What’s Up in the Night Sky? – October 2020 by Fred Barrett
October is a beautiful month for observing the night sky. The bugs are mostly gone, temperatures are comfy with a little help from a sweater and darkness comes early and lasts through to a late sunrise. This October is especially exciting. As mentioned in last month’s column, we have a… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – September 2020 by Fred Barrett
If you haven’t already, start getting excited about Mars! Every two years and 50 days, a Martian year, Mars is in opposition –the Earth passes between Mars and the Sun and the 2 planets are as close as they can be in their orbits. Since the Earth’s year is roughly… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – August 2020
The summer nights in August are still long, giving us more time for observing. This is great because the main event this month is the annual Perseid meteor shower. Comet Neowise was a good show last month (I didn’t put it in my column - I thought it would break… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – July 2020 by Fred Barrett
What a month for planets! Wild banded Jupiter and ringed Saturn are up all night by mid month as they move from the southeast through to the southwest. After the beauty of Saturn’s rings, it’s hard to beat observing Jupiter’s four most prominent moons as they shift and dance in… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? June 2020 by Fred Barrett
The Moon is leaving us! Well, not right away. I’ve mentioned in a few columns over the past few years that the only reason that we have a solar eclipse is that the Moon is at the exact right distance to block the Sun completely. In the very distant past,… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? May 2020 by Fred Barrett
Well, Comet Atlas was a bust! I said in my April column that it might disintegrate and it did just that. It broke into multiple fragments and now needs a good telescope to be seen. But as luck would have it, there is a new comet that has the potential… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – April 2020 by Fred Barrett
In these times of isolation and distancing, there’s still an activity that provides plenty of fresh air, awe and delight. Observing the night sky can be done solitary or shared at a safe talking distance from others without diminishing the enjoyment. A caution: be careful about sharing equipment without careful… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – March 2020
Did you know that the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth? Planetary scientists are pretty sure that the Moon is the result of a glancing collision with another huge planetary body some 4.5 billion years ago. The debris from that glancing blow coalesced over a few million years… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – February 2020 by Fred Barrett
I’ve always wondered how a galaxy could be more than 27 billion light years from Earth when the universe is roughly only 13.7 billion years old. A light year is considered a unit of distance and indicates how far you can go in one year at the speed of light… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – December 2019 by Fred Barrett
We have 2 special highlights this month. The Geminids , arguably the best annual meteor shower, makes its annual appearance on the night of December 13/14. It is a truly spectacular shower that is viewable from December 4th to about the 17th. It peaks in the very early morning of… READ MORE
Night Skies - November
This month we have the annual Leonid meteor shower gracing our skies. This shower peaks near dawn on November the 18th but is active from about November 6th to the 30th. Start actively watching after the 6th and you’ll note that their numbers slowly increase to the peak on the… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – October 2019
by Fred Barrett Welcome to the best observing time of the year - no bugs, the temperature is reasonable and darkness arrives early enough to haul the kids out to share the observing sights with you. Midsummer may have a few more spectacular deep sky objects than the rest of… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – August 2019 by Fred Barrett
Happy Perseid Meteor shower! Every amateur stargazer worth their love of the heavens looks upwards every August for the spectacular sky shower centered in the constellation Perseus. It’s the annual big one and this year it should be no different. Earth has entered the debris ring of the comet Swift-Tuttle.… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – July 2019 by Fred Barrett
This month marks a truly historic anniversary of an event which is arguably one of the most historic achievements of humanity – landing human beings for the first time on another world. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon on July 20th, 1969. Their… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – June 2019 by Fred Barrett
This month, we will talk about nothing again, but we will take a circuitous route to reach our empty destination. Be patient! First, we have to talk about one technique that astronomers use to measure the distance to a distant point in space. I have talked of this before, but… READ MORE
What’s Up in the Night Sky? – May 2019 by Fred Barrett
I thought that for this column, I would begin by describing a picture of nothing. “Nothing?”, you say! Well actually, I’m being a bit misleading. The first real picture of a black hole was released by scientists of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration on April 10th. Black holes have such… READ MORE
