On the night of March 4th, the Denver Astronomical Society held their annual spring banquet and announced the 2023 Executive Board. The dinner was delicious and the company was wonderful, with new members and old members alike joining each other to hear from Dr.… 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.
By Daniel Acker
The 1988 movie and now cult classic, Beetlejuice, is where most people will recognize this name from. However, the origin of the name is quite a bit older, and derives from the Arabic term bat al-jawzā, or “the giant’s shoulder”.… 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.
SLS Launch Further Delayed – Following previous technical delays, the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket returned to the safety of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building before the landfall of Hurricane Ian. After confirming that it suffered no damage, NASA announced they’re likely to make another launch attempt in November.… 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.
New JWST Images – James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) astronomers have continued to release new images. Among them is a mosaic covering an area about eight times the size of Webb’s First Deep Field released in July. The mosaic was made for the CEERS program, which is surveying a fraction of one square degree of sky with JWST in various infrared wavelengths.… 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.
Webb Observations Released – NASA released the first full-color images and spectra taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, that weren’t alignment or test images. The telescope operates in infrared, so for humans to be able to see Webb images, the wavelengths detected are shifted to visible light wavelengths such that they appear to be color images.… 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.