Cosmic Pursuits

Basic astronomy and night sky information

Brian Ventrudo

Science of Stargazing – Layout of the Night Sky

Filed Under: Fundamentals of Stargazing

In this lesson you learn the basic layout of the celestial sphere, the vast dome of sky which appears to surround the Earth. This knowledge will help you find and follow stars, planets, and constellations in the night sky and help you understand how the sky appears to change from month to month. You also learn an easy way to measure angles in the n...

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Introduction to Nightscape Imaging

Filed Under: Fundamentals of Stargazing

Do you want to take an image like this one? This spectacular vista, take with a modern DSLR camera and processed with off-the-shelf software, is an example of nightscape imaging, a form of photography that uses elements of landscape photography and astrophotgraphy. In this video interview with David Kingham, you learn the basics of this challengin...

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Urban Astronomer’s Survival Guide

Filed Under: Fundamentals of Stargazing

So what can you see in light-polluted urban and suburban skies? Enough for a lifetime of viewing. With a small telescope, you can see hundreds of star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, and double stars. Not to mention the Moon and planets. There is no shortage of things to see. It’s just a matter of getting out there and seeing it.
This bonus lesson con...

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Around the Moon in 28 Days

Filed Under: Fundamentals of Stargazing

Around the Moon in 28 Days: Lunar Observing for Beginners is a self-paced course that includes notes along, dozens of maps, and illustrations to take you on a tour of the Moon’s surface over each day of the nearly month-long lunar cycle. You’ll learn to find nearly 200 distinct features on the Moon’s surface, all of which you can see with a small t...

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The Taurus Molecular Cloud

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

The Taurus Molecular Cloud, to the lower left of the Pleiades and lower right of the California Nebula in this wide-field image. The Hyades star cluster in Taurus is at middle right; the star Capella in the constellation Auriga is the bright star at left. Image credit: Brian Ventrudo

Not far from the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters along the northern Milky Way lies the coal-black fingers of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Unlike the more famous Orion star factory, with the dazzling Orion Nebula and associated bright blue-white stars, the TMC is not well known to most stargazers. That’s because it doesn’t offer much to see, with no bright nebulae and just a dark and sooty network of tendrils that span more than 30o of sky. But the TMC is the nearest star-forming region to Earth, making it of considerable interest to astronomers. It’s also a rewarding target for astrophotographers who can capture its structure against the starry background in the constellations Taurus and Auriga [Read more…] about The Taurus Molecular Cloud

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