We’re now just a shade more than three weeks away from the big East Coast astronomy meeting of the year: the Northeast Astronomy Forum. Not only will Astronomy again be sponsoring NEAF this year, but I’ll also be at the Northeast Astro-Imaging...

You know, I can remember when the American government worked — at least at times. The recent standoff with regard to budget in Washington and the resulting sequestration mess underscores the functionality of Congress at an all-time low. It’s...

Our solar system may be down one planet from the good old days, but astronomers have now found more than 860 worlds orbiting stars near us in the Milky Way Galaxy. More than 1,000 other candidates are likely planet detections that astronomers have not...

A couple days ago, I first blogged about a new campaign underway to raise funds for the restoration and renovation of the famous 24-inch Clark refractor at Lowell Observatory. I’m mentioning it again because it’s a tremendously valuable and...

Yesterday at noon, the staffs of Astronomy and Discover magazines got together down in our company’s lunchroom and had a very nerdy lunch — by celebrating everything that was round. Yes, Pi Day struck us large again. Liz Kruesi, our associate...

A couple days ago, I shared a movie of Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4) shot by Fred Espenak over the Doz Cabezas Mountains in southern Arizona. Now, Fred has produced another terrific movie showing the comet setting last night over Antelope Pass, also in...

Few institutions in astronomy have the kind of ethereal sense of history that comes from Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Established by Percival Lowell in 1896 and featuring one of the great refractors on Earth, the 24-inch Clark used by Lowell...

You probably know him as “Mr. Eclipse” — or maybe as a contributor to Astronomy magazine, or as a NASA scientist. However you know him, Fred Espenak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is a key member...

An old friend, Carolyn Collins Petersen, sent me the link to a beautiful new film produced by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) and Loch Ness Productions. (The latter is the planetarium production company owned by Carolyn and her husband, Mark...

A few days ago, SPACE.com correspondent Miriam Kramer and I discussed a lot of cometary stuff, from ISON to PANSTARRS, to other things, and today Miriam posted a news story based on our discussion on SPACE.com . We are on the cusp of some really exciting...

Astronomy magazine columnist Steve O’Meara is currently traveling in Botswana, a country in southern Africa. Early this morning, he emailed me to update his observations of Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4), and the paragraph was so beautifully composed...

“Living our 2-D lives on planet Earth, arguing over Sequestration and who has the remote, we tend to forget that the solar system is a cosmic shooting gallery. The point returns on rare occasions like last month's Russian meteorite fall, but we...