Light pollution, measured from the back step
Counting the stars I can see in one small patch of sky, once a week, for a year. The result was not what I expected.
Tagged “astronomy”
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Andromeda and the Pleiades in binoculars
Two nights after a thin crescent Moon set early, 10x50 binoculars, a deckchair and the two autumn objects that look better in a wide field than in my telescope.
Saturn's rings are raining into Saturn
A short NASA Goddard video about ring material falling into the planet, which changed how I think about the thin grey line I have been sketching all month.
Saturn with the rings nearly edge-on
Drawing what you see instead of photographing it, and discovering you were seeing more than you thought.
The four minutes I chose not to drive to
Three weeks after watching a 93% eclipse from outside the path of totality, I finally watched NASA's 2024 totality feed and understood what everyone had been telling me.
The eclipse trip, and the bread that came with it
A hillside in northern Spain, 93% of the Sun covered, and a baguette bought that morning from a bakery that opened at six.
Perseids from a field with no name
Forty minutes of driving to get two magnitudes of darkness, a thermos, a tray of focaccia and 61 meteors.
Someone else's Milky Way
Full Moon, street lamp and a thin haze have cancelled the week, so here is a four-and-a-half-minute Milky Way time-lapse from Japan that I did not film.
What's up in July, and what is up from here
NASA's three-minute July sky guide, with my notes on which parts work from a European back garden with a street lamp and which ones need a car.
Short nights
Mid-June, the sky never gets properly dark, the telescope stays in the cupboard, and two bright planets make the best of the twilight anyway.
Lyrids from the back step
Ninety minutes in a deckchair on the Lyrid peak night, a crescent Moon that set politely, and a total of seven meteors I am prepared to defend.
A small refractor and no patience at all
What a 70 mm telescope actually shows from a suburban garden, and why the first three nights were a disappointment that was entirely my fault.
Planning for 12 August: a total eclipse within driving distance
The total solar eclipse of 12 August crosses northern Spain at sunset. I have decided to drive there, with a plan, a fallback plan, and a growing list of things that could go wrong.
Jupiter at opposition, sketched with cold fingers
Jupiter at its closest and brightest for the year, high in Gemini, two good belts, a hint of something in the south, and a sketch that took forty minutes.
Geminids from the back step, at minus three
Three hours on the back step for the Geminid peak, two coats, one hand warmer, a frosted telescope I never meant to use, and 71 meteors despite the street lamp.
Dew, frost and the hairdryer of last resort
Winter nights are long and clear, and every glass surface I own fogs or frosts within forty minutes. What has actually worked, and what made it worse.
November, according to NASA and my cloud cover
A short monthly sky guide from NASA, a big aurora night that I spent under cloud, and a purple ribbon called STEVE that turns out not to be an aurora at all.
The long nights are back
Dark by half past seven, a new four-minute habit of counting stars in the Little Dipper, and one minute of someone else's much better sky.
The eclipsed Moon came up behind the neighbours' roof
A total lunar eclipse that was already under way when the Moon rose, a roofline in exactly the wrong place, and about seventeen minutes of a copper smudge.
Perseids 2025, and the Moon that ruined them
The peak night fell three days after full Moon, so a bright waning gibbous rose before the radiant got high. Seven meteors, a lot of moonlight, and two planets at dawn.
A dew shield made from a cereal box
Summer nights are short and wet. Twenty minutes, a cereal box and some black tape stopped my objective lens fogging over halfway through every session.
The nights that never quite get dark
Around the solstice the sky over the back step stays a faint blue-grey all night, so I watched a few seconds of somebody else's Milky Way instead.
A first-quarter Moon at 70×, with a drawing I am not proud of
Ninety minutes on the terminator of a half Moon: three big craters in a chain, the lunar Apennines catching sunrise, and why I now sketch instead of just looking.
A year of the Sun, in three minutes
I do not own a solar filter and do not intend to point a telescope at the Sun without one, so around the equinox I watched NASA do it for me.
Jupiter, Mars, and a red spot I could not quite see
Two planets high in the January sky, Mars just past opposition, and a NASA clip that shows what my 70 mm refractor could only hint at.
Quadrantids from the back step, and the first loaf of the year
An hour before dawn on the fourth of January, nine meteors, two fingers I could not feel, and a loaf that had been proving while I was outside.