Monthly Archives: October 2009

The moon will be fat and bright this Halloween evening as you’re out trick-or-treating. Enjoy a fright! Illustration: Bob king with Stellarium. Be scared. Be very scared. The moon is almost full tonight and will rise over the costumed masses … Continue reading →

To find Mars, start with Orion and his Belt. Shoot a line downward from the Belt to brilliant Sirius and then go up in nearly a straight line from Sirius to Procyon and onward to Mars. You’ll recognize the planet … Continue reading →

Meet G1.9+0.3, the Milky Way’s most recent supernova that nobody saw. This composite photo was created from three images. The red was taken by the light of X-rays with the Chandra space telescope in 2007; the blue by the Very … Continue reading →

Students in the community ed astronomy class react as they get their first look at the moon (top) and Jupiter through the big telescope at the UMD planetarium last night. Photo: Bob King I teach a community education class in … Continue reading →

 – UPDATE: 10:30 Weds. Oct. 28 – I’ve been getting e-mail from some of our readers that Firefox and perhaps other browsers are preventing them from viewing this site. Messages such as "malicious code" or "this site may harm your … Continue reading →

The sky as you face east around 11 o’clock local time. A host of new constellations, each with a first magnitude star, are gaining ground in the evening hours. Created with Stellarium As October rounds the corner headed for November, … Continue reading →

This photo of the sun and sunspot group 1029 was taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) earlier today. SOHO is located about a million miles from Earth in the direction of the sun at a place called the First Langrangian Point. Here, where … Continue reading →

The leaves translated the winds into a hundred fluttering dialects all summer long but now they’re off the job and pasted to the ground. Mostly. It’s amazing how a season can change in just a week’s time. We’ve gone from … Continue reading →

A sure sign of clear skies overnight — the frosted edge of a leaf. Photo: Bob King Our evenings have been so cloudy around here I’ve switched to mornings for telescopic observing. The only drawback to spending time at the … Continue reading →

Highlights from our planet updater for this coming week include Mars’ close approach to the Beehive star cluster and the moon-Jupiter pairing on the 26th. Illustration: Bob King Clouds have returned to the region for the time being but don’t … Continue reading →