Blogs

I wrote in yesterday’s blog that I’d describe a bit more about the daytime activities of the past few days. On Saturday, we made our way back to Reykjavik from the southern coast. Along the way, the tour stopped at a couple of waterfalls —...

Both last night and tonight we were fortunate enough to see more northern lights. Saturday gave an incredible show and Sunday’s was a nice going-away gift — tomorrow is the day we leave beautiful Iceland. On Saturday, we had made our way...

Yesterday morning I gave my astronomical lecture about “The active Sun.” That went quite well — even though many in our travel group had been awake for a late night of aurora sightings. With that out of the way, the group drove to...

Nick Howes, a freelance science writer for the European Space Agency and the pro-am program manager for the Faulkes Telescope, provides a guest blog about a recent “Astro Safari” to the pristine skies of Tanzania. The journey started at...

Today we got to see a sampling of Iceland’s amazing natural wonders (including the northern lights!). In the morning, we left Reykjavik and drove southeast to the Haukadalur geothermal area to visit hot springs and natural geysers. The water...

Astronomy magazine has received tons of fantastic images of Comet PANSTARRS over the past few weeks (see some of them in our special Comet PANSTARRS photo gallery and our Comets Reader Photo Gallery ), and we unfortunately can’t highlight them all...

During this week, I’m aurora hunting from the beautiful island country of Iceland. I’m joining a tour with Astronomy magazine’s travel partner, MWT Associates, Inc. , as the lecturer. While here, I get to learn about Iceland’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...

One year ago, NASA’s Ebb and Flow craft sent back images of the farside of the Moon, Lady Gaga started her own social networking site, and the Deep Sky Forum was in its infancy. Now, 12 months later, DeepSkyForum.com is a dynamo of observing...

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...

Master sketcher Jeremy Perez from Flagstaff, Arizona, made this great drawing of Comet PANSTARRS on March 13. I was so impressed that I wanted to share the sketch and the story behind it. Here's what Jeremy said: "In the two nights since I last viewed...

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...

You know, I’ve heard a little buzz about town (OK, from a certain other astronomy publication) that Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4) is a bit disappointing. That contradicts the reports I’m getting from observers and imagers all over the world...

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...

After a few-month hiatus, Cosmic Adventures is back to explore the awesome world of astronomy. You’ll notice a key difference with the second season: Associate Editor Sarah Scoles joins me on screen after Bill Andrews left Astronomy for its sister...

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...

It appears that our hopes for Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4) may pan out after all. The most recent magnitude estimates put the comet at around 1st magnitude, considerably brighter than it was a week ago and approaching the optimistic forecasts from a few...

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...

Astronomy magazine is pleased to announce that Associate Editor Liz Kruesi has won one of the top awards in astronomical science journalism from the American Astronomical Society. The society’s High Energy Astrophysics Division honored Kruesi...

Posted on behalf of the Uwingu team; Astronomy magazine is a proud partner of this effort to raise funding for space science Commercial space start-up Uwingu announced Wednesday the launch of its fully commercial website at www.uwingu.com . The site...

I’m proud to announce that again this year Astronomy magazine will be sponsoring the world’s largest consumer telescope show, the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF). The 22nd NEAF will take place April 20–21, 2013, at Rockland Community...