Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 24, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 ■ High above the Moon this evening, by 3 or 4 fists at arm’s length, shines Altair, the southernmost star of the Summer Triangle. The other two, Vega and lesser Deneb, are nearly overhead. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 ■ By 10 or 11 p.m. bright Jupiter […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, September 18, 2023, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 ■ Look very low in the west-southwest in early twilight for the waxing crescent Moon. Can you see Spica twinkling 3° or 4° lower right of it? Use binoculars. Then look due west, about 25° to the right of the Moon, for Comet Nishimura at […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 27, 2023, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, AUGUST 28 ■ 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 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 15, 2023 Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report. MONDAY, AUGUST 14 A winter preview: Step out before the first light of dawn this week, and the sky displays the same starry panorama it does after dusk around Christmas. Orion is striding up in the southeast, with Aldebaran and then the Pleiades high above it. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 15, 2023 Mercury brightens this week but remains lost in the glow of sunrise. It is best seen 30 or 40 minutes before sunrise, well to the lower left of brighter Jupiter. Venus is the brilliant “Evening Star” in the west from twilight into late evening. It’s not as high in […]
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 […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, March 20, 2022 Highlights for the week of March 18-26, 2022 Spot Arcturus very low in the east-northeast after nightfall and higher in the east later in the evening. By modern measurements Arcturus is visual magnitude –0.05, making it the fourth-brightest nighttime star. It’s bested only by Sirius, Canopus, and Alpha Centauri. […]
April 25, 2017 On April 12, as the Sun was blocked by the disk of Saturn the Cassini spacecraft camera looked toward the inner Solar System and the gas giant’s backlit rings. At the top of the mosaicked view is the A ring with its broader Encke and narrower Keeler gaps visible. At the bottom […]
Aug. 1, 2016 [CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute] What’s behind Saturn? The first answer is the camera itself, perched on the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting behind the planet with the most grand ring system in our Solar System. The unusual perspective places Cassini on the far side of Saturn from the […]
