Hobby Amateur Astronomy

Reflections on a Mote of Dust

This page is intended for the enjoyment and education of people interested in the universe. There are parts of it that are for beginners, other parts are for people who already know quite a bit about astronomy and want to learn more.

If you're here about astrology (horoscopes, zodiac, etc) then you're in the wrong place.

Sfordsez: if you haven't seen my standard disclaimer and copyright at http://www.geeky-boy.com/standard.html then check it out now.

My Content

• Parent's Guide to Children's Telescopes - Are you thinking of getting a telescope for your child? Read this first. Also, please consider helping your child get started with Astronomy.
  
  
• Buy a Star for a Loved One - Your Aunt Sally's birthday is coming up. Can you have a star named after her?
  
  
• Time - does anybody really know what time it is? (Does anybody really care?) This cgi script gives you NIST time; there's no more accurate time on the web!

Pages to bookmark and re-visit because they change every day/week/month/whatever.

• Astronomy Picture of the Day ("APOD") - So much more than just pretty pictures, APOD gives explanation, with plenty of links for more in-depth info. For example, you can see aurora rings on Saturn. Most of the good web-based information I've found came from APOD links. And I love the output from their search function - it outputs the entire text (with active links) of each matching entry. For example, do a search for "nova".
  
  
• Sky Publishing - they publish "Sky & Telescope" magazine, as well as a few others. The site contains lots of good info, but I'll point out a few particularly strong pages:
  • S&T's Weekly News Bulletin - Updated once a week, it contains late-breaking news and info on Astronomy.
  • This Week's Sky at a Glance - astronomical events and planet roundup.
  • S&T News Bulletin" E-mail List - e-mail (text-only) version of the above two pages. To join, send a message to join@astromax.com and put the word "join" on the first line of the body of the message.
  
  
• Current phase of the moon - courtesy of the U.S. Naval Observatory. At the same site: local sidereal time which can sometimes be useful (e.g. if it's 17:25 LST, it means that RA 17h 25m is at zenith).

• Reflections on a mote of dust - required reading for all human beings. Period.
  
  
• Tips for Backyard Astronomers - Also from Sky Publishing, this page has LOTS of good articles that I've learned a lot from.
  
  
• Windows to the Universe - University of Michigan's effort to bring science to the masses. It has three levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), but in my opinion even beginners should go ahead and use "advanced"; the spot checks I've done suggest that the beginner level is just shorter, not actually easier. And it's all pretty easy going.
  
  
• Galaxies - a nice little tutorial on the history of our understanding of galaxies.
  
  
• Big Bang tutorial - A nice non-mathematical introduction to Einstein's theory of general relativity and the "big bang" model of the universe that follows from it.
  
  
• Sten Odenwald's writings - Parent page of the above tutorial. Be sure to check out beyondbb.html and fudge.html. Some, like decay.html are pretty heavy for novices like me, but all are well-written and most are easy to understand.
  
  
• Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial - This is a bit heavier than Odenwald's tutorials. Ned actually brings in some of the math. However, the page referenced above does contain an interesting "News of the Universe" section. He also has a Relativity Tutorial, which is also heavier than Odenwald's.
  
  
• Eric's Treasure Troves of Science - the single largest collection of knowledge and information that I've ever seen on the web. This guy should get a Nobel prize for putting it up.

Specific areas that interest me:

• Periodic Novae - when a binary star system consists of a giant star and a small white dwarf in fairly close proximity, you can get periodic nova outbursts that result from a fascinating process. The above link is a "slide show" which illustrates the process; the same site contains a more detailed description. (Guess what? I found this by following links from an APOD entry.)
  
  
• Star deaths - Hubble photos and great explanatory info on how stars die. Be sure to check out the two "AstroFile" links further down on the page! This same site has an index of recent Hubble observations.
  
  
• Our Sun's destiny - another page about star death that imagines we could watch it happen. Nicely written; this page is a little less heavy than the Hubble pages.

I plan on keeping this section short since I'm not into advertising. But there are a few products that I feel very good about that I would like to promote.

• Keith Wichman on Dob v.s. EQ - Finally, a true "expert" on the subject of Dobsonian v.s. Equatorial mounts! I also have some non-expert comments on the subject.
  
  
• SkyMap - a shareware software package for your MS Windows-based PC. It can make finding planets and other objects much easier and less frustrating. Plus it's just plain fun to play with.

  There are also several web-based maps available.
  
  

• Celestial Handbook by Robert Burnham - (If that link doesn't work, go to http://store.skypub.com/ and search for "burnham".) If you don't already have a copy of the 3-volume "Celestial Handbook" by Robert Burnham, get it. I can't imagine an amateur not having it. His mix of hard science, history, opinion, and awe is unequaled anywhere.

---

Last night
           as I lay in bed
                           looking at the stars
                                                I thought,
     'Where the hell is the ceiling?'