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Guest blog: The BLAsT Class and Earth's Space Weather Forecast

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Abby Stephens and Keegan Engelking What is the first thing you think of when someone says space weather? Is it raining storms with zero gravity with rain drops going every direction? Or is it flashing interstellar clouds with space lightning? Although it is neat to daydream about space weather being this way, the reality is very different from these depictions. Dr. Patricia Reiff, a professor from Rice University specializing in space plasma and magnetospheric physics, took us on a jour...

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Guest blog: The BLAsT Class Sees Double with Graeme Jenkinson

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Zoe Pappas and Jeffrey Berg We had the honor of hosting Graeme Jenkinson, who was visiting Wyoming all the way from Australia, for a presentation about observing double stars on a tight time budget. Unlike many of our speakers, Jenkinson is an amateur astronomer that does not have the luxury of observing full-time, or even for more than a few hours a week. He explained that double stars are a great way to do some observing that will provide useful data, parti...

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A dozen reasons you should join us at the Darkest Skies Star Party

Posted 6 years ago by Michael Bakich

On Friday and Saturday, October 13 and 14, Dark Sky New Mexico (DSNM) and The Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS) will host a star party in southwestern New Mexico. The second America’s Darkest Sky Star Party will occur in Animas, New Mexico, a lovely area dominated by antique silver mining that now boasts one of the best skies in the world for stargazing. Astronomy magazine Editor David Eicher and Senior Editor Michael Bakich, well known astronomy personalities, will be your hosts to...

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Guest Blog: The BLAsT Class Learns to "Move it Like Moana"

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By David Collicott and Gaby Loredo Astronomy in Moana? That’s what we thought. But Dr. Stephanie Slater gave us a lesson on the movie’s traditional Polynesian water navigation and its relation to the stars. Through the stars rise and set times, their altitude, and their relation to the stars around them, the ancient navigators were able to tell their location with great accuracy and purposely move from tiny island to tiny island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Dr. Slater did an am...

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Guest Blog: The Bucket List Astronomy Class Tour, Planetary Nebulae, and the No-Worries Shelf

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Sandy Ackman and Benjamin Blume While we were staying at the Allen H. Stewart Lions Camp in Casper, Wyoming, we heard from Dr. James’ doppelganger, Dr. Stacy Palen who specializes in planetary nebulae. These are the shells ejected from low-mass dying stars, something the Sun will become in about 5 billion years. If there’s one thing you can say about Dr. Palen, it’s that she is passionate about her science. She actually startled one of the classmates when she got...

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Guest Blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class prepares for Astronomy O.W.L. exams

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Diane Brewer and Tyler Coleman Disclaimer: If you’re not up on your Harry Potter trivia, some of this may not make sense. If you’re lost, you could try the Marauder’s Map. Otherwise, Google is your friend. He looked panicked as he ran in and out of the room. “Has anyone seen Aurora?! Does anyone know where Professor Sinistra went?!!” These aren’t exactly the words anyone would expect to come out of their presenter’s mouth, but this is precisely ho...

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Guest blog: The BLAsT Class Witnesses a Total Eclipse

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By: Maya Fitch and Rayne Horton Today, August 21, 2017, our class along with millions of other individuals witnessed the Total Solar Eclipse. There are no words to describe how incredible the experience was, but if we had to put the eclipse into words a few would be: amazing, astonishing, unbelievable, out-of-this world (pun intended), and magical. As we said before, there are no true words to define the event we saw. We had clear skies and great binoculars to see this magnificent e...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class: Revisiting Einstein

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Jacob Ackman and Remy Shelton At our camp, we heard from Dr. Don Bruns, a retired physicist who is taking it upon himself to finish an experiment that has not been successfully reproduced since 1919: Observing the bending of starlight during a total eclipse. Bruns discovered a passion for astronomy at an early age. In high school, he was performing his own research projects, keeping up to date on astronomical topics by reading magazines and networking with others in the field. ...

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A total eclipse in southern Illinois

Posted 6 years ago by Alison Klesman

Like many Americans lucky enough to live in or travel to the path of totality on August 21, I witnessed my very first total solar eclipse. For me, this historic event took place in southern Illinois, nearly 400 miles from Astronomy’s offices in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It was not only a moving experience, but an exciting and fun one as well. My journey began Sunday afternoon; I’d driven down to my father’s house in a south suburb of Chicago the day before. Just before we left, t...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class: A Tale of Two Eclipses

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Cristal Hernandez and Aliyah Mohammed After two weeks in Australia filled with pulsars, radio astronomy, southern constellations, the Dish, black holes, and gravitational waves (AND KANGAROOS!!), the BLAsT class made its way up to Casper, Wyoming. On our first day there, Martin Ratcliffe (Professional Development Director for SkySkan, adjunct faculty member at Wichita State University, and contributing editor for Astronomy magazine), gave us a tale of two eclipses. The two eclipses were bo...

