A few decades back, I mentioned to a friend at a local planetarium of my enduring interest in astronomy. �Surely, then, � he said pulling out a three volume set, �you have these…� I did not at the time, but I had indeed heard the legends. The books were Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, a three volume compendium on observational astronomy. A few weeks back we did a piece on the man, Robert Burnham Jr. and his tempestuous life; now I’d like to break with tradition a bit a provide a review of this indispensable astronomical classic. [Read more...]
Searching for Robert Burnham.
September 23, 2009 By 3 Comments
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 Lowell Observatory. That man is probably the most unknown, but influential amateur astronomer of the 20th century; Robert Burnham Jr. a man that but for a singular colossal work, might have passed on into total obscurity. The book is Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, a three volume guide to the wonders of the night sky. [Read more...]
Astro-Challenge: Monitoring Luyten�s Flare Star.
Artist’s conception of a flare star in action.
(Credit: NASA).
It�s ironic that the most common type of star also lies hidden from view in the night sky.� Our Sun and others like it make up a paltry ~20% of the fusion-burning stellar engines in the Milky Way; the vast majority of stars are red dwarfs with less than %50 the mass of our Sun. And although Alpha Centauri�s C companion Proxima lies just over 4 light years distant, not a single red dwarf is visible to the naked eye. We�ve written about other red dwarfs in the range of a backyard telescope, such as Groombridge 34 & Omicron Eridani;�this week, we�d like to turn your attention to a curious specimen in the constellation Cetus.
[Read more...]