Cosmic Pursuits

Basic astronomy and night sky information

Recent Astronomy Articles at Cosmic Pursuits

Emergent Crystals

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Science

We normally cover really big things in these pages, things like planets, stars and galaxies. But the cosmos is ultimately built from very small bits and pieces that organize themselves on a tiny scale that are at least as beautiful as anything to be seen in the night sky. This video, created by Beauty of Science, shows at an accelerated pace the formation of six kinds of crystals out of solution. Whereas many astronomical objects coalesce because of gravity, these crystals are made from a beautiful interplay of electric forces, geometry, and quantum mechanics. Quite a beautiful sight!

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Careening Through Carina

by Joe Bergeron Filed Under: Deep Sky

The star cluster NGC 2516 in the constellation Carina. Image credit: Sergio Equivar.

In dark sky, northern-hemisphere observers can see the winter Milky Way as a featureless, inconspicuous band of haze running east of Orion and disappearing below the horizon south of the constellations Canis Major and Puppis. In light-polluted sky, the winter Milky Way is hard to see at all. But further south, into the far southern constellation Carina, the Milky Way suddenly explodes into one of its brightest, most spectacular, and most detailed sections, running through Crux, Centaurus, and beyond [Read more…] about Careening Through Carina

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Touring the Small Magellanic Cloud

by Joe Bergeron Filed Under: Deep Sky

The Magellanic Clouds low over the horizon as seen from Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Andes. Image credit: ESO/Yuri Beletsky.

The best way for an amateur astronomer to literally expand his or her horizons is to venture to the hemisphere opposite your home, to take in the starry wonders hidden from view by the pesky curvature of our globe. This is especially true for natives of the Northern Hemisphere, because the southern circumpolar sky offers some of the most spectacular sights available to any observer. Fine as the Big Dipper and the Double Cluster may be, they struggle to compete with the Magellanic Clouds and the southernmost parts of the Milky Way.

This is the philosophy that led to my three visits to New Zealand. I’m writing this from the Bay of Islands on the North Island, at 35o south latitude. I’ll share some of my observations in this inaugural edition of my observing column, Eyes on the Deep Sky. [Read more…] about Touring the Small Magellanic Cloud

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The Star of Good Fortune, and Old Age

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

The star Canopus, low in the sky and left of center in this image, lies well below the constellation Orion, at top center, and Canis Major (at upper left). As seen from the Winter Star Party, near Summerland Key, Florida, in 2017.

Canopus is located in the southern constellation Carina, the Keel, and it is by far the brightest star in the constellation. At a declination of about -52o, Canopus never rises above the horizon for observers north of 38oN latitude. Many northerners catch sight of it while travelling south for winter vacation.  Almost directly south of Sirius, Canopus is just visible in the months of northern winter from southern Spain and Portugal, and from the southern United States. In the southern hemisphere, these two brightest stars are directly overhead in the evening summer sky [Read more…] about The Star of Good Fortune, and Old Age

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