The Backyard Astronomer
Sputnik and the “October Sky”
The dawn of the Space Age October 4th, 1957 was truly the beginning of a new age. While humans had spent the last few decades dreaming of, dabbling in, and testing their…
September 2022 – Jupiter
Two months in a row we are fortunate to have the largest of our Solar System’s Gas Giants put on a stunning display. While in August Saturn was at opposition, Jupiter will…
August 2022 – The Ringed Planet
The planet Saturn has intrigued astronomers – both professional and amateur – since Galileo first sketched what he thought were two odd-shaped moons on either side of the planet. His final telescope…
The Many Wonders of Boötes
In the early summer months, the constellation Boötes moves to the western sky. Adjacent the Big Dipper, some Ancient Greek Mythology tells of how Boötes invented the plough and was rewarded with…
Planetary Collisions and the Seasons
The early solar system was a violent place. We know this courtesy of modern telescopes and models generated by today’s supercomputers, allowing us to peer at clouds of gas around distant stars,…
Space Junk
The Earth has been estimated at a total mass of approximately 5.9722×1024 kg, or more commonly notated as 1 Earth Mass (ME). One Solar Mass – or the Mass of the Sun and notated…
The History of the Telescope – Refractor vs. Reflector
In 1609 Galileo pointed his rudimentary telescope at the heavens, finding three, and then four moons orbiting Jupiter. He combined two polished glass lenses, slightly convex at different angles, and was able…
The James Webb Space Telescope
As early as 1923, space telescopes were proposed to peer deeper into the universe, without the obstruction of the Earth’s tenuous atmosphere. By the 1970s congress had funded the first of these…
The Subaru Cluster
The dormant volcano Mauna Kea is the highest point in the Central Pacific and of the Hawaiian Islands. At such a height, the benefits of dry air above the clouds with little…
NASA DART Mission – Armageddon Version 2.0
When Billy Bob Thorton’s character approaches Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Steve Buscemi to save the world from impending doom in 1998’s blockbuster film “Armageddon” they only had 18 days to prevent…