The best thing that we’re put here for’s to see; The strongest thing that’s given us to see with’s A telescope. Someone in every town Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one. I would expand upon these wonderful words from Robert Frost’s famous poem The Star-Splitter to say that someone in …

December’s Geminid meteor shower was overshadowed (or you could say “eclipsed!”) as discussed in last month’s installment by a spectacular total eclipse of the Moon. Also, the light of a first-quarter Moon compromised evening viewing on the night of its peak activity until it set around midnight. But there’s another great annual display of shooting …

On the early morning of December 21st (or beginning late evening the night before on the West Coast), skywatchers throughout North America will be treated to one of nature’s grandest spectacles — a total eclipse of the Moon! It’s been nearly three years since the last total one, so this event is being widely anticipated. …

Magnificent Jupiter is at its best this month and has some real surprises in store for telescope users: it’s lost one of its two main equatorial belts, while its famed Great Red Spot is making a comeback after being barely visible for the past few years! All you need to see this for yourself is …

We have never featured a comet in this column. One reason is the well-known fact that the visibility of comets — both returning (previously found) and newly discovered ones — is typically highly uncertain. Another is that this column has a long lead-time (normally two months) and a new comet may suddenly appear after an …

There are a couple of questions about the Edmund Scientifics’ immensely popular Astroscan wide-field telescope that both potential buyers and existing user’s often ask me, since I was a project consultant on the original model and more recently on the upgraded Astroscan-Plus one as well. Readers will hopefully find the questions themselves — and my …

On a number of occasions over the past several years we’ve featured the annual Perseid Meteor Shower in our August column. But often conditions haven’t been favorable due to bright Moonlight spoiling the view — or its maximum occuring during the middle of the day instead of at night, or in the wee hours of …

With all the telescopes of superb optical quality in widespread use by stargazers today, few have ever had the opportunity of going back in time to when this magical instrument first appeared and experience firsthand the enormous quantum leap that’s been made in its performance. But thanks to a unique product offered through Edmund Scientifics …

Even casual skywatchers are aware that planets slowly wander about the sky, being visible at differing times during the night and throughout the year. But occasionally they pass very close to bright stars, and at such times their orbital motion becomes strikingly obvious over a period of just days and even hours! Or they may …

Every month skywatchers are given the opportunity of exploring an alien world so obvious that it’s the second brightest object in the sky after the Sun. We’re referring, of course, to the Moon! And while much can be seen and enjoyed with the unaided eye alone (ranging from its ever- changing phases to lunar eclipses), …