Last summer (2022) a Cloudy Nights friend had a conversation with me about the relative merits of telescopes versus binoculars for observing double stars, binocular double stars by that time having become something of a passion of mine. 😉My friend pointed out that...
I have the book Searching for the Oldest Stars: Ancient Relics from the Early Universe written by professional astronomer Anna Frebel checked out from the library, and wondered if it might be possible to view an ancient star with binoculars from my yard. To my...
Over the past several years my observing has centered around viewing double stars with binoculars, which is not a common practice among astronomy hobbyists. Telescopes are widely preferred for these objects. The classic image is an observer with a refractor resolving...
Stephenson 1 is a star cluster in the constellation Lyra. It is about 1200 light years from our solar system and more or less centered on Delta 2 Lyrae, which ironically has been found not to be a cluster member. Nearby Delta 1 Lyrae is a 70% probable member. Also...
Sunday and Monday nights (18 and 19 June 2023), just days before the summer solstice (21 June), were some of the best skies we have had here in months, following rain Saturday night and a temporary respite from Canada wildfire smoke. I had a Sunday evening meeting so...
