Archive for the ‘Observing’ Category
Saturday, February 24th, 2024
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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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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Wednesday, December 13th, 2023
It's just about the Winter Solstice and the really short days are here. Jupiter is back in view during early evening skies, coming up in the eastern sky right after sunset. Daylight savings time is gone for the year so the shift grants even more time for catching the king ...
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Sunday, August 27th, 2023
Saturn is back in the evening again for 2023 and easy to find in the southeastern sky, in the constellation Aquarius. The ringed world has been getting higher in the sky daily, making for better views each week.
Opposition is on August 27-28 for this apparition and the rings are around ...
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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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Saturday, March 7th, 2020
As you may have figured out by now, I have been using Sky View Cafe for quite a while. Occasionally, I find something new (or quirky) so I thought I would bring a few things to your attention.
First, I like to set the calendar tab as my default view since ...
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Saturday, February 29th, 2020
One of the interesting aspects of observing our Moon is that many features are only visible during certain times within the full cyclic phasing of the moon. Details come and go depending on the angle of sunlight reflecting off the lunar surface and coming back to Earth. As Galileo noticed ...
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Friday, February 7th, 2020
This time of year is a great time to reconnect with The Big Dipper in Ursa Major and it's cousin the Little Dipper, in Ursa Minor. Even though Daylight Savings Time is going push dusk well into the evening, you will still be able to follow these great asterisms into ...
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