Archive for the ‘Observing’ Category
Wednesday, August 27th, 2025
Saturn is back in the late evening sky again for 2025 and easy to find in the southeastern sky after about 10:00, in the western part of the constellation Pisces. The ringed world has been getting higher in the sky daily, making for better views each week.
Opposition is on September ...
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Monday, June 30th, 2025
If you check deeper into the meaning of "month", you quickly find Earth's moon right at the center of the explanation. It turns out that the ancient Babylonians pretty much started this examination in the years around 500BC. These early mathematicians and astronomers took extra care in watching and noting ...
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Tuesday, June 10th, 2025
The night sky is peppered with all kinds of star patterns that have fascinated human kind for untold centuries. These patterns were thought to be gods and creatures of all kinds, kindly (mostly) looking over our affairs here on Earth. For the grander groups of stars, we save the name ...
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Thursday, March 20th, 2025
For this first installment of "The Constellations" series, I am going take the opportunity to begin with perhaps my favorite of them all, Orion.
Orion is one of most recognizable star patterns in the sky and is often depicted as a male human figure, for example, The Hunter. The Greek mythology ...
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Friday, December 6th, 2024
The planet Jupiter is putting on a great show all night for the month of December. It will be closest to Earth on Dec 6 and reach opposition the next day.
The web site EarthSky is a great place to go for all kinds of insights into our solar system as ...
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Wednesday, October 30th, 2024
Daylight savings time is almost gone for the year so Jupiter is back in view during evening skies, coming up in the east around 9:00PM. The DST shift grants even more time for catching the King of Planets. Once it clears the treeline, about 10:00PM or so, you can enjoy Jupiter ...
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Thursday, January 18th, 2024
"The Constellations", a series on the 88 modern day constellations with details on the major stars & deep sky objects, mythology, and history of these wondrous patterns in the night sky.
updated 2-24-24
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Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024
The shortened days of the winter months grant an extra chance to get out under the stars. Even with cold weather forcing star gazers to "rug up", there are at least several objects that appear early enough in the evening such that you don't have to brave the chill for ...
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Sunday, June 18th, 2023
In part one of this post, I described the basic use of Sky View Cafe for planning your viewing of Venus. I hope you've already had a chance to see our sister planet off in the west after sunset. It's been a lot fun showing people how Venus goes through ...
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Wednesday, May 31st, 2023
Our sister planet Venus has returned in the western sky for Spring 2023 into July 2023. She will be with us for a number of weeks. This post will be the first one to discuss observing Venus this summer but the topic has been a favorite of mine for a ...
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