Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 11, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, MAY 11 ■ What is the oldest thing you have ever seen? For everyone in the world it’s at least the Sun and other objects of the solar system, age 4.6 billion years. (Virtually everything on or a little way under Earth’s surface is much younger.) Next […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, April 20, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, APRIL 20 ■ Find Procyon high above brilliant Sirius in the southwest right after dark. Look upper left of Procyon by 15° (about a fist and a half at arm’s length) for the dim head of Hydra, the enormous Sea Serpent. His head is a […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, April 14, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, APRIL 13 ■ Vega, the bright “Summer Star,” rises in the northeast these evenings. How early or late depends on your latitude and also on your longitude within your time zone. Exactly where should you watch for Vega to come up? Spot the Big Dipper […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, April 8, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, APRIL 6 ■ The Big Dipper stands high in the northeast these evenings, tipping over to the left dumping water. Its handle plus the two stars of its bowl closest to the handle form a broad, rough arc. To the right of the arc, not […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 28, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, MARCH 2 ■ February was Orion’s month to stand at his highest in the south in early evening. Now March pushes him westward and spotlights his dog, Canis Major with Sirius on his chest, standing center stage on the meridian. Sirius is not only the […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, February 24, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23 ■ Have you ever seen Canopus, the second-brightest star after Sirius? It lies almost due south of Sirius, by 36°. That’s far enough south that it never appears above your horizon unless you’re below latitude 37° N (southern Virginia, southern Missouri, central California). […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, January 27, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, JANUARY 27 ■ While the evenings are still dark and moonless, use big binoculars or a telescope to hunt down the 8th-magnitude globular cluster M79 in Lepus below the feet of Orion. Summer is the season for most globular clusters, but here we have a rare […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, January 20, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, JANUARY 20 ■ Zero-magnitude Capella high overhead, and zero-magnitude Rigel in Orion’s foot, have almost the same right ascension. This means they cross your sky’s meridian at almost exactly the same time: around 9 p.m. now, depending on how far east or west you live in […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, January 13, 2025 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, JANUARY 12 ■ Mars is nearest to Earth tonight, appearing 14.6 arcseconds wide and magnitude –1.4. That’s as bright as Sirius, which sparkles whitely about four fists to Mars’s lower right in early evening, and directly below Mars when they’re highest around midnight or 1 a.m. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, December 30, 2024 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29 ■ As the year nears its end, Orion fully comes into his own. He’s striding up the east-southeastern sky as soon as it gets dark, with his three-star Belt nearly vertical. Left of the Belt is orange Betelgeuse and right of the Belt […]
