Special to CosmicTribune.com, October 16, 2023, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15 ■ Now that it’s mid-October, Deneb has replaced Vega as the zenith star after nightfall (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes). MONDAY, OCTOBER 16 ■ The Great Square of Pegasus is now high in the east-southeast after dark. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 ■ Look for bright Capella […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, October 3, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1 ■ The waning gibbous Moon rises in the east-northeast around the end of twilight. Ten or fifteen minutes later, Jupiter rises just 2° or 3° to the Moon’s lower right. Later in the evening the two shine high, as shown below. These are currently […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 4, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 ■ Jupiter’s four bright Galilean moons are roughly the size of our own Moon, but at 1,800 times the distance, they appear in a telescope as hardly more than pinpoints. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot should transit the planet’s central meridian tonight around 1 a.m. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 21, 2023, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, AUGUST 21 ■ Different people have an easier or harder time seeing star colors, especially subtle ones. To me, the tints of bright stars stand out a little better in a sky that’s the deep blue of late twilight. For instance, the two brightest […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 10, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 ■ The Big Dipper hangs diagonally in the northwest after dark. From its midpoint, look to the right to find Polaris (not very bright) glimmering due north as always. MONDAY, AUGUST 7 ■ A few Perseids trickle in starting in late July, then they […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 17, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, JULY 16 ■ The tail of Scorpius is low due south after dark, to the lower right of the Sagittarius Teapot. Look for the two stars especially close together in Scorpius’s tail. These are Lambda and fainter Upsilon Scorpii, known as the Cat’s Eyes. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 13, 2023 May is the month when the Milky Way is altogether missing from the evening sky, for those of us living in the latitudes of the continental United States. That’s because the Milky Way now lies all the way around the horizon in a circle, and the North Galactic Pole […]
Analysis by CosmicTribune.com, July 21, 2022 What are we to make of the new images ostensibly from the James Webb Space Telescope? “These aren’t photographs. They are data visualizations!” noted Tim Fernholz in a report for Quartz. So are we to take these spectacular presentations on faith and the word of the Biden White House […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, March 23, 2022 2MASS J17554042+6551277 is the coordinate-based catalog designation of the star centered in this sharp field of view of the world’s largest space telescope which was launched on Dec. 25, 2021. The diffraction pattern is created by the 18 hexagonal mirror segments of the James Webb Space Telescope. After unfolding, […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com By Bill Federer, Aug. 25, 2018 The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), made a major contribution to the scientific revolution by discovering that the planets revolved, not around the Earth, but around the Sun. Copernicus, who had a doctorate in cannon (church) law, wrote: “The Universe, wrought for us by a supremely […]
