Last week, I blogged about my one-year anniversary. In that article, I began listing my favorite celestial objects in several categories. Following are the categories I didn't get to. Planetary nebula — The Ghost of Jupiter (NGC 3242) in Hydra. This bright planetary shows lots of detail through 8-inch telescopes, but in large instruments it's amazing. My wife first saw the Ghost through a 20-inch Newtonian reflector at 650x. She turned to...

Amateur astronomers in the United States are familiar with organizations like the Astronomical League and Astronomical Society of the Pacific. These groups help educate the public about the sky and decipher the universe's mysteries. Several groups like this exist around the world, including the Netherlands' Dutch Youth Association for Astronomy (JWG, in Dutch). This organization is celebrating its 40th year of serving skywatchers. Some of...

The commanders of both space shuttle Discovery (STS-120) and the International Space Station (ISS), the two crewed spacecraft now in orbit, are women. So, this week in the interstellar media, headlines gush with a milestone in the annals of gender. "Women set to take charge of space," said IEEE Spectum Online . "A great leap for womankind," notes Yahoo! News . You get the idea. This raises a complicated question. Is this kind of...

This blog marks my one-year anniversary yakking about any astronomical subject that caught my fancy. Blogs were new at Astronomy in 2006, but blogging seemed like a great vehicle for covering lots of topics in a somewhat random manner. Now, many of our editors blog on a weekly basis. I will use this momentous occasion to give you an insight into who I am as an observer. Through the years, many of you have shared with me your favorite objects, observing...

This month brings the 50th anniversary of two events that changed the world. The first, of course, needs little explanation: On October 4, 1957, the Space Age began with the Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik 1 spacecraft. I want to talk about the event you probably aren't aware of. The October 1957 issue of Reviews of Modern Physics contains the article "Synthesis of the Elements in Stars" by Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge...

At the veterinarian, they do it with an injection. When astronomers want to "put to sleep" one of their pets, they use a mouse click. Yesterday, astronomers at Johns Hopkins University shut down the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite after 8 years of service. The craft operated 5 years past its planned mission, but repeated and worsening malfunctions in its pointing system rendered FUSE inoperable. In several decades...

The other week I wrote about an auction for those with celestial tastes . I've come across another space-themed auction. On October 28, Boston auctioneer Skinner will host a sale that includes several lots of NASA memorabilia. This auction features a Mercury 7 astronaut's test glove with pen inscriptions "Glenn" and "Schirra," a Project Gemini spaceflight capsule flotation ball referred to as "Unsinkable Molly Brown...

For the past 2 days, I've been rearranging the storage areas here at Astronomy magazine. It was lots of work and lots of fun at the same time. And, it got me thinking. Why do some telescopes last 5 years while others last 50? The answer, it turns out, boils down to one word: dust. If you can protect your telescope from dust, it will last a lifetime. Now, I'm not considering killing forces like water damage and blunt-force trauma. Those can...

Some blogs are fun, some blogs are intellectual, and some provide a handy way to find links. (Okay, mine's an exception.) But here, in no particular order, are a few blogs I try to read regularly. Cosmic Log : Since 2002, MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle has provided his take on a veritable smorgasbord of research news. Cosmic Variance : Five physicists and astrophysicists co-write this weblog. Come for the fun, such as this instructive post outlining...

Sinuous valley networks like these imaged by Viking 1 led many planetary scientists to think Mars’ climate once was warm and wet, but some researchers aren’t so sure. NASA/JPL Today marked the 114th consecutive day in Orlando in which the temperature never dipped below 70°. I'm currently sweating in Orlando, attending the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS). Florida's warm, humid...