Here are some further thoughts about the annular eclipse of May 20, 2012, which I viewed with a group of some 20 friends (if you haven't, read part 1 first ). 5) The eclipse itself was a spectacle. Granted, it was not a total eclipse, but there was...

Currently, 10 Sam Houston State University undergraduate students are traveling the world to witness some fantastic astronomical phenomena for the Bucket List Astronomy Tour (BLAsT) Class , led by astronomy professors Dr. Scott Miller and Dr. C. Renee...

One thing you learn when visiting Arizona and New Mexico: It takes a long time to get from one place to another. Fortunately, Monday’s long drive was worth it. The destination for our MWT Associates, Inc., tour was the Karl Jansky Very Large Array...

Astronomy ’s fantastic illustrator, Elisabeth Roen Kelly, traveled south from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over the weekend to witness her first solar eclipse. She, like Senior Editors Rich Talcott and Michael Bakich , had perfect skies for this awesome...

Here are some of my thoughts after Sunday's celestial spectacle: 1) The location was fantastic. We set up in a public park on grass as lush as I have ever seen. The feel of that turf, plus the fact that solar radiation wasn't baking us from below,...

The Sun is dead! Long live the Sun! According to Navaho tradition, the Sun “dies” during a solar eclipse. People are instructed to stay inside and keep quiet. They also may not eat, drink, work, or even sleep. Violating these beliefs can lead...

Yesterday was the day before the Moon crosses directly in front of the Sun. Unfortunately, our lone natural satellite lies too far from Earth to totally block it's light. The result? An annular eclipse , at whose peak a ring of the Sun's disk still surrounds...

The Bucket List Astronomy Tour (BLAsT) Class is officially off and running. Led by Sam Houston State University astronomy professors Dr. Scott Miller and Dr. C. Renee James, a frequent contributor to Astronomy magazine, the class is taking 10 undergraduate...

Approximately 50,000 years ago, a 150-foot-wide piece of an asteroid weighing some 300,000 tons slammed into northern Arizona at 26,000 mph. The impact released as much energy as 2.5 megatons of TNT — equivalent to 150 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs...

Nature has dealt a nasty blow to Arizona these past few days. Near-record heat (Phoenix hit 107° Fahrenheit a couple of days ago) and massive wildfires have plagued the state, with no signs of relief in sight. But nature will offer an olive branch...

On Sunday, May 20, observers along a narrow line throughout the western United States will be able to see the Sun, the Moon, and Earth line up. Unfortunately, the Moon will be near its farthest point from Earth, so it won’t totally cover the Sun’s...

Astronomy Day has passed, but it’s not the only time to introduce people to the skies. Astronomy magazine’s Discover the Universe program works with clubs all year to bring sidewalk astronomy to the astronomically challenged. Gerry Lyons,...

Last week, NASA announced a new outreach program that I’m sure some of you citizen scientists will want to take part in: Target Asteroids! The space agency is asking amateur astronomers to study various near-Earth objects (NEOs) from an initial...

The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) ran from April 13 through the 15th in the North Building of Chicago’s McCormick Place. I attended this year’s event , and I had a blast! I also learned quite a bit. The annual convention...

The importance of dark skies is surely something I don’t need to defend around here. Anyone interested in the night sky is likely all too aware of the decreased visibility and diminished views of stars that accompany light pollution — the...

The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) starts Friday, April 13, and I’ll be there. With bells on. With press credentials. And with a burning desire to ask at least one comic book author, “What’s it feel like to create a whole...

I’ve just heard from guest blogger Donald Lubowich of Hofstra University about his upcoming Astronomy Night on the National Mall , which takes place April 28 (with a rain date of April 29) in Washington, D.C., and which Astronomy magazine and the...

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but, according to my parents, when I was a mere three years old and watching the Apollo 11 launch July 16, 1969, on our tiny low-def TV, my infant vocal cords supposedly uttered “Aw, he broke” after the...

To the delight of amateur astronomers everywhere, Canon just introduced a DSLR optimized for astroimaging. The EOS 60Da is the long-awaited successor to the EOS 20Da, the company’s former astronomy enhanced model. The 60Da offers a modified infrared...

If you’re reading this, I hope you feel the same sense of luck as an astronomy enthusiast that I feel to be alive right now . In less than three months, you and I will have the chance to view one of the rarest of all predictable celestial events...

Sidewalk observing, the heart of Astronomy magazine’s Discover the Universe program , is usually enough to keep an astronomy club busy during a fun outreach event. But if enough groups get together, it’s possible to feature a sidewalk star...

Astronomy magazine’s Discover the Universe program has helped groups all over the world inspire people with the power of the cosmos. Today’s international entry is extra special for me, however, because it marks the first update from my homeland...

As you might know, today (March 14) is Pi Day, as in π, the mathematical constant of 3.14159… (If you’re curious about what it actually means, π is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It’s also an irrational...

We recently announced The Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS) as the winner of Astronomy magazine’s 2011 Out-of-this-world Award for public outreach . We’re thrilled to give them the top honor, but as Astronomy Editor David J. Eicher said...

The popular early-morning radio program “ Overnight America ,” hosted by Jon Grayson, which runs from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Eastern time, has recently expanded from five stations to 25. It originally aired on stations in St. Louis, Missouri; Minneapolis...