AT THE WATER’S EDGE:
LIVING LIFE AND LEARNING ALL I CAN ALONG THE WAY
astronomy
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Looking Up: Saturn and…moon?
I was prompted by one of my cousins to get out my telescope tonight–after seeing a picture of hers on Facebook! I suddenly realized that it had been far too long since I’d gazed at the night sky. Sure it gets dark late now, but the weather is warm and I’m usually up late anyways!…
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The Northern Lights
From my understanding, the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, are caused by the collision of charged particles from the earth’s magnetosphere and solar wind with atoms in the high altitudes of the earth’s atmosphere. The earth’s magnetic poles guide these charged particles to the higher (and lower) latitudes, near the poles, where…
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The Night Sky: Planets & Moons
This summer, I was not as diligent about getting out to view the night sky with my telescope as I was last year. I realized that something was missing, that there was a reason the sky didn’t have the same allure as before: Jupiter was not out when I could view it this summer. Last…
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Ursa Major Don't Care and other tales of the sky
I haven’t spent as much time looking at the stars this summer as I ought to have. However, I have been able to catch several shooting stars and have learned to more easily identify a few stars in the sky, so I’ve had a little fun and I am making progress. Yesterday, Tom and I were outside…
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Summertime Constellations
I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend. We had a lovely trip to Northern Michigan with family, and I got to do some stargazing one night. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good chunk of time to look up at the night sky, which means it’s shifted a bit…
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Galaxy Hunting
Early in March, with the rise of the “Super Moon” – I started getting excited about getting outside with my telescope again. I found a list of things to look for in March, and found out that Spring is a good time to view galaxies within the Coma/Virgo Super Cluster. The only problem was weather. …
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The Rise of the Super Moon (and other adventures in astronomy)
I was excited to see all of the hype created by the so-called “super moon” – even if there wasn’t anything drastically different to see. I like it when the general population gets engaged in astronomy, as well as any opportunities to learn new things myself. This past Friday was one of the best clear…
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Pleiades, Auto Makers, and Gum.
One of my friends first introduced me to Pleiades last year. Pleiades is a star cluster located in Taurus that contains hundreds of stars, though only a few of them are visible to the naked eye. It has recently come into view again in my night sky (when there aren’t too many clouds, as there…
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Constellation of the week: Cygnus
Astronomy fascinates me. It always has. When I was in about first grade, I inherited an Atlas. The maps didn’t excite me much, but at the very beginning of the book was a 2-page spread of the night sky with stars and constellations labeled. This, I loved! I remember seeing the constellation “Delphinus” on there…
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Comet Hunting and Cosmic Discoveries
I have a telescope. I don’t use it as much as I should or want to, but I’m trying to fix that. So, when I found out that Comet Hartley 2 would be passing through our night sky over the course of a few weeks, I got excited – perhaps a little too excited. I…
At the Water's Edge 