Local Group - Astronomy Magazine - Interactive Star Charts, Planets, Meteors, Comets, Telescopes

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David H. Levy to join Astronomy magazine as Contributing Editor

Posted 15 years ago by David Eicher

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-Levy 9, which broke apart and slammed int...

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Ho, ho, ho for Halley’s Comet

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

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. He determined that the same comet was respo...

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December 19-26, 2008: The Kids, Pazmino’s Cluster, and the Flaming Star Nebula

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the The Kids, Pazmino’s Cluster, and the Flaming Star Nebula. Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS. Each week, I highlight three different night-sky targets for you to see: One object you can find with your naked eyes or thro...

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Enceladus ice tectonics: Cassini’s latest mind-blowing image of another world

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

Many phases of the Moon ago — more than 200 — I came under the spell of earth science and wrote a lot about it for a number of years. This week, some of that ancient knowledge came back to visit as I gazed at a fantastic 28-image mosaic of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. You may see crusty cracked ice; I see the outlines of ice continents. At the American Geophysicial Union meeting in San Francisco this week, the halls are abuzz with talk of plate tectonics on Enceladus. Using Cassini-based d...

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Geminid meteor image from John Chumack

Posted 15 years ago by Karri Ferron

Noted astrophotographer and Astronomy contributor John Chumack sent us a still image of the Geminid meteor shower, which peaked December 13/14. He shot the photo from his observatory in Dayton, Ohio. Read John’s comments below. My backyard observatory’s “Northeast Video Sky Camera” captured 10 of the brightest Geminid meteors — despite the very bright and big Full Moon, some fog, and high cirrus clouds — from around midnight until 3 a.m. EST Monday, December 15 (unfortunately we lost power ...

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Telescope fever

Posted 15 years ago by Liz Kruesi

I just finished writing an article about the telescope’s history (you know, with the International Year of Astronomy coming up in 2009). I know that in the astronomy world aperture fever runs wild, but wow, some of these telescopes are just ginormous!! It must have been quite an experience just to operate something like the 72-inch “Leviathan of Parsonstown” — even though telescopes like the Yerkes 40-inch (pictured at right) and Lick 36-inch refractors were much better balanced, which made posi...

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Happy birthday to a grand old telescope

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

California’s Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is celebrating the centennial of its famous 60-inch reflecting telescope. Upon its completion in 1908, the “60-inch,” as astronomers call it, was the largest telescope in the world. Pioneer astronomer George Ellery Hale commissioned the project under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The 22-ton behemoth saw first light December 13, 1908, and is considered the grandparent of all modern research telescopes. Harold McAlister, MWO’...

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December 12-19, 2008: Hyades star cluster, open cluster M37, and NGC 1275

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the Hyades star cluster, open cluster M37, and NGC 1275. Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS. Each week, I highlight three different night-sky targets for you to see: One object you can find with your naked eyes or through b...

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It's gonna be a long year

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

If you feel like time is dragging, you’re right, at least partly. Actually, it’s Earth that’s dragging, and its lackadaisical attitude will be responsible for 2008 being a longer year. Oh, joy. Like it hasn’t been long enough already. On December 31, the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) will add a “leap-second” at its Master Clock Facility in Washington. Together with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the USNO determines time for the United States. Countries around the world wi...

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The Milky Way’s center of attention

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

Did a parent, boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, supervisor, etc., ever say to you in an argument, “You’re not the center of the universe, you know!” Well, sorry to disappoint, but you’re not the center of the galaxy either. That honor belongs to a black hole that weighs between 4,250,000 and 4,370,000 times the Sun’s mass and lies somewhere between 26,028 and 27,169 light-years from Earth. How do I know? Because German astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel and his team at the Max-Planck-Institute...

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An art exhibition on Mars

Posted 15 years ago by Matt Quandt

Michael Carroll, renowned illustrator and a frequent art contributor to Astronomy magazine, sent us his musings on the Phoenix Lander’s fate. Because his father worked at the Martin Marietta (now Lockheed/Martin) facility in Littleton, Colorado, Michael enjoyed unique access to the early stages of the Viking missions. His two latest books are Space Art: drawing and painting planets, moons and landscapes of alien worlds and Alien Volcanoes (Johns Hopkins University Press). Both are available thro...

