A Visit to the ZWO Factory and a Glimpse of the Future of Amateur Astronomy
Recent Astronomy Articles at Cosmic Pursuits
Going Analog with the North America Nebula
“These are the last days of the waning year;
High in the west now stands Deneb,
Great Star of the Cross…”
– Robert Burhnam Jr., Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, vol. 2.
An icy blast of cold and snow landed across the western Canadian prairies this week, but it wasn’t quite cold enough to keep me from having a long last look at the stars of northern summer now fading fast in the western sky. Scanning slowly with a pair of wide-field ‘constellation’ binoculars, I took in the stars of Lyra and Aquila, Delphinus and Sagitta, and the open star cluster IC 4665 near the asterism of Taurus Poniatowski that spells out a contradictory “HI” as it heads below the horizon until spring. But I reserved my final gaze of the evening for one of my favorite patches of sky near the star Deneb at the top of the Northern Cross and the adjacent glow of NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, about 3o to the east. [Read more…] about Going Analog with the North America Nebula
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A Visitor from Beyond: Comet 3I/ATLAS Rounds the Sun
It’s a comet! No, it’s an alien spaceship! No, it’s probably just a comet. But Comet 3/I ATLAS isn’t just any comet. This speedy little visitor, which was discovered by the ATLAS survey telescope near Río Hurtado, Chile, on July 1, 2025, is only the third confirmed interstellar comet or asteroid ever observed in our cosmic neighborhood. It’s a free ‘sample delivery mission’ from another star system, and it may help reveal secrets and insights about the nature and composition of other stars and planets in the Milky Way [Read more…] about A Visitor from Beyond: Comet 3I/ATLAS Rounds the Sun
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The Pleasures of Ugly Astrophotography
A thread on the astronomy forum Cloudy Nights a couple of years ago explored the possibility of capturing quick ‘snapshot’ astrophotos with small but sensitive monochrome cameras and inexpensive, small-aperture lenses of less than 25mm (!) aperture. Even better, this approach used no astronomy mount or tracking at all, just a fixed camera tripod and a PC to capture and stack each image over the course of a minute or two. Lightweight, cheap, simple.
It seemed like a preposterous idea. So of course I had to try it!
[Read more…] about The Pleasures of Ugly Astrophotography
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Einstein, Immortality, and the Stubborn Illusion of Time
On March 15, 1955, Albert Einstein learned of the death of his close friend Michele Angelo Besso at the age of 81. An engineer by training, Besso attended university with Einstein and worked with him at the Swiss patent office, serving as a supporter and sounding board for some of the great scientist’s early and most profound ideas. Upon hearing of his friend’s passing, and although he himself was ill with only weeks to live, Einstein sent a letter of condolence to Besso’s family in which he wrote this beguiling passage:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Some might dismiss this passage as comforting words to a grieving family. But this was Albert Einstein writing, and Einstein knew a thing or two about time and space. He must have meant something here, perhaps something profound, but what? [Read more…] about Einstein, Immortality, and the Stubborn Illusion of Time
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