station and a docked space shuttle Discovery. He sent us a note that he had great “seeing” from Weimar, Germany on Monday evening, where he has set up shop in order to capture the …
Looking at prospects for eclipse day and totality.
The upcoming solar eclipses and the current high sunspot activity means it’s a great time to observe the Sun. Eclipses also mean that large groups of people will be together to view these events. However, rule #1 for astronomy is to never look at the Sun with unprotected eyes, especially with a telescope or binoculars. …
Continue reading “Want to Safely Watch the Sun With a Large Group? Get a Disco Ball”
A group of amateur and professional astronomers have collaborated to create what may be the highest resolution global map of Mars ever created with images taken from Earth. The images were taken with the 1-meter telescope at the Pic-du-Midi observatory in the Pyrenees of France, during several nights in October and November, 2020 when Mars …
Continue reading “A High Resolution, Cross-Eyed Look at the Entire Surface of Mars”
Astrophotographer Thierry Legault is renowned for his amazing shots of spacecraft transiting the Sun. He’s now outdone even himself.
Amazing things happen in the day-to-day sky, often unseen and unwitnessed in our normal routine. Just such a ‘non-event’ happened this week, when Venus reached inferior conjunction between the Earth and the Sun on its race from the dusk to the dawn sky. And what’s more amazing, is the fact that some skilled observers followed this passage and caught sight of Venus as a tiny blazing ‘ring of fire’ silhouetted against the sky.
By now, you’ve no doubt heard of (or seen) Starlink. SpaceX’s mega-satellite constellation has become a permanent fixture in our skies as of late, with several routine passes on any given week. But have you seen the supposed ‘black sheep’ of the flock, DarkSat?
Up for a challenge? Some of the toughest targets for a backyard observer involve little or no equipment at all. Northern hemisphere Spring brings with it one of our favorite astronomical pursuits: the first sighting of the extremely thin, waxing crescent Moon. This unique feat of visual athletics may be fairly straight forward… but it’s tougher than you think. The angle of the evening ecliptic in the Spring is still fairly high for mid-northern latitudes, taking the Moon up and out of the weeds as a waxing crescent.
Back in 2008, I professed my feelings, bared my soul and told all about how I absolutely was in love the International Space Station. Nine and a half years ago when I wrote that article, titled “I ‘Heart’ the ISS: Ten Reasons to Love the International Space Station,” the ISS was still under construction, only …
Continue reading “I Still ♥ the ISS: More Reasons to Love the International Space Station”
Always on the lookout for interesting events in the skies, astrophotographer Thierry Legault has captured an incredible video of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule traveling through space just 20 minutes after it launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 3, 2017. “You can see the Dragon, the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, and solar panel …
Continue reading “Amazing Video: Watch SpaceX’s Dragon in Flight, as Seen From the Ground”