Category - Skyward

The Vatican Observatory, or Specola Vaticana, was born at the direction of Pope Leo XIII, around 1891.  It was a time when humanity’s understanding of how the Universe was moving forward...

As a youngster growing up in Montréal, Canada, I always enjoyed the children’s song Alouette. It was a little ditty about a small lark whose loud chirp woke little children early every...

A total eclipse of the Sun is possibly nature’s grandest show.  And to be somewhere in the path of totality, looking at a darkened sky and seeing the jeweled crown around what was once the...

With cloudy night after a cloudy night, passing us by this summer, one wonders whether it would be appropriate to hit a baseball onto the floor or something to encourage the sky to clear...

Summer is my favorite season, and Summer is also my favorite granddaughter.  When I was growing up in Montreal, summer was the only time of year when the weather was warm enough to spend...

On August 21 this summer, the long shadow of the Moon will race across the United States, offering millions of people a look at the Sun’s magnificent atmosphere, its corona.  But for the...

A Country That Respects Its Astronomical History Brazil is a land that has an incredibly rich legacy in astronomy, and without a doubt, the country respects that history. I learned that...

On the evening of February 10, 2017, I saw the shadow of the Earth extend all the way to the Moon as night fell. Nightfall happens every evening. The Sun sets, and towards the east a dark...

Last week I got a good visual observation of Comet Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak, (41P) one of the earliest known periodic comets.  It was a fat, little “faint fuzzy” spot of light projected...

National Sharing the Sky Foundation A very special year has begun.  As readers around the world celebrate the incoming year, they also are firming up their plans for viewing some...