For many, a new year brings self-examination and commitment to self-improvement. Sometimes, promises of personal development are kept, but in my experience, they are typically forgotten by spring. Usually, New Year’s resolutions include goals of weight loss, exercise, fiscal responsibility, or quitting a vice. What about observing? Have you dedicated yourself to improvement as a skywatcher in 2008? Whether you are a newbie or know the sky like the...

Okay, it’s the wrong season, but bear with me. Easter eggs, at least the software kind, are everywhere — from a hidden menu in a DVD to an obscure demo in an application program . In the software game, some rules apply as to what legitimately can be called an Easter egg. They can’t be documented or obvious, they must be reproducible by any user performing the right combination of actions, and they must be entertaining. I've gone down this road...

With President Bush’s call for a return to the lunar surface, dozens of titles about the Moon have hit bookstores. From the volumes that have crossed my desk, most are nostalgic or historic accounts that showcase the people behind earlier lunar missions. Robert Godwin has assembled one of the more original books from this genre. The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook: A Pictorial History of Lunar Vehicles (Apogee, 2007) shows readers the designs for rovers...

Recently, I stood in a foot of snow when the Fahrenheit temperature was barely in the teens. I dressed warmly (or so I thought), but I wasn’t doing anything physical, so the cold was biting at my extremities. Yes, I was observing. As much as I despise cold weather (see, for instance, my blog “ The weather gods hate me ”), there’s a lot to be said for observing during the winter. When the temperature dips well below freezing, the crunchy snow pack...

One place I’ve always wanted to visit is Antarctica. It’s a continent seemingly designed for science geeks and natural-history buffs. Here’s a sampling of scientists now scattered across the bleak landscape: Cosmologists tweak the 10-meter South Pole Telescope , just completed last February; geologists study volcanos and drill deep cores beneath the sea; glaciologists camp on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to study the interconnected rivers and lakes...

With more than a week left until what many North Americans consider as official start of winter, a nasty winter blast moved through the Midwest yesterday. Thanks to this weather emergency, our office closed, and most employees spent the day shoveling snow. Snowed in, I caught up on web browsing. My search began at Yahoo, where I noticed a prominent listing for the Geminids. How great is that? One of the world’s top search engines devotes a prime spot...

Today started off as one of those Midwestern winter days where I’d rather go back to bed and start over sometime in spring 2008. Here’s the pre-9 A.M. highlights: a dead car battery, 5 inches of snow to shovel, a broken water heater, an extra 45 minutes added to my commute, and a painful fall on an ice patch. When I finally reached work, I started to sift through my e-mail inbox and came across a fantastic message from Contributing Editor Phil Harrington...

This week, the SciFi Channel is running a miniseries called Tin Man . I haven’t watched it (you can view all three episodes at www.scifi.com ), but one of my astronomy friends tells me tonight’s episode features a double solar eclipse — two moons covering the fictional planet’s two suns. This got me thinking about eclipses, both past and future. On August 1, 2008, I’ll be in Novosibirsk, Russia, enjoying 2 minutes 18 seconds of totality. This promises...

How do you make astrometry fun? Well, you don’t, of course. Astrometry is the precise measurement of the position and motion of astronomical objects. It is not something one takes lightly. It requires skill, exactitude, and lots and lots of math. Nevertheless, the good folks at Astrometry.net are working on automated methods to do astrometry. They envision sharing their creation with … well, with everyone. They may even succeed in making it fun. Here...