observations
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What is the Scientific Method?
Have you ever read about a scientific discovery, and wondered, “How the heck can we possibly know?” Without a background understanding of the scientific method, that’s a difficult question to answer — because we first need to define what we…
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What is the Cosmological Principle?
What if I were to ask you: Are there any unique places in the universe? That is, does any one location in the universe have a special vantage point? Does the universe look different from different locations? You might say…
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How Deep-Sky Catalogs Work
Meet the Veil Nebula, one of my favorite deep-sky objects. The Veil is one of the more common star party requests I get from more experienced participants. Unfortunately, it requires a very powerful telescope. My 11-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain — pretty advanced,…
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The Orion Nebula: A Stellar Nursery
One of my favorite objects to show people at astronomy outreach events is the Orion Nebula. Not only does it reside within a fairly well-known constellation, but it’s a gorgeous sight to see with a good telescope. There’s no time like…
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From Cold Cloud to Hot Protostar
Paradoxically, stars begin in the galaxy’s coolest places: the dense giant molecular clouds (or GMCs). This is not quite the paradox it seems, as in the beginning, stars require little else but gravity to form. And that’s really quite lucky, because…
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What is the Intercloud Medium?
Stars are like headlights in a fog bank that’s impossibly thick in some places, and so thin as to be transparent in others. Sometimes, we get lucky enough for starlight to light up the fog. Other times, stars shine straight…
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Spectroscopic Binary Stars
Consider a solar system far different from our own. A solar system governed by two suns, and consisting of planets we can only dream of. Would it surprise you to hear that, based on recent discoveries, that might actually be…
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Binary Stars
We know how big stars are; they range from the size of the Earth to over a thousand times the size of the sun (which is in itself over one hundred times the size of the Earth). We know they’re…
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Star Luminosity Classes
What do you think it would mean for a star to be in a specific luminosity class? I mean…does that mean they go to school to learn how to be bright? (Ha, ha…yeah, I know, bad astronomy pun.) Well…not quite.…
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Just How Big Are Stars?
Tell me about the stars you see in this image. They look like billions of little pinpricks of light, right? It’s hard to imagine that each one of these is probably the size of the sun…or much larger. And the…
