Introducing: The Knight Double-Sided Planisphere

by admin

Spectrum Scientifics has now added the Knight Double-Sided Planisphere to its astronomy line-up!

The Knight planisphere is a vast improvement over previous planispheres that were either made of laminated cardboard, or were too large, or too small to be of use. The Knight planisphere is made of plastic, and has is double sided: one side for […]

Solar Dynamics Observatory - Now Launched

by admin

Just minutes before this writing, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, also known as the SDO was launched and separated. This little space observatory will be examining our sun, especially its magnetic field to help understand how it affects our planet (and others in the solar system).

You can learn more about SDO and its mission at […]

The Orion StarBlast 6i Intelliscope!

by admin

Specturm Scientifics now carries the Orion StarBlast 6i Intelliscope!

We’ve already discussed our addition of the regular StarBlast 6 which actually caught us a bit off guard with its sales. And now Orion has developed a computer guided version using its popular Intelliscope system!
The difference is that you get the Intelliscope computer guidance system, with a […]

What Happened to Pluto? - The short version

by admin

Frequently, when we are discussing astronomy with customers (it comes with the territory when you sell telescopes) the subject of Pluto comes up and the customer usually asks us: “So, what happened to Pluto? All of a sudden they decide it isn’t a planet? What do you think of that?!”. A lot of these folks […]

Kepler finds planets! Adopt one!

by admin

We’ve already posted about how you can ‘adopt’ a star in the stellar region the Kepler Mission is examining for planetary bodies via the Pale Blue Dot Project.
Well it is 2010 and already Kepler seems to have found some new planets!. The best part is that many of these stars have not been adopted, so […]

Galilean Revolution: 400 years ago today.

by admin

400 years ago today Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter. Thus beginning one of the most important events in science/astronomy history. Frankly, I don’t have the words to describe this event and its importance, especially when there are those who do it so much better. I am speaking of Phil Plaitt, the Bad Astronomer:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/07/the-galilean-revolution-400-years-later/
If you […]

Farewell to the International Year of Astronomy

by admin

The year 2009 winds down, and the decade comes to an end. This means that the International Year of Astronomy is also ending. Officially the IYA will not end until the official ending ceremonies which will take place January 9th & 10th in 2010.
But let us look at what the IYA has accomplished:
The […]

WebCam of Mars

by admin

This is one of those examples of what an amateur can do. These are some of the most impressive shots of Mars we have seen from a terrestrial telescope and the animation is really cool.
You might want to check out the other pictures as well, the animated shots of the ISS are particularly impressive.
If […]

WISE To Launch Friday

by admin

If all goes well this Friday NASA will be launching its WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) satellite. This will scan the skies in the infrared with much greater sensitivity than ever before. NASA expects that WISE will uncover comets, cooler stars and other celestial objects that cannot be seen in the visible spectrum.

The heart […]

Astronomy Holiday Advent Calender

by admin

It is a new awesome astronomy picture every day! The best of the year 2009. It is the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2009. Every day from Dec 1st to the 25th a new astronomy photo will be revealed! Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!