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Moonbuggy mayhem

Posted 15 years ago by Karri Ferron

Whoever said NASA is only about serious space and aeronautics work obviously hasn’t checked out the government agency’s annual Great Moonbuggy Race. Here’s NASA’s press release about this exciting and entertaining competition: Registration is open for NASA's 16th annual Great Moonbuggy Race, taking place April 3-4, 2009, in Huntsville, Alabama. Each year, NASA challenges high schools and colleges across the country and the world to design and build lightweight, human-powered moonbuggies. ...

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Relativity rap

Posted 15 years ago by Liz Kruesi

It’s great how some people communicate science ideas. A few months ago we heard about the science writer at the Large Hadron Collider who filmed a rap video about the LHC and posted it on YouTube.So what does this have to do with Astronomy? Well, Rob Wheeldon, a reader and fellow astronomy enthusiast from the U.K., recently sent us a letter that included his own rap. This one, however, doesn’t concern the LHC, but instead a very complex subject: relativity. Wheeldon told me that his inspiration ...

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Video of Jupiter, Venus, and Moon conjunction

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here’s an “extra” for those of you who saw the nice conjunction December 1 featuring Venus, Jupiter, and the crescent Moon. Amateur astronomer Ian Sharp, who lives in Ham, England, just sent me two videos. The first shows the Moon (you can’t really see it, but trust me, it’s there) covering the shimmering disk of Venus. The second video shows Venus reappearing from behind the Moon’s edge. Astronomers call such an event an occultation. In this case, the Moon occulted Venus. Because of the geome...

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So what does Comet 96P/Machholz smell like?

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

This week, Astronomy.com reported some intriguing comet research at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. A Lowell scientist, Dave Schleicher, studies the chemistry of comets. He and his colleagues recently found that Comet 96P/Machholz 1 has a weird chemistry. Machholz is extremely low in a chemical called cyanogen compared to other comets. The Lowell researchers think it may be a totally new class of comets, possibly cooked up billions of years ago in a very different way than their comet comrades in...

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December 5-12, 2008: Kemble’s Cascade, open cluster M36, and barred spiral galaxy NGC 925

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see Kemble's Cascade, open cluster M36, and barred spiral galaxy NGC 925. Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS. --Start transcript-- Each week, I highlight three different night-sky targets for you to see:One object you can find wi...

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Planetary conjunction reflection and pictures

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

Astronomy magazine’s offices are located in an office park off I-94 in Waukesha, Wisconsin. I’m one of the lucky people here blessed with a corner window that provides a pretty wide view of the sky.In summer, I watch wicked thunderstorm systems scudding due east on their way to die over Lake Michigan. During early evenings — when you can sometimes find some of us in our offices dotting i’s and crossing t’s on the latest astronomical discoveries — pastel sunsets drape the sky. But today I see sno...

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Pictures of November 20 Canada meteorite

Posted 15 years ago by Matt Quandt

One of our friends from Canada, Richard Huziak, sent us these pictures of meteorites from the November 20 fireball. Here's the message he sent along with the images: First picture: Approx 1.5Kg, ~8cm in diameter Second picture: Approx 100g, ~ 5cm in diameter (piece of the inside, ablated in flight slightly after fracturing) Third picture: 38.6g, 5cm x ...

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January 2009 issue Web extras

Posted 15 years ago by Karri Ferron

Now that the January 2009 issue is in the mail, we’ve updated Astronomy.com with our newest Web extras that give subscribers exclusive complementary information to the magazine articles. This month, we preview some stories to look for in 2009, explore a recent survey of the Milky Way, and offer PDF of the van den Bergh catalog to download. Take a sneak peek inside the January 2009 Astronomy magazine If you subscribe to Astronomy, make sure you’re registered with Astronomy.com so you can ac...

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November 26-December 5, 2008: Venus and Jupiter, open cluster M38, and spiral galaxy NGC 1365

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the Venus and Mars, open cluster M38, and spiral galaxy NGC 1365. Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS. --Start transcript-- Hello, I’m Astronomy magazine Senior Editor Michael Bakich. Each week, I highlight three differen...

