Category Archives: Instruments

includes telescopes and space probes

Blog 4: The Sirens of Titan

Posted on March 14, 2018 by battismm

One of my favorite novels is The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. As the title suggests a portion of the novel takes place on Saturn’s moon Titan, though this fiction is more concerned with the philosophical and not the realistic astronomical. I highly recommend it to fans of science fiction. Discovered in 1655, Titan is Saturn’s … Continue reading Blog 4: The Sirens of Titan Continue reading →

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1 Shift, 2 Shift, Redshift, Blueshift

Posted on February 14, 2018 by jonahastroblog

Space is vast. In fact, vast enough to contains many million, billions, and trillions of galaxies and other celestial objects. So the ultimate question is, how do scientists keep track of all of the celestial bodies? How do we know that the Andromeda galaxy is coming toward us if we can’t tell if it is… Continue Reading → Continue reading →

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Radio Telescopes

Posted on February 12, 2018 by mattbarnhartastro2110

When someone says “telescope,” you probably think of a long magnifying tube ranging from pocket sized to massive that you can look in an eyepiece of to see things at great distances, such as stars and galaxies in regards to astronomy. Another type of telescope you may not think of is the radio telescope. The … Continue reading Radio Telescopes → Continue reading →

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The Map in the Stars

Posted on February 12, 2018 by Nathan Xiao

Getting around is always a difficult task. Even with supercomputers that fit in the palm of our hand and tell us how to get literally anywhere, we still get lost. That being said, it was much more difficult to navigate when all we had were the stars in the sky. Celestial navigation is a craft … Continue reading The Map in the Stars → Continue reading →

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Telescopes of All Kinds

Posted on February 11, 2018 by yadavdhruv

Telescopes allow us to view the stars, planets, galaxies, and even quasars in great detail. Before the telescope, astronomers relied on naked eye astronomy, something Tycho Brahe was very good at. It’s really fascinating to learn how these telescopes work. Essentially, there are two types of telescopes – refracting and reflecting. Refracting telescopes use two … Continue reading Telescopes of All Kinds → Continue reading →

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James Webb Space Telescope

Posted on February 11, 2018 by alcottastr2110

Because of the nature of light, it is evident that the key to learning the secrets of the past is through the use of telescopes. As of right now I believe the most powerful telescope in the world is the Hubble telescope. However, that is set to change in 2019 with the launch of the … Continue reading James Webb Space Telescope → Continue reading →

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Blog Post #2

Posted on February 10, 2018 by jonsastroblog

For centuries astronomers have used telescopes to look into the night sky. In 1946 Lyman Spitzer, a prominent astrophysicist in his time, theorized that a telescope placed outside of Earth’s atmosphere would be able to collect much clearer data than telescopes on the surface of the planet. The logic behind his theory is that the … Continue reading Blog Post #2 → Continue reading →

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Blog Post #2

Posted on February 10, 2018 by jonsastroblog

For centuries astronomers have used telescopes to look into the night sky. In 1946 Lyman Spitzer, a prominent astrophysicist in his time, theorized that a telescope placed outside of Earth’s atmosphere would be able to collect much clearer data than telescopes on the surface of the planet. The logic behind his theory is that the … Continue reading Blog Post #2 → Continue reading →

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James Webb Telescope

Posted on February 8, 2018 by haleytopper04

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, will be a large telescope that is intended to be the premier observatory of the next decade. The telescope will study every phase in the history of the universe, from right after the Big Bang to the formation of the universe that we know today, and even the … Continue reading James Webb Telescope Continue reading →

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On This Day in Astronomy History…

Posted on February 7, 2018 by maxflorsheim

  Thirty-four years ago today, on February 7th 1984, NASA Astronaut Bruce McCandless II became the first person to fly untethered from their spacecraft. McCandless, who just recently passed December 21st at the age of 80, was able to travel 320 feet from the space shuttle Challenger without any connection to the shuttle. He accomplished […] Continue reading →

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