Tag: skywatching
member name: Dave Sandborg
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November 01, 2009 10:39 PM EST --
If one wants to look for particular things in the night sky, one has to pay attention to the time and season. Planets come and go depending on their own orbits. More regular are bodies outside . . .
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November 17, 2008 09:45 PM EST --
If you have any clear nights toward the end of this month (they have been pretty rare for me lately) it'll be an ideal time to watch some prominent members of our solar system on the move. By . . .
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November 19, 2009 08:29 PM EST --
Over the past months, Mars has been getting gradually more prominent in the sky. It is well worth observing in its own right, but if you have the patience to watch it carefully over the course of . . .
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June 29, 2008 10:32 PM EDT --
Watching the sky almost tautologically means looking upwards. But there is one circumstance where skywatching might mean looking down--when you are up in the sky yourself in an airplane. Even . . .
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May 28, 2009 09:22 PM EDT --
In the years I've watched the sky, I've seen all the planets but one (as long as you accept the recent fate of Pluto). That one elusive planet is Neptune. It is possible for even an amateur . . .
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December 11, 2008 11:52 PM EST --
Everybody loves a good sunset. Even the most ordinary sunset can be a beautiful experience. But if you keep a sharper eye out, you can see some phenomena that are not just beautiful, but interesting . . .
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January 27, 2006 04:40 PM EST --
In my last skywatching article, I mentioned that Mars was approaching the Pleiades star cluster. Since the Pleiades are a beautiful sight in their own right, let me write a little about them too.
The . . .
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March 20, 2007 07:06 PM EDT --
Perhaps the most beautiful of all atmospheric phenomena has the most awkward of names. The circumzenithal arc at its best, is a display of spectral colors that is even more brilliant than the better known . . .
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July 30, 2008 09:12 PM EDT --
Since ancient times, observers have noticed that the stars, though they move through the sky from day to day and throughout the year, keep their same positions relative to each other. But there were . . .
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September 29, 2008 09:30 PM EDT --
Many astronomical phenomena, even some visible to the naked eye, are noticeable only to the most careful of observers. Of such phenomena that anybody could see if they just looked carefully enough, . . .
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February 07, 2006 11:15 PM EST --
This month represents about as good an opportunity possible to see the most elusive of the planets visible to the naked eye--Mercury. It is said that Copernicus himself never saw the planet with his own . . .
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December 19, 2005 11:16 PM EST --
For many years, I've been interested in the sky. I'm equally interested in astronomy and meteorology, which leads me to watch both the day and night sky. I also mostly confine myself to naked eye . . .
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February 28, 2006 10:43 PM EST --
Romantic as the full Moon may be, it is not a favorite among most observational astronomers. It is simply so bright that it washes out other objects. If you compare a night with a full Moon to one without, . . .
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February 28, 2007 08:46 PM EST --
Most people would describe the color of clouds as white or grey, but a closer look shows that this is not always so. There are a host of optical effects that can lead to other colors in clouds. . . .
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January 26, 2006 12:30 AM EST --
In my previous skywatching article, I mentioned several varieties of red stars. Now I'll talk about the famous Red Planet, Mars. To the naked eye, the color of Mars is similar to many red stars. In . . .
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March 19, 2006 09:02 PM EST --
A few weekends ago I saw a vivid example of a phenomenon of the daytime sky that's so common we often ignore it. I was in a car, riding south toward Chicago on a very cold winter's day. The distant . . .
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December 21, 2005 12:53 AM EST --
Today marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice. From now until June, the days will get longer. Since I can only take so much winter darkness, I always am glad . . .
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January 05, 2006 07:24 PM EST --
So far I've written about astronomical phenomena that can be seen only at night. But some of my favorite sights in the sky are visible in the daytime. Today I'll write about one of the first I . . .
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January 17, 2006 11:10 PM EST --
We usually think of stars as pinpoints of white light in the sky, but a closer look reveals that this is not true. Stars differ in more ways than brightness and position. In the winter sky, there's . . .
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February 02, 2006 12:31 AM EST --
I was planning to write an article about rainbows as springtime approached, since that is a better time to watch for them than winter, but I happened to see one just this past weekend. It was a beautiful . . .
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