Several months ago I discovered Astroterm, a terminal-based astronomy program that can draw the night sky with ASCII characters. It’s fun. Open it up on a workspace, let it run, and when I need a mental recharge I can kick over to it and see where the planets and major stars are. One really neatContinue reading “Visualizing the Milky Way”
Category Archives: Astronomy
A Planetarium in the Terminal
This may not be useful, but it is undoubtedly cool — Astroterm, a planetarium in the Linux terminal! It’s not as powerful (or as pretty) as Stellarium, but it is every bit as impressive, if not more so. I don’t know that it’s of any real use, but it’s the kind of thing I canContinue reading “A Planetarium in the Terminal”
Carl Sagan, on His Ninetieth Birthday
Carl Sagan, the astronomer and writer, would have turned 90 today. When I was seven, I watched Cosmos on PBS with my dad. In many ways, I credit my atheism to this formative experience. (Also formative, the Ichthus Christian music festival, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Sagan.) Sagan died in December 1996,Continue reading “Carl Sagan, on His Ninetieth Birthday”
Cosmic Wonder
Slim sliver of a moon as I was leaving the office tonight.
Searching for Comets
For the first time in recorded history, Comet NEOWISE is visiting the inner solar system solar system. The last time it was here, streaking through the Earth’s skies in the year 4745 BCE, in the midst of the Neolithic period. I’ve seen a number of comets in my life — Halley, in 1986; Hale-Bopp inContinue reading “Searching for Comets”
The Cosmic Dance
I went to Big Lots yesterday. I didn’t intend to go to Big Lots — it was T.J. Maxx I wanted to visit — but while at Big Lots I snapped the photo above, of the crescent moon and Venus just after sunset. I wanted to go to T.J. Maxx because I’ve seen reports thatContinue reading “The Cosmic Dance”
Cosmic Conjunction
Driving home, north on 74, the moon was over my shoulder. It was eerie through the light clouds, and just to the east, shining brightly, was Jupiter. Astronomical pictures from a smartphone often fail. More luck than skill that anything turned out at all.
Full Moon
The soles of my feet are numb. Tonight is a full moon. Not only that, it’s a lunar eclipse. I went outside to look, and part of the moon was missing. “But that’s true most of the time!” you say, and that’s true; most of the time the moon shows a phase, a waxing gibbousContinue reading “Full Moon”
Winter Solstice Moon
The Winter Solstice coincided (roughly, by about twelve hours) with the full moon this year. I thought, at work, that I’d miss the full(-ish) moon due to heavy rain storms that passed through all day, made work feel quite bleak every time I looked out the window, and made the drive home an adventure, but,Continue reading “Winter Solstice Moon”
Ultima Thule
On New Year’s Day, the New Horizons probe, the first space probe to visit Pluto, will zip past the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 which will become the furthest object in our solar system visited by a space probe. Unfortunately, 2014 MU69 isn’t an easy designation to remember, nor does it roll off the tongue,Continue reading “Ultima Thule”