By David H. Levy
This month let us explore one of the seminal galaxies in the nigh sky, NGC 253, Caroline Herschel’s galaxy. It shines deep in the southern portion of the sky, south of the bright star Beta Ceti and southeast of the even brighter star Fomalhaut.… Continue reading.
By David H. Levy
As a youngster growing up in Montreal, Canada in the early 1950s, I was impressed by the seeming simplicity of Montreal’s weather. It appeared to me as though there were just two kinds of weather, in wintertime a grey sky, and in summertime a blue sky.… Continue reading.
By David Levy
Pons-Brooks: A comet for the centuries.
When David Rossetter and I began our observing session at the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association’s Chiricuaha Astronomy Complex on the evening of August 5, 2023, we did not expect that we would be treated to an evening of cosmic history.… Continue reading.
By David H. Levy
Despite what you read online, it is possible to think of meteor watching as one of the most boring things you can do with the night sky. No cosmic connection, no postulating about the origins of the Universe, no understanding of what dark matter might entail.… Continue reading.
by David H. Levy
One of the first astronomy books I ever read was John Benson Sidgwick’s Introducing Astronomy. Thew book was published in 1959, a year after his death. In it was a large section in which each constellation was introduced, along with interesting things to see in each one. … Continue reading.
By David H. Levy
I shouldn’t have been surprised by the complete success of the Artemis mission last fall. NASA’s A team of engineers really know what they are doing. The mission was fun to watch, particularly the brilliant light when the main engines lit up, and it provided some hope that we may actually return to the Moon, someday soon.… Continue reading.
Dear readers,
What follows is the most difficult article I have ever written. On Friday, September 23, 2022, my wife Wendee died. She had been suffering from metastatic breast cancer for over a decade, but this past summer she was truly and clearly suffering.… Continue reading.
Dear Don,
You left us far too soon, my friend. From your home in California and later in Arizona, you lived quietly and well, with a passion for stargazing that dominated your life.
As the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “I am like a slip of comet,/ Scarce worth discovery.”… Continue reading.
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly stars and clusters seen;
Round celestial islands have I been
With telescope after telescope to the night sky hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That Galileo ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Baade speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new star cluster swims into his ken;
Through his majestic window looks upon the Milky Way
He star’d at the centre of our galaxy.… Continue reading.
Ever since I read Bart J. Bok’s foreword to Rose Wilder’s and Gerald Ames’ The Golden Book of Astronomy, I have marveled at what the night sky had to offer and how much of that has changed. “Such wonders,” Bok wrote,” fill this book.”… Continue reading.