Clik here to view.
Two Views of Titan
This is Saturn and its largest moon, Titan, as seen by the Cassini Probe. Titan is a fascinating moon with a thick atmosphere and lakes of liquid methane. Cassini recently captured this image of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Philae lands on Comet 67P, perhaps twice!
Philae, the little lander that hitch-hiked to Comet 67P aboard the Rosetta Spacecraft, landed today. Perhaps twice! The above image is, as of this moment, the latest image we have. It’s taken from 3KM...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Philae probe bounces on a comet…
Rosetta and Philae are now in contact again, and we have more detail on yesterday’s landing, including the first part of a panoramic image of the probe’s surrounding, including what looks like a craggy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Journey of the Imagination
Erik Wernquist, a Swedish computer animator, has produced a remarkably beautiful little film called Wanderers. A labor of love, Wanderers, which refers to the ancient Greek names for planets (wandering...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To all the telescopes I’ve loved before…
I’ve tried a lot of telescopes since I got back into astronomy as an adult after the harrowing weeks around September 11th. In part I am on a search, familiar to a subgroup of amatuer astronomers, for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Telescopes I have known, part II
In the first part of this post, I talked about three telescopes I owned in the years following the reignition of my passion for the night sky in 2001. I won’t follow a strict chronological order in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Visit Vesta on a Vespa…
…okay, not really. But Dawn, NASA’s ion drive-propelled space probe launched in 2007 is a better ride anyway. Dawn visited Vesta, a protoplanet in the asteroid belt, in 2011, and just arrived around...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bicycle Astronomy Makes a Housecall!
Yesterday was my first day on the Bicycle Astronomy cargo bike in many months. I rode to work and then to the grocery store to reprovision the Spartan Manor travel trailer. When I left the store with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two Astrophotos From the Spartan Observatory
The other night I finally got a chance to try a new tool out at the “dark” skies at the Spartan Observatory. Though just north of Geneva city limits, the site’s strength is the near-complete lack of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Carl Sagan Institute Opening: Two Rules for Science Communication
On May 9th, I was privileged to attend the opening of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell. It was a wonderful day. I met Ann Druyan, and I unexpectedly had a chance to catch up with Ian Cheney, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bicycle Astronomy hits Startalk Radio’s Blog!
I’m super excited. I was asked to write a blog post for the blog of Startalk Radio, Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s podcast series. It was about the Bicycle Astronomy project, and how I approach science outreach...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Black Forest Star Party Notes!
I just returned from a wet but spirited Black Forest Star Party at the wonderful Cherry Springs State Park in north-central Pennsylvania. I was one of the event’s speakers and my topic was The Night...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Diversity (in Science) is Essential
When I read Justice Robert’s questions about the value of diversity in the physics classroom, I immediately thought about one of the most powerful stories I ever encountered: The Autobiography of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To all the telescopes I’ve loved before…
I’ve tried a lot of telescopes since I got back into astronomy as an adult after the harrowing weeks around September 11th. In part I am on a search, familiar to a subgroup of amatuer astronomers, for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Telescopes I have known, part II
In the first part of this post, I talked about three telescopes I owned in the years following the reignition of my passion for the night sky in 2001. I won’t follow a strict chronological order in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bicycle Astronomy Makes a Housecall!
Yesterday was my first day on the Bicycle Astronomy cargo bike in many months. I rode to work and then to the grocery store to reprovision the Spartan Manor travel trailer. When I left the store with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Carl Sagan Institute Opening: Two Rules for Science Communication
On May 9th, I was privileged to attend the opening of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell. It was a wonderful day. I met Ann Druyan, and I unexpectedly had a chance to catch up with Ian Cheney, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrival: First Contact with Grace, and Ideas
Many science fiction films devote huge budgets to world-building, creating a place that feels real and allows us to experience what we can only imagine. Unfortunately, for too many of those films the...
View Article
