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  • Blog Post: One night in a cornfield — Part Five

    In 1687, with the publication of Isaac Newton’s Philosephiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (“Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”), the telescope’s journey had already lasted 77 years, but really it had just begun. For the first time in history, humans were elevated...
  • Blog Post: One night in a cornfield — Part Four

    The first national observatory, in Copenhagen, Denmark, was established in 1637. In the Netherlands, Christiaan Huygens described Saturn’s rings, discovered its moon Titan, and found light and dark markings on Mars. Observatories sprang up in Paris and at Greenwich, England. For the first time...
  • Blog Post: One night in a cornfield — Part Three

    It was 400 years ago when Galileo sparked a transformation of thinking on this planet. What Galileo found immediately astonished him and established the first large step in observational astronomy. [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/daves_2D00_universe...
  • Blog Post: One night in a cornfield — Part Two

    Carefully using a red-filtered flashlight to preserve his eyes’ sensitivity to faint light, the boy made a quick drawing on paper of how the Andromeda Galaxy appeared with his 8-inch telescope on that late summer night. The bushes continued to rustle, the breeze shot through the trees, and Larry...
  • Blog Post: One night in a cornfield — Part One

    “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part seven: Galaxies

    In the past six parts of this miniseries , we’ve looked at all types of objects you can easily observe in the night sky — the Moon, planets, comets, stars, star clusters, and nebulae. In this final entry, we now turn to deep space, to galaxies far beyond our Milky Way. [caption image="...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part six: Nebulae and star clusters

    So you bought a telescope to look at everything the universe has to offer. You’ve explored the various craters and maria of the Moon plus the planets, comets, and stars. What should you look at next? [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part five: Stars

    So you bought a telescope to look at everything the universe has to offer. You’ve explored the various carters and maria of the Moon plus all the planets and comets. What should you look at next? [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/daves_2D00_universe...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part four: Comets

    So you bought a telescope to look at everything the universe has to offer. You’ve explored the various craters and maria of the Moon plus all the planets. What should you look at next? [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/daves_2D00_universe...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part three: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

    So you bought a telescope to look at everything the universe has to offer. You’ve explored the various craters and maria of the Moon, and some of the planets — Mercury, Venus, and Mars. What should you look at next? [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part two: Mercury, Venus, and Mars

    So you bought a telescope to look at everything the universe has to offer. You’ve explored the various craters and maria of the Moon. What should you look at next? [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/daves_2D00_universe.Planets.Mars/3660...
  • Blog Post: The skies belong to everyone, part one: The Moon

    So, you bought a telescope to look at everything the universe has to offer. There are moons, planets, stars, comets, nebulae, and galaxies, many of which are visible to users of small telescopes on any clear night. What should you look at first? [caption image="/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer...