The Night Sky Guy

New Podcast Vignette Episode

The Night Sky Guy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:32:33 +0000

I invite you to check out the latest podcast episode of the talk show called The Stuph File which features the latest stargazing vignette of mine. The show with my latest spot is The Stuph File program # 0012. Each spot features celestial highlights you can hunt down in the night sky. This week I talk [...]

Space Station Flybys

The Night Sky Guy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:34:11 +0000

Skywatchers across North America this week are getting a front row seat to watch the International Space Station make some spectacular passes in the early evening skies. Check out my snapshot I took last night while in a forest, Monday in Ste. Marguerite, about 45 minutes NW of Montreal. The ISS flew about 25 degrees above [...]

Pegasus: A Celestial Landmark of Fall

The Night Sky Guy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:59:05 +0000

This time of the year mother nature is changing all around us – temperatures are getting colder, brisk winds abound and the leaves have mostly fallen. The night skies too are transitioning from summer to winter and there is one gigantic constellation that is the celestial landmark of autumn. Emblazoned across the evening overhead sky is [...]

Meteor ‘Sprinkle’ this Week

The Night Sky Guy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:54:37 +0000

A minor meteor shower, known as the Taurids are beginning to peak tonight into November 12th. A modest burst of 5 to 10 meteors per hour can be expected. While that doesn’t sound so fanatastic, the Taurid shower is known to produce bright and slow moving fireballs. They appear to originate from the constellation Taurus, [...]

Spying Star Births in Nearby Galaxy

The Night Sky Guy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:10:29 +0000

The spectacular new camera installed on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescopeduring Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus.The [...]

Venus and Spica Converge

The Night Sky Guy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:54:32 +0000

Tuesday morning at dawn look for Venus close in on Spica, the lead star of the constellation Virgo. The pair will be about 7 full Moon disks apart making it quite an impressive sight in the low eastern sky. There isn’t even a need for binoculars – the unaided eye is the best way to enjoy this celestial [...]

Creepy Mars Spectacle

The Night Sky Guy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:33:23 +0000

Stay up late over the course of the next few nights and you can catch sight of red star-like Mars crossing through a bright star cluster in the constellation of Cancer. Rising well above the eastern horizon after midnight on Halloween, the Red planet will appear to slowly begin to move into the Beehive cluster. Sunday night-Monday morning [...]

Cool Space News

The Night Sky Guy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:44:29 +0000

NASA: Booster rocket damaged in test flight, AP “NASA says the booster rocket used in a test flight was badly dented when it fell into the Atlantic. The new Ares I-X rocket was launched on a brief flight Wednesday. NASA officials said Thursday that the first-stage booster was found to be dented near the bottom when [...]

NASA Rocket Launch Take 2

The Night Sky Guy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:09:25 +0000

Wednesday update: successful launch occurred at 11:30 EDT. Engineers at Kennedy Space Center are looking at the returned telemetry from the 4 minute flight to see if everything worked as it should. Upper stage has impacted the ocean 8 minutes after launch. The lower stage should be coming down with parachutes. Check out the video [...]

Weeknight Sky Show

The Night Sky Guy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:51:56 +0000

Canon EOS 450D, 1 sec, 400 ASA, 55 mm, f/5.6 After being totally a washout yesterday for the close conjunction between the Moon and Jupiter, I was hoping to catch the second act today. Sometimes persistence pays off. I waited for about an hour this evening for a little thinning of the clouds above my driveway [...]