After the Sun sets over the Atacama Desert’s Valley of the Moon, the 19,400-foot volcano Licancabur catches the last rays of sunlight. Richard Talcott I recently returned from a 9-day trip to Chile — one of more than 30 participants in a tour...

In this screen shot, Google profiles the constellation Orion. Google Last week featured the rare occasion when an astronomy-related announcement resonated with skywatchers and the general public. Did SETI make contact with extrasolar life? Nope. Did...

Once upon a time, barnstorming over the countryside in a biplane was sufficiently thrilling and expensive for the idle rich. Then, the only thing that would do was taking a steamer to Africa to blast away at lions for the season. Then there was (and remains...

In this blog and my next, I'm going to try to demystify the magnitude system — the scale astronomers use to measure the brightness of a celestial object. Let me start with a little history. The first known observer to describe and catalog differences...

Early morning steam rises from numerous geysers and fumaroles at El Tatio — the world’s highest-altitude geyser field. Evelyn Talcott I've just returned from a 9-day trip to Chile & one of more than 30 participants in a tour sponsored...

An interesting question hit my inbox this week. How far south can an aurora be seen? Specifically, are the “northern lights” ever visible from Timbuktu? A 2004 New York Times article about medieval Arabic manuscripts triggered the question. The city...

Earlier this week, I wrote about an auction to benefit the Stellafane telescope-making convention, held each year in Springfield, Vermont. Last month, Springfield hosted another noteworthy gathering: The Simpsons movie premiere. The July 22 extravaganza...

I'm starting something new today: a weekly collection of interesting articles and blog entries I see during the week but don't blog on myself. First, to give credit where it is due, I got the idea from astronomer Pamela Gay's Star Stryder...

If you like reading about and/or observing the universe's biggest blasts, you'll be interested in a book that just crossed my desk. Supernovae and How to Observe Them by Martin Mobberley is, as the title suggests, a dual-purpose book. In "Part...

Ever hanker to take a gander at the lunar crater Zwicky? If so, just click over to a slick new site on the web called The-moon . There, you will quickly learn that Zwicky is a 94-mile-wide (150 kilometers) crater at latitude 15.4° south, longitude 168...

Al Nagler, John Gallagher, and Stephen James O’Meara (left to right) pose with the Tele Vue refractor and prototype eyepiece. Springfield Telescope Makers, Inc. In a previous blog, Astronomy Associate Editor Daniel Pendick wrote about an exciting...

Not all observing is difficult and requires lots of specialized, high-priced equipment. Case in point: Tuesday morning, August 28, North America will experience another total eclipse of the Moon. While West Coast and Hawaiian observers have the best seats...

John Chumack imaged M15 September 9, 2006, from his observatory at the Yellow Springs Research Station in Ohio. John Chumack Fraser Cain , podcaster and web guru behind Universe Today , recently wrote a piece regarding advanced observers'...

If you're looking for a well thought out, guided, deep-sky observing challenge, this blog's for you. Steve O'Meara's Herschel 400 Observing Guide just landed on my desk. Oh my! German-born English astronomer Sir William Herschel (1738...

In a recent blog , I talked about the surprising difficulty of landing heavy crewed payloads on Mars — in fact, its present impossibility, in lieu of new technologies. That's a very big challenge to future Mars exploration, although not at all insurmountable...

Many publishers have released books celebrating 50 years of space exploration since Sputnik's launch October 4, 1957. Among these pictorial collections, no one has done it better than Smithsonian Books. Edited by Smithsonian curator Martin Collins...

Phoenix's robotic arm digs a trench in the ice-rich martian soil, seeking signs as to whether Mars may be hospitable to life. Corby Waste (JPL) If the weather holds along Florida's Atlantic coast, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft should...

There's something about the Moon that makes people crazy. No, let me rephrase that: There's something about the Moon that makes people believe dumb stuff. For instance, have you received an e-mail yet saying that during the opposition of Mars...