Skywise Unlimited

Ursa Minor, the little bear, is a very important constellation because it is home to Polaris, the north star. It is also home to the Little Dipper which is very easy to find once you’ve actually found it. If you don’t see it right away just nod and say “Yeah. yeah I see it” but […]

Way down there near the south pole there is a constellation named Vela, the sails. The sails use to be part of a bigger constellation called Argo Navis which included the whole ship. That’s how it was 2000 years ago when Ptolemy made star maps with many of the names we still use today. As […]

Springtime is about Virgo and has been for a very long time. Thousands of years ago this constellation was known to many as The Seed Furrow but it eventually evolved into a lovely young fertile maiden, as in “spring brings all the boys to the furrow” (wink wink). Not that thee shall be beyond slut-shaming, […]

There is a tiny constellation near the southern pole of the sky named Volans, the Flying Fish. Unfortunately there is no cute little story here about a fish getting its wish to have wings or such. The only story we have is that this part of the sky was named by some Dutch guy named […]

The Fox and the Goose is a small constellation in the night skies of summer. It sounds like a fairy tale but one of the gruesome sort where the fox murders some poor goose. Of course a fox has to eat too, and probably has to feed a whole den-full of cute little baby foxes. […]

Cassiopeia the Queen She was the very beautiful queen of ancient Ethiopia. By all accounts men were mesmerized by her perfectly chiseled features, like she had really nice thighs and stuff. But this was before selfies so she spent most of her time sitting in a “W” shaped chair gazing at her face in a […]

Have you ever discovered a telescope eyepiece in the pocket of your pajamas? Have you ever measured your roof for a dome? Do you know how to pronounce Cassiopeia? If so, you may have wondered, “is there hope for someone like me?” The answer is no. But you can help others learn the basics of […]

“There is something in Stonehenge almost reassuring; and if you are disposed to feel that life is rather a superficial matter, and that we soon get to the bottom of things, the immemorial gray pillars may serve to remind you of the enormous background of time.” ~ Henry James 1875 CE I love Stonehenge. When […]

The old school definition of the planets was “Any of these seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, that shineth and wandereth about the starry heavens” or something like that. The specific language has been updated a few times over the years. In February of 2006 the International Astronomical Union (the […]

And who shall separate the dust Which later we shall be? Whose keen discerning eye will scan And solve the mystery? The high, the low, the rich, the poor, The black, the white, the red, And all the chromatic in between, Of whom shall it be said: Here lies the dust of Africa, Here are […]

What is the nature of interstellar dust? How does it affect the starlight that passes through it? What can be done to locate and catalog the numerous, small, tenuous dust clouds that populate our galaxy at the higher latitudes? Is it possible to somehow vacuum under my refrigerator without moving the damn thing? The nature […]

The significance of the “Copernican Revolution” is that as soon as you embrace the Sun as a star, you are immediately faced with the possibility that when you look out into space, someone or something is looking back. Before Copernicus most people thought the Earth was pretty much the whole Universe so the idea of […]