Tag: Night Sky Network

3 Min Read September’s Night Sky Notes: Marvelous Moons Jupiter’s largest moons, from left to right: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto. Credits: NASA by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific September brings the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn back into view, along with their satellites. And while we organize celebrations to observe our […]

2 min read August’s Night Sky Notes: Seeing Double by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific During the summer months, we tend to miss the views of Saturn, Jupiter and other heavenly bodies. But it can be a great time to look for other items, like globular star clusters such as Messier […]

3 Min Read July’s Night Sky Notes: A Hero, a Crown, and Possibly a Nova! Like shiny flakes sparkling in a snow globe, over 100,000 stars whirl within the globular cluster M13, one of the brightest star clusters visible from the Northern Hemisphere. Located 25,000 light-years from Earth with an apparent magnitude of 5.8, this […]

4 Min Read Tropical Solstice Shadows June 20, 2024, marks the summer solstice — the beginning of astronomical summer — in the Northern Hemisphere. Credits: NASA/DSCOVR EPIC Solstices mark the changing of seasons, occur twice a year, and feature the year’s shortest and longest daylight hours – depending on your hemisphere. These extremes in the […]

2 min read June’s Night Sky Notes: Constant Companions: Circumpolar Constellations, Part III by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific In our final installment of the stars around the North Star, we look ahead to the summer months, where depending on your latitude, the items in these circumpolar constellations are nice and […]

3 min read Binoculars: A Great First Telescope A pair of good binoculars can show craters on the Moon around 6 miles (10 km) across and larger. How large is that? It would take you about two hours to hike across a similar-sized crater on Earth. The “Can You See the Flag On the Moon?” […]

2 min read March’s Night Sky Notes: Constant Companions: Circumpolar Constellations, Part II by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific As the seasons shift from Winter to Spring, heralding in the promise of warmer weather here in the northern hemisphere, our circumpolar constellations remain the same. Depending on your latitude, you will […]