Mercury to Transit Sun on Vets’ Day Three bright planets are visible in the evening sky in early November. But first, let’s talk about a fourth planet, Mercury, and a ...
Outer Gas Giants We know from last month that this summer was a splendid time for convenient evening viewing of the two largest gas planets, Jupiter and Saturn. Likewise, this ...
One hundred years ago the largest telescope in the world was the historic 100-inch-diameter (2.5 meter) John D. Hooker reflecting telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory, just north of the greater ...
Partial Solar Eclipse at Sunrise June 10 Partial Solar Eclipse. Photo by WASI Webmaster, Tom Milley You might want to start looking for those eclipse glasses you squirreled away from ...
Up and Away Into the Wild Butterscotch Yonder NASA's Ingenuity helicopter drone takes it's third flight on Mars. Photo Credit: NASA's Perseverance Rover. Space art of the Martian surface from ...
Signs of Sunspot Cycle Returning to Normal Sunspots on the sun during the last total solar eclipse visible in North America, August 21st, 2017. Photo Credit: WASI Webmaster Thomas Milley ...
Interstellar Coordination Image Credit: Tom Ruen / CC BY-SA 3.0 When it comes to locating objects in the night sky, how does one convey its precise position? The sky is ...
Winterized Sky Targets It’s been a year since the great Westminster twister of February 7, 2020. That’s the EF-1 tornado that carved a path through Carroll County including West Main ...
Excellent Jupiter & Saturn Conjunction Way back in 1997 this column carried a summary of explanations for the legendary “Star of Bethlehem.” It won’t be repeated this month. However, one ...
Leonid Meteor Shower and Penumbral Lunar Eclipse This month has a couple of solar system events happening overhead. Also, Mars, although well past it’s favorable opposition that was discussed here ...
Is the Great Pumpkin Rising? No, It’s Mars Mars--Photo Credit: NASA. "The most prominent feature is the southern polar cap, a tiny white dot on the south edge of Mars." ...
Did COVID-19 Come From Space? Few have probably noticed that throughout the current year this column has refrained from referencing or acknowledging the ongoing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The reason for ...
Choppering Around the Titan Moon Space travel is a great way to get from point A to point B when those points are worlds apart. But how do you move ...
Sunspots and Star Spots During an approximately six-month period from October to April, the massive bright star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion the Hunter dropped by 40% in brightness. Astronomers ...
Trains of ‘Starlink’ Satellites Spreading Across Night Sky Photo Credit: SpaceX. Deployment of the first StarLink Satellites, February 2020. After a soggy day last month, the night sky cleared and ...
