Category Archives: amateur astronomy

Photo by Mark Vorhusen of Switzerland, as posted on Spaceweather.com
Photo by Mark Vorhusen of Switzerland, as posted on Spaceweather.com

D’oh!! Why didn’t we think of this sooner? A tip of the ol’ Plasma Tail to Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy for pointing out that you CAN see Comet McNaught during the day (as discussed over at Spaceweather.com.)

Let me stress that you should be VERY careful about looking at the comet, as it’s close to the Sun. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you don’t want to look directly at the Sun because it’ll burn your eyes. So, pay attention, guard your eyes while you feast them on the comet. Here’s how: simply put a building between you and the Sun, look about one fist-width east of the Sun and you should be able to make it out. Try it over the next couple of days and hope for clear weather!I should point out that a photo is going to show more than a naked eye glance, but see what you can find. How many times in your life will you get a chance to spot a naked-eye comet during broad daylight?

P.S. While you’re at it, check out the real-time space images of the comet at the SOHO website.

Sunrise, sunset…

Image of sunset in NYC
Image of sunset in NYC

I haven’t talked about skygazing in a while. One of the exhibits I’m working on for the Griffith Observatory project explains how and why the rise and set positions of the Sun appear to change over the course of a year. It’s a migration that happens because of a confluence of the Earth’s tilt and its path around the Sun throughout a year. Many people think that the standing stones at Stonehenge and other places like the Cahokia Woodhenge and the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming are related to rise and set positions of the sun and stars throughout the year. They are almost like three-dimensional calendars in that way.

You can see this phenomenon for yourself if you go out each day and mark the rising and setting position of the Sun and stars along the horizon. As time passes, you’ll notice them shifting north and south along the horizon. If you watch long enough, you’ll see it repeat over the course of a couple of years—enough to make a predictable statement about where the Sun and stars will rise at a given time over the horizon.

“But I live in the city!” you say, noting that this can’t be done as easily from the middle of tall buildings. Yes, that may be true some of the time, but it CAN be done. As proof, I offer you a picture sent to me by my good friend Wendy Carlos. She made it from a composite of three images taken this past week in New York City, at the corner of 23rd and Fifth Avenues, near Union Square. It shows the alignment of sunset that occurs when the Sun’s rise and set path along the horizons east and west of Manhattan happen to correspond with an east-west cross street (and it’s worth noting that the cross streets don’t go exactly east and west). Exact alignments like this occur around June 28 and July 12 each year.

So, even if you live in the middle of a city, and you’re an astute observer, you CAN notice things in the sky!