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Dark Day in Doniphan
We rolled into Doniphan, Missouri about two hours before the April 8 eclipse shadow darkened the highway town of about 2,000 people. We found an empty parking lot behind the Doniphan Baptist Church and waited for the shadow. The sky was spring blue, with sprigs of altocumulus clouds the only visible threats to photographic clarity.…
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Three Photos From March 28
If you’re reading this on Monday, April 1, we’re one week away from a potentially spectacular celestial event. Whether you are able to see the solar eclipse on April 8 depends on where you are and what portions of earth are covered by clouds on the afternoon of the day. The path of totality sweeps…
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A Comet Returns
I heard that a periodic comet known as 12P/Pons-Brooks was visible in the evening sky, hanging out in the constellation of Andromeda. So I packed my SeeStar S50, kissed my wife and drove west on Highway 44 to get a little darker sky and a better view of the western horizon.
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Flaming Starfish
In 2024, while photographing the Horsehead Nebula, I discovered NGC 2024, also known as the Flame Nebula. It looks like an earthen flame, but a case could be made to call it the Tree of Life nebula. Either way, it’s a spectacular object with dark clouds of gas and dust that create shadowy lanes that…
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Late Winter Sun Spotting
A particularly interesting sunspot group is currently making its thirteen-day trip across the face of the sun. When I first spotted it a few days ago, both the umbra and penumbra were rectangular shaped, especially the penumbra, which had a state of Iowa feel to it. The two photos at the top were taken on Feb.…
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Williamina’s Horsehead
Before we discuss her horse head, let’s meet Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming. Born in Dundee, Scotland in 1857, Williamina’s intellect shimmered like the Venus over the horizon. Her father died when she was seven. At age 14, to help support her mother and eight siblings, she worked as a teacher. When she was 20, Williamina…
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The Night Sky Clears
It has been a calendar month since the sky over Oshkosh, Wisconsin has been clear of clouds and free of turbulence. I have been as patient as a statue waiting to explore the wondrous winter constellations, but as the nights and weeks ticked by, I began to wonder whether the weather would ever cooperate again.…
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Origins of the Crater Tycho
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO know what phase the moon was in 109 million years ago when a six-mile-wide asteroid slammed into the moon’s southern highlands. From Earth, dinosaurs thriving in the Cretaceous Era would have noticed the conflagration a quarter of a million miles away. For days and nights that followed, major impact debris flying high…
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An(other) Eclipse is Coming!
ON APRIL 8, 2024, we in the Lower 48 will be treated to another total solar eclipse. The band of totality begins in Texas, travels north through Missouri and ends in New England, a truly long snake of suspense. This is the second time in seven years that the continental United States will be treated…
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December Dancing
WE HAD TWO days of mostly clear skies earlier this week. I took advantage of those back-to-back days to use the SeeStar S50 and photograph the sun and the moon. The photographs show how fast each body is spinning, and in the sun’s case, how often sunspots change during their magnetic minuets. SUN DANCE As…
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M45 & The Outer Limits Galaxy
THE SKY BEHAVED on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. We had a seasonably warm (47 degrees) sunny day here on the west coast of Lake Winnebago, and when the sun quit the sky at 4:16 p.m., the temps were still in the mid-30s. I am fond of this time of year because the canopy of stars…
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Having Fun With M31
AS WITH ANY new piece of technology, the more one uses it the better one understands how it works, or doesn’t work. So it is with the SeeStar S50, the two-inch, triple-lens device that I hope serves as a celestial bridge for millions of new amateur astronomers. Two nights ago, under fairly clear skies in…
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Sunspot Cycles
The first known observation of dark spots on the sun was made in China in 800 BC. Early in the 17th century, telescopes were used in astronomy for the first time. Thomas Harriet observed the moon in November 1609 and Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti Galilei observed Jupiter on January 7, 1610. In 1843, the German…
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The SeeStar S50
I learned about the ZWO in a chat group. A friend mentioned it’s great for tracking asteroids when they pass in front of faraway stars. I decided to buy one out of curiosity. It used to cost $399, but now it’s around $100 more. I ordered it on July 30 and it took a while…
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Cosmic 