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The Astronomer at the Museum: Max Ernst and Wilhelm Tempel

One of the great things about astronomy is how it connects you to so many spheres of human thought and activity, both scientific and cultural. You never know when some unknown link is suddenly revealed, and you learn something remarkable. My latest “astrocultural” discovery was at the Museum of Modern Art, which in the fall of 2017 exhibited a large selection of its extensive holdings of works by the prolific German surrealist artist Max Ernst (1891-1976).

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Cosmic Challenge: Arp 82

You have undoubtedly heard of the Leo Trio, made up of M65, M66, and NGC 3628. But how about the Leo Trio 2? The Leo Trio 2 are tucked snuggly into the constellation's northernmost quadrant, some 7° north of the Leo "sickle."

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March 2020 Skies

Highlights: Comet Journal, Martian Landers, Meteor Showers, Vernal Equinox, Planet Plotting, March Moon Focus Constellations: Pisces, Andromeda, Aries, Perseus, Auriga, Taurus, Orion, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Lynx, Camelopardalis, Ursa Major, Draco, Ursa Minor, Cepheus, Cassiopeia

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Cosmic Challenge: Arp 82

The constellation Cancer the Crab may not be much to look at, but it holds some fascinating objects within its emaciated body. Case in point: Arp 82, the 82nd entry in Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. Made up of NGC 2535 and NGC 2536, Arp 82 is a strange pair that seems to be experiencing a galactic version of arrested development.

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A Look at the Future of Amateur Telescope Makers

Telescope making in particular is one of the facets of amateur astronomy that for so long has begun to drastically shrink in size and to perhaps seem due to disappear entirely. After all, with the availability of the omnipresent Chinese-made telescopes that have all but cornered today’s market, there’s little economic incentive to build your own scope - even at the largest apertures like 20 inches, mass manufacturing has begun to eat away at the surface-level basic cost advantages in doing it yourself.

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My Experience using SkyWatch for the Alphea All Sky Camera from Alcor Systems

The Alphea 6CL AllSky Camera is a well-made ruggedized outdoor color camera with equally ruggedized connectors. There is no bubble level to aid vertical alignment. The Alphea camera is very expensive given the accompanying SkyWatch software is not reliable and the user interface not well thought out. The software has the feel of an explorative research project into what can be done with an AllSkyCam. The overall slow performance is unimpressive. I discovered many bugs and quirks. It includes many features, which are not well documented. This along with almost non-existent user support makes for an expensive and frustrating AllSky Camera experience. Given the present state of the software, the user might want to consider AllSkyEye. In summary, given all the issues I found with SkyWatch, I would still look forward to a significant software update because SkyWatch does show much promise.

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BASIC EXTRAGALACTIC ASTRONOMY - Part 4: Luminosity Distance, Cosmic Dimensions, Cosmic Magnification

The only primary evidence available to an astronomer about a very remote object consists of photometric measurements, a spectrogram, and an image which is in many cases no more than a pinpoint of light. In this article we present basic cosmological concepts and simplified mathematical methods which allow an amateur to derive from this meager data a surprising number of physical properties of distant extragalactic objects with a precision of several percent within professional results.

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Astroart 7 - A Review and "How To" (Part 1)

This tutorial/review will be a 2 part series. We will discuss in this series the capturing process from start to finish and then part 2 will delve into the processing of your acquired subs.

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February 2020 Skies

Highlights: Comet Journal, Martian Landers, Meteor Showers, Celebrations, Planet Plotting, February Moon Focus Constellations: Pisces, Andromeda, Aries, Perseus, Auria, Taurus, Orion, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Lynx, Camelopardalis, Ursa Major, Draco, Ursa Minor, Cepheus, Cassiopeia

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Cosmic Challenge: February 2020 NGC 2298

Although most globular clusters line the summer sky as they huddle around the core of our galaxy, there are a few renegades that have stepped out on their own to occupy regions far beyond the rest. One such globular, nestled behind the rich Milky Way star fields of Puppis, is NGC 2298.

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