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Ask the Astronomer
Recent questions answered by our astronomers:

Colliding Galaxies and Black Holes
If galaxies have black holes and two such galaxies were colliding, would the two colliding galaxies form one giant black hole?

Novas and Supernovas
Why do some stars supernova and other stars have a smaller explosion called a nova?



Top 10 Reasons You Miss the Perseids Meteor Showers
Astronomer Bill offers a humorous and informative account of the art of meteor shower watching.
> Perseids Meteor Showers



Astrotales

The Hubble Space Telescope
Why is the Hubble Space Telescope named after a lawyer who competitively boxed?

Upstaging Einstein
How did the discoverer of galaxies become the toast of Hollywood, upstaging even Einstein?



Check out our line of astronomy audio CDs and custom cosmic gifts.


Exoplanets
Astronomers find a fifth planet in a solar system similar to ours.
The fifth planet of the star 55 Canceri has sparked a new method of finding planets, some believed to be favorable to life.
> learn more about exoplanets

Looking for a unique Father's Day Gift?

Get dad this special Father's Day Galaxy Package
valued at $75, for the special price of $49.99

fathers day presents
Father & Child
We inscribe the lower right corner of the certificate with your personal message.


2 Certificate Styles:

Your choice of
these 2 styles
click on images to enlarge

name a star certificate
Standard

> order now

Package features:

Full color Galaxy Certificate inscribed with your personal message (shown right)

Personal letter to dad from our Chief Astronomer

Stunning Hubble Telescope Slide Show showing the latest images from deep space

Our famous Extraterrestrial Planet Finder Kit, showing locations of the closest stars that might harbor life-bearing planets

Scientific Profile of his galaxy, noting its approximate number of stars and types of cosmic wonders it contains

Star Chart showing where Dad's galaxy is in the night sky

All for the special price of $49.99

> order the Father's Day Galaxy Package


Questions? Need Dad's gift in a hurry?
Or prefer to order by phone?

Call 505-463-8360


Extraterrestrials
There is growing evidence from interplanetary probes in our own solar system that some form of life may exist deep underground on Mars or perhaps on one of the many moons of Saturn or Jupiter. Yet keep in mind that there is only one earth-sized, carbon-based, water-predominant planet in our own solar system, which is host to an enormously vast array of living creatures. If you’re going to look for intelligent life forms similar to earthlings, your search will have to take you out of our solar system to the planets of other stars.
> finding extraterrestrial life

orion telescope review

Telescope Reviews
Personal experiences of the Orion and Celestron telescopes, told by the astronomer who worked alongside Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto. See below.



Review: Orion Telescopes

Orion Telescopes has through its 30+ year history established itself as the preeminent source for amateur astronomers whether it's telescopes, binoculars, telescope accessories or lenses for your telescope.

They achieved this position in the marketplace with a number of innovations.

First, like small Mom and Pop shops they assume that there are a lot of first buyers. Mom or Dad buying a telescope for their kids or Grandpa getting one for a grandkid. I was introduced to astronomy at age 7 when my Sunday school teacher brought the industry-standard small telescope of the 1950's to my backyard - the 60 mm refracting telescope - a telescope still found in department stortes to this day. But really only decent for looking at bright double stars, the moon, and planets.

Orion telescopes Despite the frustration I had and the early abandonment of that instrument for telescopes that could deliver a brighter, lower power image, I managed to survive my "400 power refractor" and became an astronomer when I grew up anyway.

Orion Telescopes has taken the guess-work out of finding a suitable piece of "telescope furniture" by spending copius amounts of their catalog space discussing different types of telescopes and then as you matriculate though the pages into larger and larger more expensive instruments they rate what you can expect.

Read more about Orion Telescopes.


Review: Celestron Telescopes

Celestron Schmidt CassegrainReviewed by astronomer Bill Georgevich

My first experience with Celestron telescopes was in 1970, when I worked as a Teaching Assistant while getting an undergraduate degree at the University of Texas.

The chairman of my department was most anxious find an 8" telescope that could be set up quickly and easily in an open field far away from local light pollution. He wanted a large enough telescope to showcase deep sky splendors. The perfect compact telescope was the folded optic Schmidt Cassegrain 8".

The man I worked for at UT was Ulrich Hermann, who was brought over after WWII under Project Paper Clip -- the UD government program that allowed Nazis to work on the US space program. Hermann had been a young man working under Werner von Braun, who later with his team of ex-German rocket scientists, helped put the US on the moon.

What we liked about the Celestron 8” was that we could take 100 astronomy students into an open field, set-up 4 or 5 C-8’s and walk them through some of the finer objects in the sky without a lot of set-up or maneuvering. The Schmidt-Cassegrain was a very sophisticated portable telescope in it’s day -- rivaled only by the Questar, which was a 5” cassegrain, that was more of a rich executive office show piece than a working telescope.

Read more about Celestron Telescopes and Binoculars.


Review: The Intelliscope

The Orion Intelliscope system is a commercial version of digital setting circles that became all the rage for folks who like to own or build large telescopes but really don't know their way around the sky.

To understand how the Intelliscope works, it would be good for the uninitiated to understand how objects were found in the sky for amateurs and students of astronomy before this digital technology.

The sky is divided into latitude and longitude, called by astronomers Right Ascension and Declination. This is our terrestrial navigation system projected onto the celestial sphere that is what our universe appears to us from Earth.

Every object has been plotted on this celestial map and every object, no matter how faint, has a specific location in the sky down to degrees, minutes and seconds. Until about 100 years ago all telescopes, even the ones in the great observatories like Lick and Yerkes, the largest reflectors and refractors of their day, had huge setting circle wheels that were aligned with the Earth's axis.

This allowed a clock drive to turn the telescope with the motion of the Earth so that the celestial object remained in the eyepiece. More importantly it provided at vernier by which a large dial represented the position of an object. Let's say you want to find the Andromeda Galaxy. Simply find the RA and Dec. coordinates for Andromeda and then add or subtract the time for universal time to align your telescope which the current position of the earth in space and voila! you found your object.

Read more about  Orion Intelliscopes.



Call Astronomer Bill about your astronomy questions:
505-463-8360


Email Astronomer Bill at:
educator@wpo.net


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