Dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal:

To the extent possible under law, Steven Ford has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States.  The project home is https://github.com/fordsfords/astronomy/tree/gh-pages

Hobby Amateur Astronomy

Pale Blue Dot

(Picture taken about 4 billion miles away on Feb 14, 1990.)

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?

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 and Telescope - The site contains lots of good info, but I'll point out a few particularly strong pages:
  • News from Sky & Telescope - contains late-breaking news and info on Astronomy.
  • This Week's Sky at a Glance - astronomical events and planet roundup.
  • Stargazing basics - this page has LOTS of good articles that I've learned a lot from.
  
  
• 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).

• Pale Blue Dot - required reading for all human beings. Period.
  
  
• 44 Closest Stars and How They Compare to Our Sun - A nicely-designed infographic. It's sure to become out-of-date pretty quickly, especially after the James Webb telescope is operational, but the perspective it gives will endure. It's pretty interesting. Big thanks to Hannah for finding it!
  
  
• Stargazing basics - 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. Very little fluency in math and science needed.
  
  
• Pity. There used to be a nice little tutorial on the history of our understanding of galaxies at ftp://crux.astr.ua.edu/web/goodies/data_resources/galaxies.text but it is gone.
  
  
• Guide to Backyard Astronomy is another "list of links", which I normally wouldn't link to, but this one is a bit more extensive and diverse than mine. I haven't looked at much of it, but it has been recommended to me.
  
  
• Back Garden Astronomy - a sweet little intro do sky gazing. Not a lot of meat, but has a heart.
  
  
• Sten Odenwald's writings are all very interesting and well-written, and most are easy to understand (some get a little heavy). I especially like his sections on cosmology and astronomy.
  
  
• 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 Weisstein's encyclopedias - 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. Wolfram hosts his two most-ambitous works: ScienceWorld and MathWorld.
  
  
• Modern Relativity - David Waite's tutorial on Einstein's theories of relativity. As a beginner, I felt that in order to get the most out of it, it required more fluency in math and general physics than I have.

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. There is also a detailed description.
  
  
• Star deaths - Hubble photos and great explanatory info on how stars die. This site has an index of recent Hubble observations.
  
  

  Product Center

  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. It's a 3-volume set, alphabetically split, so get all three (i.e. scroll to the "frequently bought together" section). I can't imagine an amateur not having it. Although it is a bit dated, and some of the hard data is probably off, his mix of hard science, history, opinion, and awe is unequaled anywhere.

  And Finally...

  I haven't calculated this out to make sure it's accurate, but I like it enough that I don't care:

  If the Earth is the size of a pea in New York, then the Sun is a beachball 50m away, Pluto is 4km away, and the next nearest star is in Tokyo. Now shrink Pluto's orbit into a coffee cup; then our Milky Way Galaxy fills North America.

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

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