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Images from the Great American Eclipse

Posted 6 years ago by Michael Bakich

It's the morning after the big event, and images are already coming in. Here are a few of the early birds. If you took an image you're proud of, please send it to ReaderGallery@Astronomy.com. It might appear in a blog or an online gallery, and we might publish it in the magazine. You never know. Now, how long until the next total solar eclipse? ...

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Amazing interest in the eclipse continues

Posted 6 years ago by Michael Bakich

St. Joseph, Missouri, is generating lots of buzz related to Monday’s upcoming total solar eclipse, and everyone seems to have been aware of it for some time. My wife and I started chatting with Donna Wilson, an area nurse, about the great event while waiting in line to order breakfast at Brioche, a local French restaurant. When we did order, we discovered that Donna who was part of a group of businesswomen, had paid for our meal (which was delicious, by the way). “This is a way to sa...

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Guest blog: Answers to your Laser SETI questions

Posted 6 years ago by Alison Klesman

By Eliot Gillum The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a humbling process, to be sure. It’s difficult in the extreme to find something when we don’t know where to look for it, or what it will look like when it appears. More on that shortly but, before I get any further, I’d like to thank three groups of people. This article wouldn’t exist without those who asked great questions: Tom Scarnati, Richard Hammer, Bartlomiej Król and daughter, Do...

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St. Joseph, Missouri, has eclipse fever!

Posted 6 years ago by Michael Bakich

My wife, Holley, and I arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri, around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning. We preserve a day by leaving Milwaukee and driving the eight hours after work. As with most of our trips to St. Joe, this one was relatively easy with little traffic. I’m hosting a huge eclipse viewing party at the airport here, so arriving a few days early was a necessity. Wednesday for me included two radio interviews (St. Louis and Kansas City) and another at a local television station. In between,...

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How you can be a part of Big Science

Posted 6 years ago by Alison Klesman

It takes more than a scientist — or even a team of them — to produce valuable results. Every image taken and number recorded is the culmination of not just rigorous mental work, but physical exertion as well. To get to the publishable results reported in our magazine and online news, scientific communities must first build, and then maintain and run, big science facilities. Do you know what it takes to do that, or how this process employs numerous individuals at every level to mak...

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Guest blog: The BLAsT class takes the pulse of the Universe

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Jeffrey Berg and Gilli Rodriguez Just that morning, he had been in Parkes after installing and testing a new ultra-wide-band receiver on the Dish, but by 11 a.m., he was in Marsfield, ready to tell the BLAsT Class all about pulsars. “He” is Dr. George Hobbs, a pulsar researcher and radio astronomer who gave us a lecture on pulsars and how they help us learn more about the universe. He started by explaining how radio astronomers “listen” in on the sky, and he played f...

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Send me your eclipse pictures

Posted 6 years ago by Michael Bakich

I’ll make this blog short and sweet. We will be dedicating 10 pages in our December issue to the best images of the August 21 total solar eclipse. As photo editor here, I’ll be choosing which ones make the cut. If you’d like me to consider your pix, here are some guidelines. 1. Get them to me as soon as possible after the eclipse. The early bird catches my eye (or something like that). 2. Include all details about the image. (OK, you can leave off the date if you want to.) B...

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Enjoy totality with an electronic-rock twist: Blood Red Boots' livestream from Carbondale, IL

Posted 6 years ago by Alison Klesman

There are many ways to enjoy the upcoming total solar eclipse, from Carbondale, IL — the Eclipse Crossroads of America. In addition to events coordinated by NASA, the Science Center of Southern Illinois, and the Adler Planetarium, eclipse watchers in Southern Illinois will have the opportunity to observe the Great American Eclipse with the music of the electronic-rock band Blood Red Boots, who will be performing live during this historic event. And thanks to internet livestreaming, you ...

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This so-called eye expert is DEAD WRONG

Posted 6 years ago by Michael Bakich

On August 11, Ohio optometrist Michael Schecter went viral on Facebook, and he couldn’t have been more wrong. Despite support of proper viewing by the American Academy of Opthalmology, the American Optometric Association, and American Academy of Optometry, this guy just pushed the nuke button regarding his totally unsupported assertion of the safety of viewing the eclipse with approved solar glasses. Here’s what he wrote: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - “As an Op...

