kai

I haven't seen much on wildtexas about astronomy, aside from how bright 'that planet' (mercury, i think it was) was last year. But because camping goes hand in hand with the stars, I'll pass on this neat website I found via an express-news online article.

this is the express-news article: Skywatch: San Antonio gets a rare treat this week here's what all the excitement is about: " Canopus never is visible from most of the northern United States. Lucky San Antonio viewers can find the night sky's second-brightest star in the constellation Carina." The article isn't really an article- its more of a conglomeration of facts tossed in together with abandon, but its all interesting to look at.

the webpage I went to as a result of that article was www.heavens-above.com its pretty cool- you can plug in your coordinates, or look up the coordinates for your city, and heavens-above gives you more information about astronomy for where you are at than I can fathom (and this is after taking 2 astronomy courses in college- of course, they were after lunch, and the lights were off...). The website supplies you with sky charts, sun & moon data, other planet data, satellite information, etc... more information than I'll ever need, I am sure. The customized whole sky chart is what I find really appealing- it has all sorts of possibilities for travel information (the next time I go to hawaii, or washington state, or boston I'll be able to print out a sky chart before I go ).

Is anyone out there in wildtexas land also interested in astronomy? Once again, this is one of those things I was mildly interested in at one time, but let slip by years ago (and have since forgotten so much about...). Perhaps its time to dig out that old textbook.

Shannon

It was Venus, which remains bright for the early part of this year though its diminishing. You're right, though, I don't write enough about astronomy; the most I've ever commented on it was after my experience seeing the horizon-to-horizon Milky Way while camping in Big Bend National Park in 2001. :eek:

Very cool link -- if it's not already in our Wild Texas Texas Astronomy Web Guide, it will be later today!

I don't own a "real" telescope, but I still have the Edmund Scientific red reflector scope my parents bought me as a kiddo. I spent many a night in our backyard to meteor and satellite-watch and try to learn the constellations. My astronomy skills are sadly lacking, but I still get a lump in my throat looking up at the night sky -- it's beautiful and wonderous to me (I wanted to be an astronaut so badly as a kid, but my math skills just aren't there... )

While I was camping at Guadalupe River SP last weekend, a Boy Scout troop was there (very well behaved) and they had two big (computer controlled?) scopes set up. I so much wanted to crash their campsite that night and have a look myself, but I figured that was not the polite thing to do -- plus, they had a LOT of kids there, and I imagine it took quite some time to let each of them have a turn at one of the scopes, much less any of the adults that were with them.

There are some awesome astronomy related websites out there, some Texas-specific and others worldwide in focus. If you notice any glaring omissions in our Texas Astronomy Web Guide or General Astronomy Web Guide, feel free to shoot me an email or submit a link suggestion. I'd love to grow that category more... Someday we'll budget for a telescope. At least I have some nice Swift binoculars that are not only superb for birding, but also for casual night sky observation; those were a wedding gift from Justin (he's the better gift giver, by far; I gave him some L.L. Bean luggage, since he was travelling a fair amount at the time on business.)

__________________
- Shannon Moore
Your Host @ WildTexas.com