[reposted for 2012 without alteration from 2011]
It’s Groundhog Day! I know…it’s hard to contain your excitement. It’s that day each year when a mammal is held up in front of a crowd of people. If it’s a sunny day and the groundhog cared about such things, he could see his shadow and we would have [...]
This month’s installment of “Gateway to the Stars” will take place on Saturday, February 11 instead of the normal first Saturday of the month.
You think living on Mars would be dangerous and difficult? Try just getting there!
Of the 38 Mars mission launched from Earth so far, exactly half of them arrived at Mars in operating condition.
A case in point is the Russian “Fobos/Grunt” (in English we would call it “Phobos/Soil”) mission launched last November that was intended [...]
We may have passed the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21, when the sun takes its lowest path across the sky) and the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” (Dec. 25, when the ancient Romans first noticed the sun’s path climbing higher again), but the nights are still long as winter marches on.
Happy Perihelion 2012!
Okay, so it’s not a commonly-celebrated event. Nevertheless, January 4th, 2012 is a significant date for the year, at least astronomically. Perihelion occurs on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012. This marks the time when the Earth is closest to the Sun for the year. Yes, I said closest. ‘Peri’ comes from the French for [...]
There is a total lunar eclipse coming up on Saturday, December 10th, 2011. This eclipse is best for viewers in Australia and east Asia. The eclipse will not be visible at all for viewers in west Africa and South America.
Here in Utah (and the intermountain west) we may get a brief glimpse of the beginning [...]
During the first half of November the planets Mercury and Venus will appear close to each other in the evening sky. The challenge is seeing them. The difficulty arises from the geometric relationship between Earth’s axis tilt and its orbit at this time of year. We will experience a 25 hour day on Sunday, November 6 as Daylight Saving Time ends. The Leonid meteor shower peaks on the evening of November 17, but light from a last quarter moon will interfere with the view for those observing after midnight.
After departing Mesa Arch, I arrived at a parking area near the beginning of the path to False Kiva. I surmised that a quick hike to the Kiva would just give me enough time to set up and get aligned. This is probably the trickiest place I have done astrophotography due to the difficulty in [...]
Are you someone who enjoys dark nighttime skies? Celebrate the dark skies of Wayne County, Utah at the second annual Heritage Starfest, Friday September 30 through Saturday October 1, 2011. Heritage Starfest allows gazers the opportunity to view the night skies while encouraging preservation of the dark skies of the Colorado Plateau.
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