Astronomy Articles

Late last week I was able to get a few more pictures of Comet PANSTARRS. The one immediately below, taken by me, shows the comet on the 21st. I did a little processing, but not much - mostly just some contrast. However, as I was playing with the contrast, I notice something about the comet's tail. There's more there than meets the eye.

Messier 67 gets no respect. It's the smaller open cluster in Cancer the Crab, always overshadowed by the more impressive Messier 44 (clearly, as Charles Messier himself even wrote down the Beehive as an "object" to round out his initial list before ever spotting M67). But that doesn't mean it's not worth viewing.

When comets orbit the sun, if they create a tail, it generally points away from the Sun. On March 13, I caught a picture of the comet, with it's ~1.5 degree tail aimed slightly towards the south. Last night the equation changed.

The lunar "S" is a feature on the Moon visible at the right phase and time. It can be seen near some prominent craters. Here's where to look.

Binoculars for astronomy are best when they provide a low magnification, wide field of view. In addition to providing a substantial exit pupil of light leaving the eyepiece, when chosen at a weight of two pounds or less with fully coated surfaces, they can provide substantially more light reaching the user's eyes and assist in observing wide fields of much fainter objects than the naked eye can see.