Review: Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley.

Out in March from Pyr Books!

    It was with great anticipation and excitement that we finally got to dig into our advanced reading copy of Gardens of the Sun  by Paul McAuley, out March 23, 2010 courtesy of Pyr Books. Gardens picks up where last years’ first opus, The Quiet War, left off, and fans of [...]

04.02.10: Pluto Re-imaged.

The most controversial planet (or do you say dwarf planet, or plutoid?) got a new look today. In a press conference, NASA researchers revealed the new “face” of Pluto; a series of images spanning 270 degrees of rotation. To complete these, astronomers scoured 384 images for 4 years using no less than 20 computers. These [...]

Astro-Challenge: Groombridge 34; a Nearby Red Dwarf Pair!

Sure, everyone’s heard of Alpha Centauri, but have you ever heard of… Groombridge 34? We came across this little known binary red dwarf pair while perusing Burnham’s Celestial Handbook last month during our write up for M31. Also in the constellation Andromeda, Groombridge 34 is a unique system; a pair of red dwarf flare stars [...]

Review:Redshift 7: The Ultimate in Astronomy Software.

Desktop-based planetarium programs have really come into their own in the past few years. From their early evolution in the 1980’s with computer programs written in Basic that would show you stick figure constellations, planetarium programs are now full fledged sky simulators that allow you not only to control your telescope and plan your observing [...]

Searching for Robert Burnham.

Sometimes, the quietest minds among us also have the most to share with the world.
Last month, on a warm summer’s day in August, the East Valley Astronomy Club, in connection with the Robert Burnham Jr. Memorial Fund, honored a man with the dedication of a small plaque placed on the Pluto walk at the [...]

31.08.09: An Edge on Saturn.

A rather odd event is transpiring in the Saturnian system, one that only happens a couple of times in our lifetime; its rings are vanishing. Not really, of course; we are merely passing through the super-fine ring plane as viewed from the Earth. The exact date of the “crossing” as viewed from Earth is [...]

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