This Tuesday, July 2nd, observers in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay will be witness to one of nature’s most awesome spectacles, a Total Eclipse of the Sun. A total eclipse of the sun occurs when the moon, at “New” Phase, perfectly covers the disk of the sun. Since the moon is 400x smaller than the sun,[…]
Well, I did it! Using the college’s 0.63m flagship instrument, I, along with colleagues, visually observed the second most distant globular cluster associated with our Milky Way galaxy! I’m fascinated with relics as they have a story to tell, a deep story of something very old, of a long-gone epoch, a bridge, if you will,[…]
Ever since it was discovered that the rotational dynamics of spiral galaxies were inconsistent with the observed mass of those galaxies, it has been postulated that missing mass or dark matter was responsible. With fellow staff-member Kent Ford, astronomer Vera Rubin announced at a 1975 meeting of the American Astronomical Society the discovery that most stars in spiral galaxies orbit at roughly[…]
As the last vestiges of the winter sky are low in the west at twilight, we look forward to the late spring and early summer sky. With Lyra the celestial harp ascending the northeastern sky towards midnight along with Cygnus and the rich summer Milky Way following close behind, we’re certain that spring is here[…]
The beauty of the night sky has inspired generation after generation from the dawn of recorded history and now, that vista, the essence of that inspiration, is under direct threat! Many famous poets, authors, scientists and philosophers have written about the stars, the universe and the night sky above and, sadly, what is absent in[…]
