Tag: Telescopes

Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 9/13/2020

Next week’s night sky: Wednesday marks the first quarter moon. Jupiter and Saturn will be to the right of the moon, seemingly in a line pointed at the moon. On Sunday, the golden handle appears on the moon. The “Golden Handle” effect is produced by the way the slanted sunlight lights up the prominent mountains of the moon. Best seen through some sort of magnification, the golden handle will appear as a small line trailing from the light side of the moon to the dark side. A […]

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The key differences between a space and ground telescope.

Astronomy hinges on that ability to observe the sky, and to do that we need telescopes. Astronomers have telescopes nearly everywhere on Earth and many more telescopes in orbit.  But why do we need telescopes both on the Earth and in space? Why not just figure out which location is better, and just put all our telescopes there? The answer is much more complicated than it seems. There are numerous arguments for space telescopes and numerous arguments for ground telescopes. Advantages of space telescopes The biggest advantage […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/26/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday, August 3rd, the moon will be a green corn full moon. This means that the moon is near the Aquarius or Capricorn stars, which always happens in August. On Thursday, August 6th, NEOWISE will pass Messier 53. This is a great photo opportunity if you have a good telescope! A destroyed cluster Scientists have recently discovered the long-lost remnants of a globular cluster ripped apart by the Milky Way! A globular cluster is a huge, spherical collection of more than a […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/19/2020

Next week’s night sky The moon will reach its first quarter on July 27. Under some magnification, the sunlight striking the craters and the valleys along the terminator that separates the light and dark sides will be quite interesting! On Tuesday, July 28, the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower peaks at around 3 in the morning! This shower commonly drops around 15-20 meteor per hour, so 15 minutes of looking should get you to see at least 5 meteors! Meteors usually come in clouds, so they will […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 6/21/2020

Next week’s night sky: The  Boötid meteor shower is active! This shower only rarely produces significant numbers of meteors, usually only at most 1-2 per hour. However, on those rare occasions, when it is extremely active, viewers can see up to one hundred meteors per hour! For observers in the middle of the United States, the best time to watch will be right after nightfall. Because most meteor showers occur at around 2 in the morning, this is an amazing opportunity for most casual watchers to try […]

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