I just learned about one of this season’s earliest star parties, and I thought I’d share it here. The 5th annual Bootleg Astronomers Star Party will begin at 10 a.m. Friday, June 3, and continue through noon, Sunday, June 5. The event takes...

The Antarctic Science Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin, started off with a few presentations about drilling technology. It’s definitely an important topic because one of the reasons scientists utilize Antarctica as a lab is the ice — either...

In December 2010, the IceCube collaboration placed its last string of detectors 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) into the Ataractic ice. This project consists of 86 strings, for a total of 5,160 detectors embedded in 0.4 square mile (1 square km) of ice. The...

For the second time is as many weeks (after Thessaloniki, Greece ), Astronomy ’s Discover the Universe program can claim an event full of successful sidewalk astronomy. Ted Forte of the Back Bay Amateur Astronomers reports: The Back Bay Amateur...

Ever wonder what it’s like to be part of an astronomy department at a major university — what instruments the scientists use, and what research they’re doing? Peter V. Mason of the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the...

Astronomy magazine’s Discover the Universe program is only a few months old, but we’ve already had our first successful event! Andreas Vossinakis of The Friends of Astronomy club in Thessaloniki, Greece ( http://www.ofa.gr/ ), explains : ...

Friday, April 15, the second and final day of the 2011 Northeast Astro Imaging Conference (NEAIC), proved to be even better than the first. NEAIC occurs at the Crowne Plaza Conference Center in Suffern, New York. This is a new facility for NEAIC, which...

The Northeast Astro Imaging Conference (NEAIC) kicked off Thursday, April 14. This meeting of astroimagers occurs during the 2 days preceding the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF). Both are held in Suffern, New York — NEAIC at the Crowne Plaza Conference...

I have a confession to make. I spend a lot of time at the Astronomy offices here in Waukesha, Wisconsin. As the magazine’s copy editor, most of my interaction with the astronomy community comes from comments on the website, e-mails I receive, and...

Last week, we announced the Santa Barbara Astronomy Unit as the winner of Astronomy magazine’s 2010 Out-of-this-world Award for public outreach. They’re a great group, but as Astronomy Editor David J. Eicher said, it was a struggle to choose...

I’m a constellation kind of guy. So in that spirit, I thought I’d chat about some of the star figures now up in the Northern Hemisphere’s spring sky. Did you know that you can find the three largest constellations all at the same time...

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of “Liz and Bill’s Cosmic Adventures”? We just debuted Episode 4 , and reviewing the final draft of the video reminded me how much of a pain it was to film one of the scenes. (Spoiler alert...

Last June, I shared my excitement about submitting a photo of the Astronomy magazine staff to NASA’s “Face in Space” website so we could vicariously fly aboard space shuttle Endeavor on STS-134, the final mission of the U.S. space shuttle...

I know I work for a big famous magazine with thousands and thousands of readers, but it can be weirdly easy to forget that fact. Working in an office, seeing the same co-workers, receiving a new issue every month — sometimes it can feel like we’re...