June 18, 2013
Standard guidebooks will tell you the Great Hercules Cluster, Messier 13, ranks as the finest globular cluster north of the celestial equator. But sooner or later… maybe tonight… you’ll discover the dazzling globular cluster M5 in the constellation Serpens, the Serpent. A little brighter than its counterpart in Hercules, this tight collection of 500,000 stars sparkles in the eyepiece of a small telescope like an electric arc.
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June 15, 2013
The constellations Coma Berenices and Canes Venatici aren’t much to look at, but they hold a dazzling array of deep-sky sights for a small scope. We’ve visited a few objects here recently including the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and the galaxy M106 which harbors a naturally occurring maser near its core. But one of the most overlooked galaxies in this part of the sky is the ragged but beautiful edge-on spiral NGC 4631 and its sidekick NGC 4627.
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June 11, 2013
Once Kepler got his hands on Tycho’s measurements, he worked diligently to make sense of the data and to develop a solid framework for the workings of the solar system. He succeeded. Working for more than a decade, crunching numbers with pen and paper, he laid out three simple mathematical laws that account for the motion of the planets. Kepler’s Laws were descriptive, so they didn’t explain the physical basis for celestial motion. That task fell to an even more astute mathematician: Isaac Newton. But “Kepler’s Laws” are rigorous enough to account for most planetary motion, and are still taught to high-school and college students all over the world. Here’s what they’re all about…
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June 7, 2013
No, this isn’t an image from the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s from One-Minute Astronomer reader Terry Hancock and his colleague Fred Herrmann, who collected light from famous Ring Nebula with their 12″ backyard telescopes and processed their work into a stunning image of this planetary nebula in the constellation Lyra.
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June 4, 2013
Johannes Kepler
Working from his island observatory of Uraniborg, which he ruled like an eccentric king, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe compiled the most accurate measurements of the positions of the stars and planets. Tycho was not a humble man. But he knew he hadn’t the expertise to turn his work into an overall theory of the solar system. He needed the help of a skilled and motivated mathematician, one who had the insight and perseverance to make sense of Tycho’s data.
Surprisingly, in the year 1600, one arrived. His name was Johannes Kepler, who, despite his idiosyncrasies, used Tycho’s work to unlock the secrets of planetary motion and help touch off the scientific revolution.
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May 31, 2013
Summer’s on the way (or winter, if you’re south of the equator). That means the star-poor constellations of the past few months give way to the much richer star fields of constellations like Scorpius, Ophiuchus, and Cygnus. Northern observers see the yellow-orange star Arcturus overhead, and the stars of the Summer Triangle (Vega, Deneb, and Altair) rising in the east by 11 p.m. Southern-hemisphere stargazers already have the constellation Scorpius overhead well before midnight, along with brilliant stars that fleck the Milky Way along the constellations Centaurus and Crux. Keep your eye on the weather, pick a good night, and head out stargazing. It will make you feel better. Now here’s what to see in the night sky this month…
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May 28, 2013
The tiny star groups Corvus and Crater fill in the gap between sprawling constellations Virgo and Hydra. Corvus, the Crow, and Crater, the Cup, date back to the first catalog of constellations in the 2nd century A.D., and take their place in many legends related to the great god Apollo in ancient Greece. They are worthy targets for sweeping with binoculars, and hold two fine sights for telescopic observers.
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May 24, 2013
The Moon’s full tomorrow night (it’s the “Flower Moon”) so the sky’s too bright for observing faint galaxies and other deep-sky sights.
But fear not. You can still see an excellent gathering of bright planets in the western sky just after sunset. Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter lie within a 5 degree radius, with the bright stars of the constellation Auriga and Taurus not far away.
You can see the planets without optical aid, but a pair of binoculars will give you a far better view.
If the weather cooperates, make sure you enjoy this fine alignment of bright planets.
Here’s what to look for…
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May 21, 2013
While elegant and symmetrical spiral galaxies are favorites of picture-book stargazers, I prefer ragged, bedraggled-looking galaxies because they betray violent and fascinating physical processes at their cores. Many such galaxies lie within reach of a small telescope, and a favorite among discerning stargazers is the galaxy Messier 106 just southeast of the bowl of the Big Dipper. M106 is a fallen beauty, a former grand-design spiral now enduring a violent mid-life crisis as a central supermassive black hole beats its starry spiral arms into disarray.
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May 13, 2013
The commander of the latest mission of the International Space Station (ISS) returns to Earth today. Chris Hadfield, who’s engaged worldwide audiences with his tweets and videos for the past 5 months has outdone even himself with a splendid and quite touching video cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”.
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Standard guidebooks will tell you the Great Hercules Cluster, Messier 13, ranks as the finest globular cluster north of the celestial equator. But sooner or later… maybe tonight… you’ll discover the dazzling globular cluster M5 in the constellation Serpens, the Serpent. A little brighter than its counterpart in Hercules, this tight collection of 500,000 stars sparkles in the eyepiece of a small telescope like an electric arc.