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Guest Blog: Surf's up! Riding gravitational waves

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

by Abigail Stephens and Keegan Engelking The individual trapped in the screen to the left is Dr. Paul Lasky. Although I stated trapped, he voluntarily gave up his time at in Melbourne to videoconference with our 2017 SHSU BLAsT class at the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Sciences campus in Marsfield, NSW. This Monash University researcher is a member of the Australian Centre for Gravitational Wave Research (OzGrav), the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. Today we...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, The true story behind WiFi

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Australian Astronomy, But Were Afraid to Ask: PART II - The True Story Behind Wi-Fi, By Rayne Horton and David Collicott While visiting the CSIRO Astronomy headquarters in Australia, our study abroad class had the pleasure of hearing a lecture by Dr. Ron Ekers and Dr. John O'Sullivan. These phenomenal men gave us a tag-team presentation about turning “Black Holes into Wi-Fi.” It was strange to learn that the formation of black holes in...

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Guest Blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, the saga continues

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Australian Astronomy, But Were Afraid to Ask PART I – In the Beginning… By C. Renee James Last week, the BLAsT Class was given the opportunity to visit the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Sciences (CASS) headquarters in Marsfield, NSW, where Astronomy Education Office Rob Hollow gave us a whirlwind tour of the ambitious projects being carried out there, across the nation, and across the globe. That same day, Tasso Tzioumis excitedly showed us th...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, day 5

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

Supermassive Black Holes, Lasers, and Adaptive Optics….OH MY! By Maya Fitch and Sarah Deitrich On Day 6, we went to Macquarie University to hear a presentation by Dr. Richard McDermid, a lecturer and researcher at Macquarie University. Just the title sounded exciting: “Lighting the Dark – Weighing Supermassive Black Holes with Lasers.” What's a black hole? It's an object so compact that not even light can escape. Dr. McDermid told us that a "normal" black hole co...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, day 4 and a half

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE BLAsT CLASS AT THE DISH: THE PARKES-NASA PARTNERSHIP By Tyler Coleman and Sandy Ackman As mentioned in our previous entry, we got a personal tour from John Sarkissian, an operations scientist at the Parkes Radio Telescope, but there was so much to do and see that we needed another entry to capture even part of it. If this telescope looks like a textbook radio telescope, that’s because it was so well-designed, effective, and durable that radio telescopes sin...

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Solar eclipse viewing in Orlando

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

The Orlando Science Center will be offering an eclipse viewing party to celebrate the first total solar eclipse in 99 years! Central Florida will experience 85% totality on August 21 and the Orlando Science Center is celebrating the day with presentations, demos, and more! There will be crafts and sensory activities available for the younger eclipse enthusiasts. Admission will also get viewers eclipse glasses and/or using the center's telescope filters. The event will run from 1 p.m. - ...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, Day 4

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Gaby Loredo and Diane Brewer On the 27th of July, we got the privilege to visit the Parkes Dish, a large single-dish, 64-meter radio telescope, and we were given a personal tour by Operations Scientist John Sarkissian. A radio telescope works in the radio wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, picking up radio waves from distant space bodies. Unlike an optical telescope, a radio telescope does not receive visuals. Instead, the waves it receives are translated into intensity ma...

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Celebrate the solar eclipse with the Adler Planetarium

Posted 6 years ago by Alison Klesman

Located in Chicago, Illinois, along the scenic lakefront, the Adler Planetarium is the United States’ oldest planetarium and the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere. Although it’s a well-established institution, the Adler is also a forward-thinking and modern establishment focused on bringing the wonder of the skies down to Earth through engaging exhibits, science education promotion, and special events. The last time the Chicago area was in the path of a total solar eclip...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, Day 3

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

ABORIGINAL SKY STORIES By Benjamin Blume and Remey Shelton The Scottish-born Australian Dr. David McKinnon is a retired professor and astronomer who came and talked to us about Aboriginal sky stories and his work sharing astronomy with schoolchildren. We were honored to be the first group of people to hear the story of the Seven Sisters – what we call the Pleiades - from Senior Elder of the Wiradyuri Nation, Auntie Gloria Rogers, who is said to be related to the third sister. The ...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, Day 2

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

By Aliyah Mohammed and Cristal Hernandez The BLAsT Class welcomed Mr. Alex Massey as the first guest speaker. Alex Massey is an artist specializing in astronomical sketching. However, he is not your typical artist. He utilizes tools such as makeup brushes, chalk, and pencils to recreate beautiful celestial phenomenon. He started the night off by demonstrating the process of creating these images. He focuses first on capturing the “big picture,” and then adds layers...

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Guest blog: Bucket List Astronomy Class, Day 1

Posted 6 years ago by Nicole Kiefert

Introduction, by C. Renee James Crosby, Still, and Nash sang about the draw of the southern night sky. Seeing the Southern Cross for the first time sticks in your mind, as does witnessing the the richness of Australia's night sky. So when my colleague Scott Miller and I decided to anchor a traveling university astronomy class on the upcoming total eclipse - which we’ll see in Casper, Wyoming – we knew we had to find a way to show our students the glory of the southern sky ...

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