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K-1 is Going Kaput
A rare cosmic event, a comet breaking apart, is now visible to people living in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Our Sweet Lemmon
When I was a young lad, devoid of optical instrumentation and a lot of other things cerebral, I thumbed through astronomy books and gazed at magnificent drawings of ancient comets that lit up the night time sky, and could even be seen in daylight! Imagine that! And I did. Of course, photography had advanced by…
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Winter is Coming
Indeed, winter is coming. There’s no news in this headline, but for those of use who enjoy the expanding, wide windows of night sky, winter is the best time of the year. I’m clearing leftover photos off the screen of my desktop computer and I’d thought I’d share them. On the morning of October 10,…
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M31: The Finest Fruit of the Autumn Sky
It’s October 1, 2025, and I have finished my latest book, “John Mayasich—Immigration Roots to Olympic Gold.” It should be available on Amazon.com in a few weeks. It’s a compelling story about a truly remarkable family and their Croatian immigrant parents who raised 11 children in northern Minnesota. One child, John Mayasich, absorbed everything important…
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Leo’s Trio Chase the Seven Sisters
Hi everyone. Glad you’re still here. Leo’s Trio is an arresting mix of galaxies which fit comfortably in the field of view of most small telescopes. On the evening of March 16, I had to slightly expand the roughly .75 by 1.25 degree field of view in the SeeStar S50 to comfortably fit the threesome…
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Crabbing Around the Winter Nights
This week, on a fairly transparent night, I drove our vehicle about a half-mile out from the western shoreline of Lake Winnebago to go fishing. No, not for the prehistoric sturgeon that humans in nearby area zip codes like to hunker over and spear, savagely, through a rectangular hole in the ice, but to fish…
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The Rosette Returns
On a recent night that would chill emperor penguins of the Antarctic, the little wonder-scope that is the SeeStar S50 stood outside our frosty family room window and went to work. Grinding away in minus 8 Fahrenheit temperatures, the S50 with its modest two-inch triple lens spent about two hours photographing the sky in a…
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Tourist Stops in the Winter Night Sky
Your intrepid astronomer visits more than a few astronomy sites during his infrequent online trekking. This time of year, nearly everyone who photographs the night sky has proof that they have visited popular winter sky tourists stops. Many of the modern amateur portraits are stunning. Equivalent to the American Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park or…
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Seeing All Seven of the Sisters
The weeks zip by, quick as meteors in the night. It’s been a while since your intrepid astronomer planted his sack of potatoes beneath the starry night. Clouds, travel, moon-washed evenings, and life all sometimes conspire to keep us from what we love doing. When the doing arrives again, cosmic serenity seeps in to remind…
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Nomads of the Night
This Nomad of the Night is not the Comet of the Century. It’s the Comet of the Month, arriving before our eyes in late September and emerging in early October to give us a three-week visual thrill. As this modest ice-rock continues its quick fade into the cold, inky darkness, we now know that this…
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The Comet of the Century Arrives
We are the only civilized society that will ever witness Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Comets are mysteries. We are more mysterious. Will humans evolve or devolve on our path up the stairway? It makes me wonder.
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Who Really Named the Crab Nebula?
William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse is credited for giving the Crab Nebula its forever nickname, but that’s not true. Rosse first thought M1 was a cluster, but once he built a larger speculum-mirrored telescope, he changed his mind. Two fellows who observed with Rosse on occasion get credit for naming the Crab Nebula.…
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The Siren Call of a New Comet
Every time your intrepid astronomer hears that a comet is coming, I get weak in the knees and head for a place where I think it will be visible. Comets have the same power over all of us who see, scan, observe and shoot photos of the sky. Comets are Sirens of the Solar System.…
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Reflections of Venus
We have this image, but that is only part of this picture, or any picture. No one can present the pleasant odors the moment the photo was taken before that promising new day, nor can any photographer recreate the waking sounds of that end-of-night moment, gazing across the lake, amazed that the beam of Venus…
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Veil Discovered 240 Years Ago Today
If you are reading this on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, William Herschel discovered the Veil Nebula 240 years ago today. Herschel, who sometimes spent 16 grueling hours a day grinding mirrors, lived at what he called Observatory House near Slough England, 20 miles west of London. His home was located at 52.88 degrees north latitude,…
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Cosmic 