Star watch

There’s a lot to see before the Sun comes up and brightens the night sky during the month of August 2025. The good news is that temperatures are usually warm this time of year, and

Scorpius is one of those rare constellations whose star arrangement resembles its namesake. When you look at it in the night sky, it’s easy to visualize the j-shaped body of a scorpion.

There are eight planets orbiting the Sun in our solar system but, to the best of our knowledge, only one supports life as we know it.
Our Earth is sometimes referred to as the

I used to wonder, sometimes just before or just after a new moon phase: “Why can I see a faint glow of the Moon’s entire outline?”
After a brief search of the Internet, I

Most people are familiar with the Big Dipper even if they have little interest in astronomy. It is one of the “circumpolar” groups of stars which means, for those of us in northern latitudes, it

Actually, that’s not completely true. Scientists tell us there is a slight wobble in the Moon’s rotation as it orbits the Earth. This wobble is called “libration” and as a result, we get to see

This past January, my wife, Vicky, and I attended a star party at Fort Macon State Park in coastal North Carolina. The park partners with Crystal Coast Stargazers, a local astronomy club, to offer these

On April 8, 2024, some of us were fortunate to witness a stunning celestial event: a total solar eclipse. If you were one of the lucky folks who viewed this from the “path of totality,”

Most of us probably think of astronomy as something that happens late at night during the darkest part of every 24 hours. But the night sky is still there the following morning, although it might