Aliens and science don’t usually go together. Maybe it’s the, let’s say, “disheveled” look of the overly eager UFO enthusiasts and abductees. Both professional and amateur astronomers alike are quick to distance themselves from talk of UFOs. But that is a far cry from saying there is no alien life. While there remains no solid proof of extraterrestrial life, more and more discoveries do seem to hint that it exists. A July paper in the International...

Perplexed by planets? Confused by cosmology? Baffled by black holes? Then send in your questions to Astronomy magazine at askastro@astronomy.com . If you have an astronomy question about observing, the planets, stars, cosmology, or astronomy history, send it in! Five are selected each month for publication in the Ask Astro section of Astronomy magazine. If your question is selected, we will forward it to an expert for his or her response. Then, the...

Here’s another great example of material I receive as Photo Editor of Astronomy . Astroimager Robert Lockwood from San Diego created an animation he did of Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin). For the final animation, Robert combined 75 exposures — 25 each through red, green, and blue filters. Each exposure lasted 45 seconds. He also allowed an additional 30 seconds to elapse between sets of three. The telescope Robert used was a 7.2-inch Takahashi Epsilon-180...

As Photo Editor of Astronomy , I see some great stuff. I just received an e-mail from astroimager Tom Carrico. He shared with us an animation he did of Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin). You’ll find Carrico’s creation in our videos section, “ Watch Comet Lulin fly .” Tom operates ARGO Observatory, which is located in central Oregon about 25 miles east of Bend. He imaged Comet Lulin from his observatory at New Mexico Skies February 21 through a 4-inch Takahashi...

I just received an e-mail from Ohio amateur astronomer and longtime contributor to the magazine John Chumack. In it, he included a tutorial on how to photograph Comet Lulin. I wanted to share it with you all. And remember, if you have success, be sure to submit your photo to our Online Reader Gallery . “How to Capture Comet Lulin” by John Chumack You can capture the comet with either a film single-lens reflex (SLR) camera or a digital SLR camera and...

Astronomy magazine contributor and longtime imager John Chumack had some luck spotting Comet Lulin February 20/21, and he was nice enough to share his account with us: I took a chance last Friday night and went out to my observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio, even though there were some high cirrus clouds floating around. It finally cleared enough around 11:30 p.m., just about the time for Comet Lulin to clear the trees east of the compound. I was...

Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) remains on track to be the brightest comet of the year. It should peak around 5th magnitude during the second half of February, when it will slide past Spica, Saturn, and Regulus. To track the comet from your location as it crosses the night sky, check out Astronomy.com's interactive star chart — StarDome . To find and track Comet Lulin with StarDome : On the lower right of the dome display, under "Options," click...

In January 2009 world-renowned amateur astronomer and comet discoverer David H. Levy joins Astronomy magazine as a Contributing Editor. Levy will write a monthly column for the world’s most popular magazine on astronomy, which has a circulation of more than 125,000 monthly issues. Levy’s first column will appear in the June 2009 issue. Levy is most famous for discovering 22 comets over his long career, including the co-discovery of Comet Shoemaker...

On Christmas Day, 1758, a German amateur astronomer and farmer named Johann Georg Palitzsch did something that would have made a great Christmas gift for English astronomer Edmond Halley. Johann “recovered” Halley’s Comet, meaning he was the first to observe this previously observed “dirty snowball” as it returned to the inner solar system. Edmond Halley (1656-1742) calculated the orbit of the comet that now bears his name based on previous sightings...