Excellent chance to see the zodiacal light

These next few days offer skygazers an excellent chance to see the zodiacal light. From the Northern Hemisphere, late winter and early spring are great times to observe this elusive glow after sunset. It appears slightly fainter than the Milky Way, so you’ll need a clear moonless sky and an observing site located far from the city. The Moon stays out of the early evening sky through March 7.

Read more

Women In Astronomy

At age ten, Vera Rubin was fascinated by the stars, as she watched the night sky revolve from her north-facing bedroom in Washington D.C. Although her father was dubious about the career opportunities in astronomy, he supported her interest by helping her build her own telescope and going with her to amateur astronomers’ meetings. She got a scholarship to the prestigious women’s college Vassar, where she graduated as the only astronomy major in 1948.

Read more

Sirius, a binary star and the brightest star in the night sky

Sirius is a binary star and the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star.
The binary system consists of a main-sequence star of spectral type A0, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, designated Sirius B. The distance between the two varies between 8.2 and 31.5 astronomical units as they orbit every 50 years.

Read more