Look Up!

From time to time I exhort all my readers to do a little skywatching. There’s nothing like stepping outside on a clear night and just gazing at the stars and planets. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, when weather conditions permit it. My stargazing began next to a house that doesn’t exist anymore, on a farm in Colorado that’s now a highway overpass. But, I still have these flashes of memory of standing there next to the house with the stone chimney soaring up to the sky, looking up at the stars overhead. I did it with my folks, usually my dad, and then as I got older, I did it with my friends and on dates with my first serious boyfriend.

Well, bunches of years have passed, and I still go out and look up. That boyfriend became my husband and we’ve carved out our careers bringing astronomy and space to the public through planetarium shows we produce, exhibits that I write, books I’ve written, and videos we’ve produced.

Stargazing’s a constant in my life. And, it’s one in a LOT of people’s lives.  I spent a lot of time in college — and afterwards — learning as much as I could about as many aspects of astronomy as I could.  Judging by the websites that link to this one, and the folks who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, there are a LOT of skygazers out there.  Maybe you’re one. If not, why not become one?  It’s pretty easy. You just step outside at night and look up!

Of course, you want a little background about what you’re seeing — and here’s where access to the Internet and the Web come in handy. There are many, many, many Websites about stargazing out there. I’m involved in at least one other site besides this one, an online “TV” show called Astrocast.TV. My contributions are to a program called The Astronomer’s Universe and a short little stargazing show called Our Night Sky. Here’s the February 2011 edition.

What do I do for Astrocast.TV?  Well, for both programs, I write and narrate the scripts, occasionally appear on-camera, and pull together imagery and starmaps and send them off to the fellow who “owns and operates” Astrocast.TV — a fellow named Rich Mathews. He’s really the show’s producer and mastermind and I supply him with the raw material for the shows, plus a script as a template to follow as he does the final show assembly, complete with music mixing, visual special effects, etc.

For example, this month, on Our Night Sky, I wrote the script, got it vetted by an astronomer friend of mine, then recorded myself voicing it over. I sent that VO, along with some music from my husband’s upcoming new album called Geodesium Stella Novus, and some star charts. Through the magic of video editing, Rich put it all together into the little program you can see all month. It covers a few of the many highlights of the February sky for both Northern and Southern Hemisphere stargazers. Of course, there’s a LOT more than I can cover in five minutes or so — but that’s the beauty of stargazing: there’s always something for you to discover on your own!

As long as I’m sending you to other Web sites for stargazing help, here are a few (of the many that I know about):

Sky and Telescope — the home page for Sky and Telescope Magazine.

Astronomy — the home page for Astronomy Magazine.

SkyWatcher’s Odyssey — a blog dedicated to sky sights, written by a stargazer in Texas named Dan Riding.
Check ’em out and do a little stargazing (weather permitting!).