EYES TO THE SKY  November 25 – December 8, 2019 Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Moon at dusk. Mars, Mercury dawn   Innermost planet Mercury puts on its best morning display of the year for Northern Hemisphere observers from late November to early December.  This looping animation shows the changing configuration of Mercury, Mars and Virgo’s brightest […]

EYES TO THE SKY November 12 – 24, 2019 Transit of Mercury yesterday, Venus and Jupiter meet on the 24th Mercury Emerges: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took this image of the May 9, 2016 Mercury transit’s final minutes with its Atmospheric Imaging Assembly. Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system – slightly larger than […]

Eyes To the Sky October 28 – November 10 Worldview: Origin of our Sun, solar system, ourselves “Fly Like An Eagle” Nebula imaged by Astrophotographer Terry Hancock, Grand Mesa Observatory and Down Under Observatory. All rights reserved. During the dark time of year here in the northeast, our visual environment is more of the moon […]

EYES TO THE SKY October 15 – 27, 2019 Morning stars for late risers, meteors The evening sky at 7:30 p.m. on October 14, 2019. Great Square of Pegasus, upper left. Milky Way sweeps up through the Summer Triangle. Diagram: Judy Isacoff/Starry Night I am always giddy at the turning point of the season when […]

EYES TO THE SKY September 30-October 13, 2019 Amateur astrophotographer soars: The Eagle Nebula   Eagle Nebula by Ken Blumberg, Plainfield, MA, July 29, 2019 Looking through a telescope, we travel in light years. One light-year is equal to 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers or nearly 6 trillion miles. The Eagle Nebula, pictured here, is about 7000 light years […]

EYES TO THE SKY     September 16 – 29, 2019 Protect the night. It is good for you  As the Sun’s arc shortens in the skies of Earth’s northern hemisphere, we approach equal day and night.  Soon after the autumnal equinox, which occurs on September 23 this year, darkness expands over daylight. We will see more […]

EYES TO THE SKY  September 2 – 15, 2019 Seasonal change written all over the sky As September begins, it seems abrupt that the dark of night comes early, the light of day comes late and a new chill in the air reverses embedded routines for how to respond to summer heat. All the while, […]

EYES TO THE SKY July 22 – August 4, 2019 The Eagle has landed The Eagle Prepares to Land – The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle,in a landing configuration was photographed in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Module Columbia. Inside the Lunar Module were Commander Neil A. Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz […]

EYES TO THE SKY   July 8 – 21, 2019 All night planets Saturn, Jupiter. Overnight astronomy holiday Infrared Eye Yields New Spectral Map. The false-color image at right shows spectral mapping of Saturn’s A, B and C rings, captured by Cassini’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer. It displays an infrared view of the rings, rather […]

EYES TO THE SKY June 24 -July 7, 2019 Country nightlife, fleeting Mercury, celestial triangle June 24 9:45pm. As darkness gathers, the star Deneb marks the northeast corner of the Summer Triangle. To its right, brighter Vega and, below, Altair. Note the large equilateral triangle shaped by Vega with Archturus, above right, and Jupiter, below, in the southeast. image […]

EYES TO THE SKY June 10 – 23, 2019 Jupiter shines all night. Sun’s longest day A pivotal celestial event occurs this evening, June 10: Planet Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, rises in the southeast opposite the setting Sun in the northwest. The king of the planets, a brilliant star-like light, will […]

EYES TO THE SKY May 28 – June 9, 2019 The Spring Triangle – an asterism   While writing my recent column about bright stars in the south at nightfall, I was reminded of patterns those stars shape in addition to the position each has in an official constellation. Arcturus is the brightest star in […]

On springtime evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, extend the handle of the Big Dipper to arc to Arcturus, spike Spica and slide into the constellation Corvus the Crow. This arc is sometimes called the spring semicircle. The Crow’s bill is pointed toward the Virgin’s jewel, Spica, as if it were waiting for a chance to grab […]

Evening twilight, end of April, first days of May. image: Starry Night, Judy Isacoff For delight in discovery plan to observe many fleeting moments that mark the movement of the seasons and other special events in the sky this week. Beginning with the short window of evening twilight, bid farewell to the scintillating stars of […]

“Lightning Bugs” 2012 by Donald R. Pettit, NASA astronaut The spectacular image, above, was produced by Donald R. Pettit, a NASA astronaut, from multiple photographs captured during Expedition XXXI of the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting 240 miles above Earth.”It is a star trail and Earth image showing massive thunderstorms. The white flashes are lightning […]

The seasons result from the Earth’s rotational axis tilting 23.5 degrees out of perpendicular to the ecliptic – or Earth’s orbital plane Everyday movements of the planets, stars, moon and Sun, through day and night, are “aha” moments when we remark the changes of the positions of celestial bodies in the sky and in relation […]

At this moment every year, we meet to observe with delight the first signs of spring in the sky, before the earth thaws. The increasing light and heat of the Sun and the re-appearance of spring stars Regulus and Arcturus in the evening sky are heralds of flowering elm trees, blooming willows and alders, redwing blackbirds, and, […]

It was nearly 7 a.m. and 14 degrees under a pale blue sky dappled with speeding, silvery-outlined golden clouds just overhead. I was north of town, in the countryside, walking swiftly to an opening in the forest for a view to the southeast where planet Venus might still be visible. Once there, I scanned above […]