Astronomy

Cancer the Crab is a faint constellation between the much more distinct Leo the Lion and Gemini the Twins. As with almost all of the other groupings of stars in the heavens, various cultures have...

Life on earth is dependent on visible light radiation. Without it, food chains would fall apart and surface temperatures would plummet; although visible light is integral to our survival and is...

This article describes how to set up and use a Meade LX200 Classic.

A reflector telescope has two mirrors. The primary mirror has a parabolic shape enabling it to gather and focus light. The secondary mirror is flat and reflects the light to a focal plane at the...

The common clock that we know today wasn't accurate until the early 20th century. In the past, clocks were constantly being corrected by sundials, a simple device for telling time used by many...

The Bushnell 565 telescope is a refracting telescope that uses convex lenses to collect light and magnify the image. Its name comes from the telescope's ability to magnify an image 565 times its...

While you can measure directly the size and mass of a planet, you must determine density through calculations. The density of any object is the ratio of its mass to its volume. For planets, this...

Of all the planets and satellites in our solar system, only Earth has an atmosphere that can sustain life. No atmosphere is close to Earth's in composition, and only Venus has an atmosphere even...

The nighttime sky has long fascinated man, leading to scientific discoveries of the eight planets (remember that Pluto was discovered to be a moon) that constitute Earth's solar system. While...

A pulsar is a spinning neutron star that emits radiation beams that we can see only when it is pointing toward Earth, similar to a lighthouse casting its beams of light over the water for ship...

The Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun to make up the Solar System. The nebular theory states that the solar system began as a huge cloud of dust and gas, which then condensed to...

Teachers frequently assign their students projects that deal with the planets in the solar system throughout grade school and even into high school. One such project is to have the student write a...

If you want to get a homemade telescope ready for use, a Dobsonian mount is the simplest way. A Dobsonian mount consists of a flat platform that holds a rotating box. Semi-circular shapes are cut...

First detected by instruments aboard spacecraft in the 1950s and 1960s, the solar wind is made up of charged particles streaming away from the Sun. The solar wind originates in the Sun's corona,...

Astronomers use parabolic mirrors for light collection in reflecting telescopes. Many manufacturers and scientists also prefer concave mirrors that are parabolic, rather than spherical in shape....

NASA recently "bombed" the moon. You may have heard this. They sent two bits of a spacecraft raining down upon the defenseless moon (seriously, what did the moon ever do to us?) to see...

Build your own telescope, and gaze into the stars. Although today's reflector telescopes have become inexpensive, nothing speaks about your passion for the great beyond like having others...

Planetary alignment can mean different things to different people. Some may view it as a row or close grouping of planets in the night sky, a purely visual phenomenon. A more precise definition...

Earth's atmosphere interferes with the operation of telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope is positioned above the atmosphere and therefore can make observations that are impossible from the ground.

Ellipticity is a mathematical term enumerating how flat a sphere or an ellipsoid is. It is used in astronomy to describe the shape of planets or celestial objects.

The Tasco Luminova Telescope is fairly easy to use. It's lightweight and transportable as well. It's considered a reflector telescope with some advanced features. Reflectors deliver excellent...

Most comets travel in extremely elliptical orbits through our solar system. As a result, they only rarely pass close enough to the Earth for easy observation. Astronomers therefore need a way to...

The azimuth of an object is its direction in the sky, measured in degrees. It corresponds to the cardinal direction on land, namely north (0 or 360 degrees), east (90 degrees), south (180 degrees)...

If you want your reflecting telescope to work at its optimum level, you need to determine the focal length of the telescope's concave mirror. A concave mirror's reflecting surface curves inward...

The path of the earth around the sun is an elliptical shaped orbit. But it should be noted that the exact path of the planet changes slightly over time. These changes in orbit can affect certain...

Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet from the Sun. Until 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew close to the planet and sent back information, we knew little about this distant object....

Pluto was long considered to be ninth planet in our solar system, but in 2006 the International Astronomical Union officially classified it as a dwarf planet. Pluto's orbit around the sun exhibits...

A good reflecting telescope can be expensive to buy. The cheapest reflectors cost hundreds of dollars, and it is easy to spend thousands of dollars on high-quality models. A cheaper alternative is...

The sun provides a handy benchmark for describing other stars. The mass of this solar system's sun gives us a unit for measuring other stars' masses. Similarly, the sun's luminosity and surface...

When early astronomers discovered Saturn, they found a large planet with rings. Modern research has led to some startling facts about one of the solar system's largest planets.

The moon technically has five phases, though it isn't visible during the new moon. It "waxes" through the remaining four until it becomes a full moon, then "wanes" backwards through the cycle...

Navigators have long known that you can find your position on Earth by measuring the viewing angle from the horizon to the position of the North Star, or Polaris. When you know the angle from the...

The equinox occurs when the length of light and the length of darkness in the day are nearly equal. It occurs twice each year, on the first day of spring, which is known as the vernal equinox, and...

The moon takes a little less than 30 days to go through its entire cycle. During that time, it goes from a new moon to being completely full, then back to being a new moon again.

Galileo made the first homemade telescope from two lenses and a leather tube. Over time, amateur astronomers have led the way in developing new techniques and ideas for building telescopes. Most...

An orbit is the path that one object follows around another object. A less massive object will orbit a more massive one. The object that orbits is called a satellite. Therefore, the Earth is a...

The mass of a star is the single characteristic that determines that heavenly body's fate. Its end-of-life behavior depends entirely upon its mass. For lightweight stars, death comes quietly, a...

If you plan on stargazing with your telescope, you will need a telescope mount and tripod to support the telescope and guide it. There are generally two main types of telescope mounts: the...

The moon circles Earth once every 29.5 days, which is known as the lunar cycle. One complete orbit of the moon around the sun is known as a lunation. The lunar phases refer to how the moon appears...

With a set of rings composed of ice and rock and dozens of moons circling it, Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun. It is the second largest in our solar system, eclipsed in size only by the...

I will tell you how to find and track objects in space so that you can go outside and see them using different methods.

The autumnal equinox, a traditionally observed event, inaugurates the first day of fall. Since this event occurs when the Earth's north pole and south pole rest at an equal position from the sun,...

If you are looking for a cheap starter telescope, one of the most appropriate brands is Tasco. Even the most expensive Tasco telescopes sell for less than $300, an impressive price compared with...

Pulsars are neutron stars that emit radiating particles at regular intervals. The physics of the neutron star, a dense and powerfully-magnetic celestial object, causes the radiation necessary for...

Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun and it completes about four orbits of the Sun by the time Earth finishes just one. For this reason, the ancient Romans named it after the swift messenger...

Saturn's rings have long been a target for astronomers, with the planet being one of the first things novice stargazers try to look at when they get their initial telescope. The sixth planet from...

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun in our solar system. It is so distant from the Sun that it has a temperature of minus 361 degrees Fahrenheit at its cloud tops. It takes Neptune nearly...

Stars, such as our sun, are giant balls of burning gas. Hydrogen serves as the bulk of the gas and fuses into helium at the core to produce the thermonuclear reaction that generates tremendous...

The big bang theory is the popular explanation for where the galaxies, stars, planets and people came from. Those who believe in the big bang acknowledge that there are questions that need...

Neptune is the eighth furthest planet from the sun, and is four times the diameter of Earth.