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Q&A with Stephen J. O’Meara about his new binocular book

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

This month, Cambridge University Press published Astronomy columnist Stephen James O’Meara’s latest book for stargazers, Observing the Night Sky with Binoculars. The book — billed as “a simple guide to the heavens” — is for beginners. This is a new direction for Steve, who has published several guides to observing deep-sky objects with telescopes. I asked him why he wrote the book and how readers could benefit from it. Pendick: How did this book come about? When and how did you get the idea...

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November 21-28, 2008: Alpha Persei Association, open cluster M103, and spiral galaxy IC 342

Posted 15 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the the Alpha Persei Assocation, open cluster M103, and spiral galaxy IC 342. Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS. --Start transcript-- Hello, I’m Astronomy magazine Senior Editor Michael Bakich. Each week, I highlight three differ...

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One small step for ... Ooops!

Posted 15 years ago by Daniel Pendick

I just received a media advisory from James Oberg, a contributor to Astronomy and noted space historian. And I learned something new — something historic. Something I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t know. It appears that many video producers continue to misrepresent Neil Armstrong’s comments the day he stepped onto the Moon (that's Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin pictured at right). Oberg explains it best:The National Geographic Channel is running “Expedition Week” with several space-relate...

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New Mars rover naming contest

Posted 16 years ago by Karri Ferron

NASA just announced a contest for students to name the Mars Science Laboratory rover that is scheduled for launch in 2009. In cooperation with Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures’ movie WALL·E, NASA is inviting students ages 5 to 18 who attend school in the United States to submit essays explaining the reasoning behind their suggested name for this car-sized rover. Essays must be turned in by January 25, 2009, and NASA will announce the winning name in April 2009. The grand-prize winner will rec...

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Teaching future scientists

Posted 16 years ago by Karri Ferron

NASA announced a great new opportunity for teachers to use the space program’s discoveries as educational tools in their classrooms. The NASA Endeavor Science Teaching Fellowship Project will award 40 one-year fellowships to educators during the next 5 years. These fellowships will allow teachers to translate current NASA science and engineering projects into usable information for students in grades K–12.According to NASA, the goal of the project is to help these educators “inspire the next gen...

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Live update from the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory inauguration

Posted 16 years ago by Matt Quandt

Astronomy magazine Contributing Editor Martin Ratcliffe filed this report from the inauguration of the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory in Malargue, Argentina. Ratcliffe sent us this update and images while the event was underway! Thanks, Martin! November 14 is an exciting day for cosmic-ray astronomy. The inauguration of the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory’s (PACRO) southern site took place this afternoon in Malargue, Argentina. Nestled beneath the majestic snow-capped Andes Mountains...

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Shuttle Endeavour ready for liftoff

Posted 16 years ago by Karri Ferron

Today’s the big day of Endeavour’s STS-126 mission (assuming the weather holds up), and I must admit that I’m pretty excited. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been fascinated with space travel, specifically the launches. I never actually wanted to be an astronaut (too afraid of flying and not much of a risk taker), so I live vicariously through the men and women who do have the opportunity to be blasted off into space. I can’t even imagine how thrilling liftoff must be for them, but I plan on w...

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November 14-21, 2008: Pleiades star cluster, open cluster M34, and the Little Dumbbell Nebula

Posted 16 years ago by Michael Bakich

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the Pleiades star cluster, open cluster M34, and the Little Dumbbell Nebula. Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS. --Start transcript-- The Pleiades star cluster, open cluster M34, and the Little Dumbbell Nebula are visible in...

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Fomalhaut exoplanet discovery Q&A with NASA scientist

Posted 16 years ago by Daniel Pendick

The discovery and optical imaging of Fomalhaut b, a planet orbiting the nearby star Fomalhaut, has wider implications for exoplanet science. I talked to NASA scientist Marc Kuchner about it. Kuchner works in the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He uses computer models to study the effect planets have on interplanetary dust.Kuchner (pictured at left below) and Christopher Stark, a graduate physics student at University of Maryla...

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On the road: Advanced Imaging Conference preview

Posted 16 years ago by Michael Bakich

This weekend, 270 avid astroimagers from around the world are converging in San Jose, California, for the 2008 Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC). And guess what? I’ll be there, too.AIC’s board of directors invited me to speak at the conference because of the buzz Astronomy generates among astroimagers. Our magazine represents the largest audience available to photographers who target celestial objects. What’s more, many comments from imagers tell us we’re doing a great job of reproducing images....

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