Basic astronomy and night sky information
Never let a clear sky go to waste! After a quick look with binoculars at the Orion Nebula and the other features in and around the Sword of Orion, I tried to capture the same view with a quick snapshot through a DSLR. This view shows the Sword region framed against tree limbs over Washington, D.C.
Taken with an unmodified Nikon D750 with Nikkor 70-200 mm f/4 lens at 200 mm, 2 seconds, ISO6400.
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Newcomers to astronomy and casual stargazers are sometimes disappointed by their first glimpses through a telescope, especially when looking at deep-sky sights like star clusters, galaxy, and nebulae. They look through the eyepiece, see a dim smudge without much detail or any color, and conclude that one dim smudge looks like all the others. Some become disillusioned, wonder what all the fuss is about, and take up bird watching instead.
Like most activities, however, looking through a telescope takes a little skill and practice. But once you get the hang of it, you can learn to see an astonishing amount of subtle detail, even in a small telescope. The image of a distant galaxy or star cluster in your telescope will never rival the pro-quality photographs you see in books and magazines. But with a little practice, you’ll learn to observe subtle detail and structure in faint objects that even the best cameras will never capture. Here are a few tips to help you get the best view of ‘faint fuzzies’ through a telescope… [Read more…] about How to Look Through a Telescope
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You can spend thousands of dollars on a big, advanced telescope, hundreds more on the best eyepieces money can buy, and still not see much of anything at all. Unless, that is, you know you to extract maximum light and detail with your eye. There are two concepts every stargazer should know to get the best visual views: averted vision and dark adaptation. Here’s how it all works… [Read more…] about How to See – Averted Vision and Dark Adaptation
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In 1991, stargazer Steve Cariddi walked into a Boston bookstore and noticed most desk calendars were about cats, or puppies, or sailboats. There was not a single astronomy calendar in sight. So he decided to create his own, and in late 1993 he published his first “astronomy and space” desk calendar. He’s been publishing these calendars every year since. And now he’s released the large-format ‘Year in Space’ wall calendar for 2018 [Read more…] about The 2018 ‘Year in Space’ Calendars Now Available
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For better or worse, the year 2017 finally comes down to its last month. Our planet, to be sure, has had better years. But the heavens, as always, offer respite.
This month has many beautiful sights and events for attentive sky watchers. The Moon acts as your guide in December to the planets and bright stars along the ecliptic, especially the brightening planets Mars and Jupiter in the pre-dawn sky. Saturn finally disappears westward into the Sun for the year after a fine apparition in 2017, while Venus disappears eastward into the Sun’s glare by mid-month. There are two fine meteors showers in December. And the seasons change once again as winter begins in the northern hemisphere and summer begins in the south. Here’s what to see in the sky this month… [Read more…] about The Sky This Month – December 2017
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